BCC2020

→ Abstract


The presenter(s) will be available for live Q&A in this session (BCC West).

Margaret Staton 1*, Abdullah Almsaeed 1, Noah Caldwell 1, Ethalinda Cannon 2, Valentin Guignon 3,
Doreen Main 4, Monica Polechau 5, Manuel Ruiz 3, Jill Wegrzyn 6, Bradford Condon 1, Stephen Ficklin 6,
Lacey Anne Sanderson 7

1. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA. * Email: mstaton1@utk.edu
2. Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA.
3. Bioversity International, Montpellier, France.
4. Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA.
5. USDA-ARS National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD, USA.
6. University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA.
7. University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Project Website: http://tripal.info/
Source Code: https://github.com/tripal
License: GNU General Public License v2.0

Tripal is an open-source software toolkit for building community-oriented biological databases
with a focus on genetic and genomic data. Beyond database structure and data access, it provides a
mechanism for data standardization and consistent implementation of FAIR principles across
communities. Currently, the Tripal software provides the foundation for over 30 databases
spanning animals, plants, insects, and more. Tripal has an active international developer
community working from academia, government agencies, and research institutes. Over the past
decade, the Tripal developer community has built a distributed team software development model
with over 30 developers from at least 10 different research groups and 3 countries. Two aspects to
Tripal have helped to make this a success. First, we have recently defined a community governance
structure with a project management committee and an internal advisory board. These function to
promote communication, provide a mechanism for shared decision making, and balance innovation
with sustainability. Second, Tripal's architecture consists of a core of common, centralized
functionality that can be easily expanded with shareable extension modules. This balances shared
community structure and reusable code with the need for individual research groups to customize
and develop quickly and independently. We have noted some disadvantages, but mostly
advantages, due to the unique community structure and software architecture.