About the Journal

Aims and Scope

Huge volumes of primary data are currently archived in numerous open-access databases, and with new generation technologies becoming more common in laboratories, large datasets will become even more prevalent than today. The lasting archiving, accurate curation, efficient analysis and precise interpretation of all of these data are a challenge. Collectively, database development and biocuration are at the forefront of the endeavor to make sense of this mounting deluge of data.

Database: The Journal of Biological Databases and Curation provides an open access platform for the presentation of novel ideas in database research surrounding biological information, and aims to help strengthen the bridge between database developers, curators, and users. In addition, the journal will provide a platform for the description of novel advances in the field of biocuration and promote the use of information from biological databases to assist in the planning and design of original research projects. Biocuration involves the translation of information relevant to biology and medicine, into an organized format, typically as a database, which enables the integration of scientific literature as well as large datasets such that information is accurately represented and readily accessible, as a source of information for scientists, and as a basis for computational analysis.

The journal will publish:

• Detailed descriptions of databases, and database tools, in the broad arena of biology - authors are strongly encouraged to include a biological discovery or a 'testable' hypothesis in their papers.
• Shorter papers describing significant updates to established databases.
• Objective reviews of complementary and ancillary databases and database tools.
• User tutorials for database tools.
• Methodology and technical notes on database development.
• Improvements to automated prediction and annotation for biomedical datasets.
• Detailed descriptions of the state and updating of the annotation of genomes.
• Descriptions of the development and content of ontologies of relevance to the biomedical community and the tools specific to the use of these ontologies.
• Articles relevant to the annotation process such as standards for curation, annotation best practices, annotation methodologies, the use of automated and semi-automated methods for annotation and the measures for annotation consistency.
• Perspective manuscripts describing novel approaches, technologies, standards, or methods for database and/or annotation explorations including comparisons of state-of-the-art approaches. Perspectives can also include opinion pieces addressing challenges or debates in the field of biological databases and biocuration.
• Brief invited conference reports on topics related to the scope of the journal.

Descriptions of databases and biocuration application and activities in all areas of biology are welcome, including biological chemistry, genomics, proteomics, glycomics, molecular biology, biomedicine, physiology, ecology, botany, zoology, and taxonomy.

How to Cite Database Articles

Database offers rapid online-only publication. Individual articles will be published online, in final ‘Version of Record’ form, as soon as they are ready.

Under this model articles are uniquely identified by an article number and DOI rather than volume/issue/page numbers. Database articles should be cited using their volume and article number, as follows:

{author names}. {article title}. {journal title} {year of publication}; Vol. {number}: article ID {ID}, {DOI}

For example:

Maria C. Costanzo, Marek S. Skrzypek, Robert Nash, Edith Wong, Gail Binkley, Stacia R. Engel, Benjamin Hitz, Eurie L. Hong, J. Michael Cherry, and the Saccharomyces Genome Database Project. New mutant phenotype data curation system in the Saccharomyces Genome Database. Database (2009) Vol. 2009: article ID bap001; doi:10.1093/database/bap001.

Open Access

All Database content is published under an open access model. Database articles will therefore be freely available to everybody online, upon publication, without the barrier of paid subscription to access.

Database articles are published under the Creative Commons CC-BY licence. This means that users of Database articles are entitled to use, reproduce, disseminate or display these articles, including for commercial purposes provided that:

1. the original authorship is properly and fully attributed;
2. the journal and publisher are attributed as the original place of publication with correct citation details given;
3. if an original work is subsequently reproduced or disseminated not in its entirety but only in part or as a derivative work this is clearly indicated;

The Oxford Journals Permissions team can be contacted regarding commercial reuse of Database articles.

As well as being freely available immediately via the journal web site, Database articles will be automatically deposited in PubMed Central and UK PubMed Central by Oxford Journals, and made freely available via these resources upon publication. This means that publishing in Database is fully compliant with e.g. the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access policy and the HHMI, UK MRC and Welcome Trust policies on open access. Authors wishing to comply with these policies need not take further action.

IMPACT FACTORS AND RANKING

Latest information taken from the 2021 Journal Citation Reports (Source Clarivate, 2023).

Abstracting and Indexing

Database is covered by the following services:

Journal Citation Reports /Science Edition
MEDLINE/PubMed
PubMed Central
Asian Science Citation Index
Chemical Abstracts
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
The Standard Periodical Directory