The impact of Life Science Identifier on informatics data

• Published in: Drug discovery today Vol. 10; no. 22; pp. 1566 - 1572
• Main Authors: Martin, Sean, Hohman, Moses M., Liefeld, Ted
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 15.11.2005
• Subjects: bioinformatics; Computational Biology - methods; Databases, Genetic - standards; distributed computing; Information Storage and Retrieval - methods; Life Sciences Identifier; LSID; metadata; naming; reproducible research; Software Design; Life Sciences Identifier; LSID; metadata; Pharmaceutical Science; naming; Drug Discovery; Bioinformatics; distributed computing; reproducible research
• ISSN: 1359-6446; 1878-5832
• DOI: 10.1016/S1359-6446(05)03651-2

LSIDs are providing a standard for distributed data identification and resolution that promotes interoperable and reproducible research in computational biology. Since the Life Science Identifier (LSID) data identification and access standard made its official debut in late 2004, several organizations have begun to use LSIDs to simplify the methods used to uniquely name, reference and retrieve distributed data objects and concepts. In this review, the authors build on introductory work that describes the LSID standard by documenting how five early adopters have incorporated the standard into their technology infrastructure and by outlining several common misconceptions and difficulties related to LSID use, including the impact of the byte identity requirement for LSID-identified objects and the opacity recommendation for use of the LSID syntax. The review describes several shortcomings of the LSID standard, such as the lack of a specific metadata standard, along with solutions that could be addressed in future revisions of the specification.