Geneticists increasingly depend on highly specialized software and databases. Although it is vital to the field that these resources be well documented and their benefits widely disseminated, reports of new software and databases don’t always fit the mold of a typical research paper. The structure of a conventional research article forces authors to present their tools in suboptimal ways, says G3 Associate Editor Gustavo de los Campos, which is why he helped the journal develop the new Software and Data Resources format.
The new article type is designed to make it easy for readers to understand the possibilities offered by the software and resource being described. “It’s an awesome way to present tools to the community and raise their visibility,” says de los Campos. This helps such resources to reach their full potential. “In my experience, once you make software widely available, there’s a cascade of interactions with researchers that helps identify opportunities for improvement and collaboration.”
The category is intended for novel high-quality data resources and software that solve problems not already efficiently addressed by other tools, for example, implementation of existing statistical methods for analyzing large datasets. Criteria for acceptance include the tool’s novelty, usefulness, innovation, accessibility, and in the case of software, scalability. Submit your valuable software, tools, and resources to G3 and reach the genetics community sooner!