Table 1.

The CASIMIR Database Description Framework (DDF)

Category	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3
Quality and Consistency	No explicit process for assuring consistency	Process for assuring consistency, automatic curation only	Process for assuring consistency with manual curation
Currency	Closed legacy database or last update more than a year ago	Updates or versions more than once a year	Updates or versions more than once a month
Accessibility	Access via browser only	Access via browser and database reports or database dumps	Access via browser and programmatic access (well defined API, SQL access or web services)
Output formats	HTML or similar to browser only	HTML or similar to browser and sparse standard file formats, e.g. FASTA	HTML or similar to browser and rich standard file formats, e.g. XML, SBML (Systems Biology Markup Language)
Technical documentation	Written text only	Written text and formal structured description, e.g. automatically generated API docs (JavaDoc), DDL (Data Description Language), DTD (Document Type Definition), UML (Unified Modelling Language), etc.	Written text and formal structured description and tutorials or demonstrations on how to use them
Data representation standards	Data coded by local formalism only	Some data coded by a recognised controlled vocabulary, ontology or use of minimal information standards (MIBBI)	General use of both recognised vocabularies or ontologies, and minimal information standards (MIBBI)
Data structure standards	Data structured with local model only	Data structured with formal model, e.g. an XML schema	Use of recognised standard model, e.g. FUGE
User support	User documentation only	User documentation and Email/web form help desk function	User documentation as well as a personal contact help desk function/training
Versioning	No provision	Previous version of database available but no tracking of entities between versions	Previous version of database available and tracking of entities between versions