Bravo Elena, Calzolari Alessia, De Castro Paola, Mabile Laurence, Napolitani Federica, Rossi Anna Maria, Cambon-Thomsen Anne
BMC Med. 2015 Feb 17;13:33. doi: 10.1186/s12916-015-0266-y.
Many biomedical publications refer to data obtained from collections of biosamples. Sharing such bioresources (biological samples, data, and databases) is paramount for the present governance of research. Recognition of the effort involved in generating, maintaining, and sharing high quality bioresources is poorly organized, which does not encourage sharing. At publication level, the recognition of such resources is often neglected and/or highly heterogeneous. This is a true handicap for the traceability of bioresource use. The aim of this article is to propose, for the first time, a guideline for reporting bioresource use in research articles, named CoBRA: Citation of BioResources in journal Articles.
As standards for citing bioresources are still lacking, the members of the journal editors subgroup of the Bioresource Research Impact Factor (BRIF) initiative developed a standardized and appropriate citation scheme for such resources by informing stakeholders about the subject and raising awareness among scientists and in science editors' networks, mapping this topic among other relevant initiatives, promoting actions addressed to stakeholders, launching surveys, and organizing focused workshops.
The European Association of Science Editors has adopted BRIF's suggestion to incorporate statements on biobanks in the Methods section of their guidelines. The BRIF subgroup agreed upon a proposed citation system: each individual bioresource that is used to perform a study and that is mentioned in the Methods section should be cited as an individual "reference [BIORESOURCE]" according to a delineated format. The EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) network mentioned the proposed reporting guideline in their "guidelines under development" section.
Evaluating bioresources' use and impact requires that publications accurately cite such resources. Adopting the standard citation scheme described here will improve the quality of bioresource reporting and will allow their traceability in scientific publications, thus increasing the recognition of bioresources' value and relevance to research. Please see related article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0284-9.
许多生物医学出版物都提及从生物样本库中获取的数据。对于当前的研究管理而言，共享此类生物资源（生物样本、数据和数据库）至关重要。然而，对于生成、维护和共享高质量生物资源所涉及的努力，目前的认可机制组织不善，这不利于鼓励共享。在出版物层面，对这类资源的认可往往被忽视且/或高度不一致。这对于生物资源使用的可追溯性而言是一个真正的障碍。本文旨在首次提出一项在研究论文中报告生物资源使用情况的指南，即CoBRA：期刊文章中生物资源的引用。
由于目前仍缺乏引用生物资源的标准，生物资源研究影响因子（BRIF）倡议的期刊编辑子组成员通过向利益相关者通报该主题、提高科学家和科学编辑网络中的认识、在其他相关倡议中梳理此主题、推动针对利益相关者的行动、开展调查以及组织专题研讨会，为这类资源制定了一个标准化且合适的引用方案。
欧洲科学编辑协会采纳了BRIF的建议，即在其指南的“方法”部分纳入关于生物样本库的说明。BRIF子组就提议的引用系统达成了一致：在“方法”部分提及的、用于开展研究的每一份单独的生物资源，都应按照规定格式作为单独的“参考文献[生物资源]”进行引用。EQUATOR（提高卫生研究的质量和透明度）网络在其“正在制定的指南”部分提到了提议的报告指南。
评估生物资源的使用和影响需要出版物准确引用此类资源。采用本文所述的标准引用方案将提高生物资源报告的质量，并使其在科学出版物中具有可追溯性，从而提高对生物资源价值及其与研究相关性的认可度。请参阅相关文章：http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0284-9。
