ECO: the Evidence and Conclusion Ontology, an update for 2022 is a dataset published in Nucleic Acids Research (2021). On theSindex it has a DataRank of 2.1, placing it in the top 10.3% of the data-sharing corpus. It has been cited 51 times, with 42 citing works in its 1-hop citation network. Its calibrated FAIR score is 40/100.
Ranks in the top 10% for downstream scientific impact
DataRank reads this dataset's downstream impact straight off the citation graph — no black box, no proprietary weighting. How is this computed?
FAIR checklist signals are shown for context only and do not affect DataRank scoring.
Full FAIR picture · advisory
The headline score is computed from the scored criteria — the fact-shaped checks (a repository, an accession, a licence) that two independent models agree on. The advisory criteria below are real FAIR guidance but rest on judgment calls that models read differently, so they inform without moving the number.
“ECO is freely available from GitHub (https://github.com/evidenceontology/) and the project’s website (http://evidenceontology.org/).”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The only identifiers given are URLs (web addresses), not persistent identifiers like DOIs or repository accessions. [downgraded to 'no' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'no' (3/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-F1-01D — FAIR Data Maturity Model: 'Data is identified by a persistent identifier' (priorit · RDA-F1-02D — FAIR Data Maturity Model: 'Data is identified by a globally unique identifier' · FsF-F1-02D — F-UJI/FAIRsFAIR: 'Data is assigned a persistent identifier'
“ECO is freely available from GitHub (https://github.com/evidenceontology/) and the project’s website (http://evidenceontology.org/).”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
GitHub is a general code-hosting platform, not a curated data repository listed in re3data. [downgraded to 'no' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'no' (4/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-F4-01M — FAIR Data Maturity Model: metadata is offered so it can be harvested and indexed ( · NIH DMS Policy Element 4 (NOT-OD-21-014) — name the repository where data will be archived · NSTC Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories (2022) — 'Long-Term Sustainability', 'Reten
“ECO is freely available from GitHub (https://github.com/evidenceontology/) and the project’s website (http://evidenceontology.org/).”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The dataset identifier (URL) appears only in the body text, not in the reference list. [downgraded to 'no' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'no' (4/5 passes agreed)]
FORCE11 Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles (2014) — data should be cited as a first- · RDA-F3-01M — metadata clearly and explicitly includes the identifier of the data it describes · FsF-F3-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes the identifier of the data it describes'
Advisory · not in the published score
“ECO is freely available from GitHub (https://github.com/evidenceontology/) and the project’s website (http://evidenceontology.org/). ECO is released into the public domain under a CC0 1.0 Universal license.”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The data availability statement points to a public repository (GitHub) with a license, fitting Colavizza category 3. [downgraded to 'partial' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'partial' (3/5 passes agreed)]
Colavizza, Hrynaszkiewicz, Staden, Whitaker & McGillivray (2020), 'The citation advantage of li · Springer Nature research data policy — Data Availability Statements: standard statement templat · RDA-F3-01M — metadata clearly and explicitly includes the identifier of the data it describes
“Currently, there are 1941 terms in ECO, up from 1515 in our last report.”
The paper describes the dataset's size and structure in running prose, without an itemised inventory.
RDA-F2-01M — 'Rich metadata is provided to allow discovery' (priority Essential) · FsF-F2-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes descriptive core elements to support data findability' · FsF-R1-01MD — F-UJI: 'Metadata specifies the content of the data'
“ECO is freely available from GitHub (https://github.com/evidenceontology/) and the project’s website (http://evidenceontology.org/).”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The paper states the data is freely available with no precondition, and provides direct links. [downgraded to 'partial' — no verifiable quote from the paper]
RDA-A1.1-01D — 'Data is accessible through a free access protocol' · FsF-A1-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata contains access level and access conditions of the data' · NSTC Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories (2022) — 'Free and Easy Access'
Advisory · not in the published score
“ECO is completely freely available and is accessible through the ECO website (https://evidenceontology.org/) and GitHub (https://github.com/evidenceontology/evidenceontology).”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The paper explicitly labels the data as 'freely available', which is a synonym for open access. [downgraded to 'partial' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'partial' (4/5 passes agreed)]
FsF-A1-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata contains access level and access conditions of the data' · RDA-A1-01M — metadata contains information to enable the user to get access to the data · COAR Controlled Vocabularies — Access Rights v1.0 (open / embargoed / restricted / metadata-onl
The data is an ontology, not sensitive human-subject data, so no gatekeeper is mentioned.
NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy (NOT-OD-14-124) — controlled-access via a Data Access Committee · RDA-A1.2-01D — 'Data is accessible through an access protocol that supports authentication and · NIH DMS Policy Element 5 (NOT-OD-21-014) — Access, Distribution, or Reuse Considerations (conse
“ECO is completely freely available and is accessible through the ECO website (https://evidenceontology.org/) and GitHub (https://github.com/evidenceontology/evidenceontology).”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The paper states the data is available now but does not commit to how long it will persist. [downgraded to 'no' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'no' (4/5 passes agreed)]
NIH DMS Plan Element 4 (NOT-OD-21-014) — Data Preservation, Access, and Associated Timelines · NSTC Desirable Characteristics (2022), Organizational Infrastructure: 'Retention Policy' · RDA-A2-01M — 'Metadata is guaranteed to remain available after data is no longer available'
“ECO is developed in the Web Ontology Language (OWL)”
The paper names the OWL (Web Ontology Language) format, which is an open, community-standard format. [majority verdict 'yes' (3/5 passes agreed)]
FsF-R1.3-02D — F-UJI: 'Data is available in a file format recommended by the target research co · RDA-R1.3-02D — data is expressed in a machine-understandable community standard · RDA-I1-01D — data uses a knowledge representation expressed in a standardised format
Advisory · not in the published score
“ECO is developed in the Web Ontology Language (OWL) using Protégé”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
OWL is a W3C community standard for ontologies, and the paper states it is used for the data. [downgraded to 'partial' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'partial' (2/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-R1.3-01M — 'Metadata complies with a community standard' (priority Essential) · RDA-R1.3-01D — 'Data complies with a community standard' · RDA-I2-01M — '(Meta)data use vocabularies that follow FAIR principles'
The paper references other resources (e.g., GO, OBI) only by citation numbers, not by persistent identifiers.
RDA-I3-01M — '(meta)data include references to other (meta)data' · RDA-I3-03M — 'metadata includes qualified references to other metadata' · FsF-I3-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes links between the data and its related entities'
“ECO is released into the public domain under a CC0 1.0 Universal license.”
CC0 is an open standard license for data reuse.
RDA-R1.1-01M — 'Metadata includes information about the licence under which the data can be reu · RDA-R1.1-02M — 'Metadata refers to a standard reuse licence' · RDA-R1.1-03M — 'Metadata refers to a machine-understandable reuse licence'
“as of the September 2021 ECO release”
A date (September 2021) is given to identify the snapshot, but no version token. [majority verdict 'partial' (4/5 passes agreed)]
DataCite Metadata Schema 4.6 — the 'Version' property · RDA-R1.2-01M — provenance information (which version was used is provenance) · NSTC Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories (2022) — 'Provenance', 'Retention Policy'
The paper does not describe any custom code written for this study; only the ontology data is provided. [majority verdict 'no' (3/5 passes agreed)]
NIH DMS Policy Element 2 (NOT-OD-21-014) — 'Related Tools, Software and/or Code' · FAIR4RS Principles v1.0 (Chue Hong et al., 2022; RDA/FORCE11/ReSA) — FAIR Principles for Resear · FORCE11 Software Citation Principles (Smith, Katz & Niemeyer, 2016, PeerJ CS 2:e86)
“National Science Foundation Division of Biological Infrastructure [1458400]”
The paper includes specific grant numbers for funding sources. [majority verdict 'yes' (4/5 passes agreed)]
DataCite Metadata Schema 4.6 — 'FundingReference' property (funderName, funderIdentifier, award · Crossref Funder Registry — canonical funder identifiers for funding metadata · RDA-F2-01M — rich metadata provided to allow discovery (funding is part of the descriptive reco
Advisory · not in the published score
“ECO is developed in the Web Ontology Language (OWL) using Protégé (9) for viewing and small scale edits and ROBOT (10) for larger-scale modifications and releases.”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The paper names specific tools (Protégé, ROBOT) used to produce the data. [downgraded to 'partial' — no verifiable quote from the paper]
RDA-R1.2-01M — 'Metadata includes provenance information according to community- specific standa · FsF-R1.2-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes provenance information about data creation or generati · W3C PROV-O (W3C Recommendation, 2013) — the entity/activity/agent model of provenance
“ECO is structured along two primary root nodes: 'evidence' and 'assertion method'.”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The paper describes the data structure in the article text, but no separate documentation object is shipped with the data. [downgraded to 'no' — no verifiable quote from the paper]
RDA-R1-01M — '(Meta)data are richly described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attribu · FsF-R1-01MD — F-UJI: 'Metadata specifies the content of the data' · NIH DMS Policy Element 3 (NOT-OD-21-014) — Standards (documentation and metadata to accompany t
Calibrated FAIR score — a parallel quality metric, independent of the DataRank citation score. See the full evaluation →
Base Score Contribution
0.593
From this paper's citation signal
Citation Network Contribution
1.5
From 29 citing papers with measurable signal
Ranked by each citer's contribution to N(p) — log1p(Cq) divided by its reference count — out of 42 citers.
National Science Foundation
Grant: 1458400
ABI Development: An ontology of evidence types to support biological data management
Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Grant: 842490
Mapping and modulating integrin mediated interactions
European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program
Grant: 778247
Driving the functional characterization of intrinsically disordered proteins
European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program
Grant: 952334
Excellence Hub on Phase Transitions in Aging and Age-Related Disorders
Italian Ministry of University and Research
Grant: 2017483NH8
ELIXIR
European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation
FWCI
2.67
Citation Percentile
0.9%
Citation Trend
Fields of Study
MeSH Terms
Keywords