Release of version 0.9.1 of the GHGA Metadata Model

With the release of the GHGA Metadata Catalog we released version 0.9.1 of the GHGA Metadata Model and the corresponding version of the GHGA Submission Spreadsheet. Model and spreadsheet support the structured deposition of non-personal metadata in the GHGA Metadata Catalog.

The Metadata Workstream develops the model for the human omics data to be stored in GHGA. The team comprises expertise from different fields such as database technologies, legal frameworks, community standards and FAIR data principles, that collectively define the concept of GHGA Metadata. 

The GHGA Metadata Model was publicly released within GHGAs GitHub repository. The current version of the model is an updated version of our metadata model released back in December 2021. 

The current release includes lists of controlled vocabularies and standardized ontologies, further driving the harmonization and standardization efforts which are an integral part of GHGA’s objectives. In close collaboration and discussions with future users of the GHGA Metadata Catalog and GHGA Archive, we refined the model structure, improved the linkage between entities and improved descriptions of properties. The spreadsheet was reorganized to guide submitters during the submission process. The model will further evolve with the advent of the GHGA Archive phase to accommodate the needs of various communities and use cases.

Building on previous collaborative work with the GHGA ELSI workstream, our model demonstrates how omic and health data can be stored in accordance with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and securely shared across German institutions. Balancing the individual data subject’s right to privacy, while collecting high-quality metadata makes genomic data in GHGA findable and reusable