Table 1.

Technical challenges and needs for nutri-informatics

Needs	Rational	Example of application
Consistent terminologies	Inconsistent terminologies can cause difficulty for researchers and readers of the literature to understand the exact entity and definition being utilized leading to misinterpretations and poor reuse of data and/or outcomes.	Development of thesauri and other terminologies intended to provide consistent language for a domain of interest. An example of this is standardized language documenting the appropriate terminology for nutrients in a mammalian diet.
Use of persistent, stable identifiers	Persistent, stable identifiers ensure a term, data set or other element is coordinated with the correct metadata in a fashion that is not at risk of deletion or reassignment regardless of time passing.	A researcher looking to investigate the impacts of zucchini consumption on health can evaluate previous investigations on ‘zucchini’ through its persistent, stable identifier. They can also track information on ‘courgette’ as that term is also connected to the same identifier.
Coordinated standards across domains	Standards that span across all realms of biology are non-existent and for domains that do utilize standards, lack of alignment with other domains can limit the interoperability and coordinated usage of data.	Creation and alignment of standards for closely related fields such as genomics and toxicology would make documentation and comprehension of data easier for researchers working in both fields. This could span across fields of biology, offering the same benefits to a wide audience of researchers.
Clear documentation	While standards may exist for a variety of disciplines, ensuring they are well documented in a fashion that community members can use them is essential for their actual implementation.	GitHub is a common platform for documentation and community discourse for bioinformatics research communities. Terminologies, instructions for use and areas to suggest improvements are available and open for community member input.
Open access and use	To support the use of terminologies, data and other resources on the basis of scientific merit rather than restrictions of licenses, open access is highly preferred to allow referencing at any time by anyone.	Freely available and open-source terminologies would allow for researchers globally to discuss nutrition concepts (e.g. diet patterns, nutrients and dietary supplements) in a consistent fashion regardless of the researcher’s funding and access to licensed content.