Opinion paper: Data provenance challenges in biomedical research

Abstract

In this opinion paper we provide an overview of some challenges concerning data provenance in biomedical research. We reflect current literature and depict some examples of existing implicit or explicit provenance aspects in some standard data types in translational research. Furthermore, we assess the need of further data provenance standardization in biomedical informatics. Basic data provenance should provide a recall about the origin of the data, transformation process steps, support replication and presentation of the data. Even though usable concepts for the documentation of data provenance can be found in other fields as early as 2005, the penetration rate in biomedical projects and in the biomedical literature is quite low. The awareness for the necessity of basic data provenance has to be raised, the education of data managers has to be further improved.