JIBtools : a strategy to reduce the bioinformatics analysis gap

Abstract

The JIB will be extended by JIBtools - the Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics tool lists. In the form of a collaborative curated website, a well-structured list of the most important integrative bioinformatics tools will be maintained. Obviously it will not be possible to give a complete list of all existing applications, but it is intended to provide a link to the most important available tools. First, we will start with a selected number of tools from the field of integrative bioinformatics. We would like to invite and motivate all bioinformatics software developers to contribute new tools. Now, we introduce this new strategy and hope that we can help to reduce the Bioinformatics Analysis Gap by opening JIBtools. Because integrative bioinformatics is a very diverse and interdisciplinary field, each topic will be presented by an expert, who will be selected as an editor responsible for his/her category. The editors are invited to write a review to be published in JIB. Each tool will be described by an abstract, a citation (or a JIB link) and a web link to the tool. We will invite each representative of a listed tool to send an invited JIB paper for the description and documentation of this tool. If a new tool is published in JIB, this tool will be automatically attached to JIBtools. It is our hope that this new strategy will finally help to systematically construct a well-categorized tool list of high value. Starting in 2014, an annual JIBtools Issue will be published in JIB, containing an overview of all categories and updates, authored by the editors of JIBtools. Accompanied by this annual issue, editors of each tool list are responsible for checking listed tools for availability at least once a year to prevent the listing of outdated tools. Everyone is invited to send a scientific paper describing an integrative bioinformatics tool to the Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics. Furthermore, we would like to ask you to be an editor of your area of research by sending your review paper to the Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics. Finally, JIBtools will have its own editorial board. JIBtools is available at http://journal.imbio.de/JIBtools.