The question of open access

“Making information public is part of our job”, Guillaume Lobet considers. “We’re not publishers; we’re paid by the public authorities and, apart from the fact that if we don’t make the information public, we shan’t reap the benefits, it is our duty to do it. Furthermore, the raw material is public. We don’t divulge anything. It’s the intellectual effort of the compilation that we share.

Recently published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research, the article (1) relating to FLOR-ID should bring this innovative tool to the scientific community’s attention. “It is still very difficult to estimate the value of a free initiative that provides access to information. This review of the literature isn’t published in the same way as other reviews of the literature. It’s a format that many journals still aren’t ready to manage. Therefore, we published this paper in a special issue dedicated to databases. And the article was very well received”, Claire Périlleux adds.

In a field where new articles appear every month, it is FLOR-ID's evolving nature that really makes it stand out. Every visitor can submit new information at any time through an online form. The information is checked, then integrated. “This system means that we don’t have to produce a new scheme every time. In addition, manual curation – we check every piece of information submitted – ensures far greater reliability”, Guillaume Lobet points out.

The fact that an open and evolving database such as this is free, raises questions. “Within the present context of research, where laboratories run on limited funds, it is essential to make these databases accessible to everyone”, Frédéric Bouché believes. However, for databases that require considerable curation and the use of powerful servers, a paid-for subscription seems inevitable. Frédéric Bouché gives the example of TAIR (The Arabidopsis Information Resource) database. With an operating budget of USD 1.6 million, an intermediary solution was chosen after the subsidies stopped: paid-for access to the data published in the past year. “As academics, we don’t focus on the economic side. Nevertheless, at a certain stage of development, the issue may arise for FLOR-ID, for instance, if we have to hire someone to keep it up to date. This was also one of Nucleic Acids Research’s requirements: that the database be maintained for five years after publication.  This is of course what we want, but it will indeed raise other questions”, the researchers explain.

Finally, the project’s continuation implies collaboration with other teams specialising in the genetics of plant development. “There have been huge progress in the genetics of flowering time but this type of resource could also be created for the genes involved in fertility, pollen formation, etc. Ideally, this database should be similarly expanded because we know that there are other initiatives like this, but laboratories don’t necessarily make them public. Making a system user friendly does indeed require an extra effort”, Professor Claire Périlleux explains. With the appearance of these new tools, the question of sharing knowledge, inside and outside the scientific community, is more than ever crucial.