Public Beta: WormMart, a new data mining facility

Todd Harris <[email protected]> Tue, 22 Feb 2005 17:18:01 -0700
Newsgroups gmane.science.biology.wormbase.announce
Message-ID <BE4119C9.1748E%[email protected]>
WormBase is pleased to announce WormMart, a new data mining facility now
open for public beta testing.

http://dev.wormbase.org/BioMart/martview

The WormBase implementation of Biomart was built by Will Spooner.

Details about WormMart and the public beta test period follow.


- Todd Harris and The WormBase Consortium



Caveat emptor:
--------------
Although we are reasonably confident of the data integrity in the public
beta of WormMart, we encourage beta testers to confirm data and sequences,
especially for mission critical data.


Overview:
---------
On the initial page, users can select a data release and point of focus.
Currently this is limited to the WS139 release of the data and Genes.

The "Filter" page allow users to limit the data returned using a variety of
parameters.  For example, one might which to retrieve only those genes in a
certain range of Chromosome IV that also have annotated alleles.

The "Output" page offers a variety of types of information to retrieve,
divided into subcategories of "Features", "Structures", and "Sequences".
This includes things suchs as database IDs, coordinates, phenotypes,
sequences, and reagents.  The output page also allows users to choose among
a variety of output file formats including plain text, html, and Microsoft
Excel.

Request for features:
---------------------
Have you tested WormMart?  Do you like what you see?  Are there other types
of data that you would like to see available?  Please send your questions,
comments and suggestions to:
    
       [email protected]


WormMart Release Schedule:
--------------------------
The public beta of WormMart will continue through the WS140 development
period.  The initial release of WormMart is scheduled to appear along with
the live release of WS140 on March 25th.  Future versions will include
access to the frozen data releases, additional points of focus, and
additional data types.  Currently, WormMart is slated to replace the "Batch
Genes" and "Batch Sequences" scripts.


Technical details:
------------------
WormMart is built upon the BioMart data mining platform.  It consists of a
web-based interface.  Data is served from a relational database optimized
for data mining tasks.


Links:
------
You can read more about the public beta test of WormMart at:

     http://dev.wormbase.org/about/wormmart.html

Learn more about BioMart at:

     http://www.ebi.ac.uk/biomart/index.html