Analysis of Pioneering Computable Biomedical Knowledge Repositories and their Emerging Governance Structures

A growing interest in producing and sharing computable biomedical knowledge artifacts (CBKs) is increasing the demand for repositories that validate, catalog, and provide shared access to CBKs. However, there is a lack of evidence on how best to manage and sustain CBK repositories. In this paper, we present the results of interviews with several pioneering CBK repository owners. These interviews were informed by the Trusted Repositories Audit and Certification (TRAC) framework. Insights gained from these interviews suggest that the organizations operating CBK repositories are somewhat new, that their initial approaches to repository governance are informal, and that achieving economic sustainability for their CBK repositories is a major challenge. To enable a learning health system to make better use of its data intelligence, future approaches to CBK repository management will require enhanced governance and closer adherence to best practice frameworks to meet the needs of myriad biomedical science and health communities. More effort is needed to find sustainable funding models for accessible CBK artifact collections.