Research Object Composer: A Tool for Publishing Complex Data Objects in the Cloud

In recent years there has been a surge of efforts in bioinformatics to move data towards a ‘Data Commons’, (see e.g. [1 – 3]) that intends to “collate data with cloud computing infrastructure and commonly used software services, tools, and applications to create biomedical resources for the large-scale management, analysis, harmonization, and sharing of biomedical data” [3]. To create such a shared knowledge infrastructure, it is necessary that data and software, previously installed or hosted locally, become globally accessible, and made Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable [4]. As a first step to finding data and software, a unique, global, persistent identifier system is required, which is flexible enough to accommodate the multifarious inputs and outputs which a Data Commons can produce.