Ultimately we want to take advantage of consortium expertise and to distribute development among active members. Consortium members can participate in GenEpiO development in a number of different ways. Types of participation include:

  1. Providing feedback. Consortium members are encouraged to comment on all aspects of GenEpiO development and uptake.
  2. The submission of new terms. New terms can represent missing fields of information or the standardized values with which to populate fields. Such submissions should include a statement specifying the new term, a suitable definition, example of usage and a reference.
  3. The curation of existing terms. Curation can consist of changes in definitions disambiguating meanings, offering alternative preferred labels (such as synonyms), corrections etc.
  4. Technical edits or development of ontology architecture. Ontology-savvy members can assist in creating new logical relationships between terms, or restructuring classes according to BFO and RO specifications.

We are expecting a more informal start-up in which participation can be as simple as submitting opinions and recommendations about GenEpiO terms and design by email. One does not have to be a consortium member to make term submissions and suggestions. Email us or use the GenEpiO GitHub issue tracker, or the discussion forum.

As participation increases we anticipate the following working groups to coalesce, and the content of this document to be refined. (Our current organization of the new GenEpiO consortium is substantially inspired by the organizational material of both the OBO Foundry and the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI).)

The following working groups have been defined:

To apply to be a member of the consortium, fill in the Membership Form.