This report has been produced as a result of the activity of MIRRI work package 8, task 8.3, and it is tightly linked to the previous reports from the same work package, namely the report on minimum standards for data acquisition and data management and mechanisms to incentivize the deposit of quality data (D8.1) and the report on users' requests, desired features, and meta-analyses of the integrated platform (D8.5). These reports were taken into account while preparing this deliverable, in

more »

... r to avoid needless repetitions and to better specify correspondences and synergies. In the first report, deliverable D8.1, the MIRRI Information System (MIRRI-IS) vision and strategy was introduced. It describes how MIRRI will distinguish itself‖ on the basis of the following features (which are here rephrased): i) ensure high data quality by an intensive data curation activity, ii) guarantee data integration across mBRCs/CCs and interoperability of related systems, iii) provide an open platform for downstream data analysis and product development, iv) establish complementarity with other disciplines, applying appropriate data structure and ontologies. Conclusions of deliverable D8.5 pointed out how the main obstacle for the building of the MIRRI-IS refers to defining a core set of data fields across BRCs invoking ontology/controlled vocabularies where necessary and feasible. This, essentially, is the core of this report. In this deliverable, we have mainly faced the following issues: - the status of current culture collection data management systems, - the present guidelines for culture collection data, - the semantic resources that can support both an improved management of and an advanced access to culture collection data, - the information systems that relate to the microbiological domain and should interoperate with the MIRRI-IS.