Ensembl 2023 is a dataset published in Nucleic Acids Research (2023). On theSindex it has a DataRank of 4.8, placing it in the top 4.5% of the data-sharing corpus. It has been cited 1,106 times, with 100 citing works in its 1-hop citation network. Its calibrated FAIR score is 58/100.
Ranks in the top 4% 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.
“All Ensembl integrated data are available without restriction from the main website ( https://www.ensembl.org ), the Rapid Release site ( https://rapid.ensembl.org ), in bulk from the FTP site ( https://ftp.ensembl.org ) and programmatically via the REST API ( https://rest.ensembl.org ).”
The paper provides web addresses for the data, not a persistent identifier from a PID scheme. [majority verdict 'partial' (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'
“All Ensembl integrated data are available without restriction from the main website (https://www.ensembl.org), the Rapid Release site (https://rapid.ensembl.org), in bulk from the FTP site (https://ftp.ensembl.org) and programmatically via the REST API (https://rest.ensembl.org).”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The paper names Ensembl (the main website, Rapid Release, FTP) as the holder; Ensembl is a well-known data resource that can be considered a repository, so it qualifies as a named repository. [downgraded to 'partial' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'partial' (2/5 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
No identifier for the study's own dataset appears anywhere in the paper, not even in the body text. [majority verdict 'no' (3/5 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
“All Ensembl integrated data are available without restriction from the main website (https://www.ensembl.org), the Rapid Release site (https://rapid.ensembl.org), in bulk from the FTP site (https://ftp.ensembl.org) and programmatically via the REST API (https://rest.ensembl.org).”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The data-availability statement points to websites and FTP, not to a repository record with an accession or DOI, so it is a category 2 statement (link to archived data, but no persistent identifier). [downgraded to 'no' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'no' (2/5 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
“Ensembl provides high-quality, consistent genomic analyses. These range from the annotation of repeats, to genes and gene trees, whole genome alignments, variants and regulatory features.”
The dataset's content is described in running prose, not in a structured itemised inventory (section, table, or list), so it is a partial description. [majority verdict 'partial' (4/5 passes agreed)]
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'
“All Ensembl integrated data are available without restriction from the main website ( https://www.ensembl.org ), the Rapid Release site ( https://rapid.ensembl.org ), in bulk from the FTP site ( https://ftp.ensembl.org ) and programmatically via the REST API ( https://rest.ensembl.org ).”
The text gives a route to the data with no stated precondition. [majority verdict 'yes' (3/5 passes agreed)]
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
“All Ensembl integrated data are available without restriction from the main website ( https://www.ensembl.org ), the Rapid Release site ( https://rapid.ensembl.org ), in bulk from the FTP site ( https://ftp.ensembl.org ) and programmatically via the REST API ( https://rest.ensembl.org ).”
The paper states that data are available without restriction, which is an open access label. [majority verdict 'yes' (3/5 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 paper does not address sensitive data or name any gatekeeper, as the data are publicly available without restriction.
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
The paper neither states a persistence commitment nor specifies when the data become available beyond the general statement of current availability; no retention or timing is given. [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'
“these data are available through our FTP site in VCF”
VCF (Variant Call Format) is an open, community-standard file format. [majority verdict 'yes' (4/5 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
“The Ensembl/GENCODE human reference annotation (15) is used globally by major projects and consortia including the NHGRI-EBI GWAS Catalog (16), UK BioBank (17), ICGC/TCGA (18), gnomAD (19) and the Human Cell Atlas (20), which demands that the annotations reflect the latest scientific understanding and data.”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
GENCODE is a community standard for human genome annotation, and the paper explicitly applies it to 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 does not provide identifiers (accessions, DOIs, etc.) for external resources used; it only cites references to other papers in the reference list, which are not counted per scope rule. [majority verdict 'no' (4/5 passes agreed)]
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'
No licence is stated for the data; the CC BY licence applies to the article, not the data, and the code licence (Apache 2.0) is for code, not data.
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'
“These updates are available from www.ensembl.org (as of Ensembl release 108)”
The paper states the data version as 'Ensembl release 108', which is a version token.
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'
“Ensembl code is available from GitHub ( https://github.com/Ensembl ) under an open source Apache 2.0 licence.”
A code repository URL is given for the study's own code. [majority verdict 'yes' (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)
“WT222155/Z/20/Z”
The paper gives specific grant numbers (e.g., WT222155/Z/20/Z) attached to named funders (Wellcome Trust).
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
“The Ensembl homology pipeline identifies homologues using Diamond (32) to search against a set of 9 key eukaryotic species”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The paper names specific tools (e.g., Diamond, BRAKER2, Cactus, RepeatModeler2) used to produce the data, providing proper nouns and version tokens. [downgraded to 'partial' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'partial' (4/5 passes agreed)]
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
No documentation object (README, data dictionary, codebook) is mentioned as accompanying the data; the paper itself is the description.
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
1.1
From this paper's citation signal
Citation Network Contribution
3.7
From 100 citing papers with measurable signal
Ranked by each citer's contribution to N(p) — log1p(Cq) divided by its reference count — out of 100 citers.
Wellcome Trust
Grant: WT222155/Z/20/Z
Wellcome Trust
Grant: WT200990/A/16/Z
Wellcome Trust
Grant: WT108749/Z/15/A
Wellcome Trust
Grant: WT212925/Z/18/Z
Wellcome Trust
Grant: WT218328/B/19/Z
National Institutes of Health
Grant: 2U41HG007234
National Institutes of Health
Grant: U41HG010972
National Institutes of Health
Grant: R01 HG010485
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Grant: BB/W019108/1
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Grant: BB/S020152/1
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Grant: BB/T01461X/1
British Council
Grant: 414710385
European Union's Horizon 2020
Grant: 733161
European Union's Horizon 2020
Grant: 825575
European Union's Horizon 2020
Grant: 817923
European Union's Horizon 2020
Grant: 817998
European Union's Horizon 2020
Grant: 815668
NHGRI NIH HHS
Grant: U41 HG007234
NHGRI NIH HHS
Grant: U24 HG007234
Wellcome Trust
FWCI
80.15
Citation Percentile
1.0%
Citation Trend
Fields of Study
MeSH Terms
Keywords
Sustainable Development Goals