The state of standards in genomic sciences.

On July 20, 2009, we began the public phase of an experiment in open access publishing with the first issue of Standards in Genomic Sciences (SIGS) [1]. The rational for the journal was to fulfill a perceived need in the community for the continued publication of “genome papers”, the once familiar companion articles that accompanied the public release of genome sequencing projects. Those papers served not only as a formal record of the accomplishment of the individuals involved in the sequencing and annotation efforts, but also provided the initial (and often the only) description of the sequence itself [2]. However, by 2007, Liolios et al. [3] had already pointed out that the publication of such papers significantly lagged behind the release of new genome sequences, leaving a gap in the public research record. Beyond genome reports, there was also a growing demand for other types of articles to meet the needs of a growing ‘omics community including detailed standard operating procedures that provide sufficient detail to not only understand the methods by which sequences were generated and annotated, but to also reproduce those results. Also needed was a reliable venue for publication of white papers and the proceedings of meetings of standards-setting bodies, such as the Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) [4]. SIGS was conceived to fill these needs. As 2011 draws to an end and we close out the final issue of Volume 5 of SIGS, we thought it appropriate to provide our authors, reviewers and readers with a brief update on the “state of the journal”, to examine the evidence that supports our original idea for the need for a journal such as SIGS, and to briefly outline key plans for the future.