Page:The digital public domain.pdf/165

138 is open source, making for a data-integration platform for the life sciences that gives researchers easy access to open content.

By reformatting the literature, the data, images, classification systems and ontologies into a common semantic Web frame, it is possible to write a single query asking a question over all of the information. The proof-of-concept we have created to make this tractable technically integrates a series of databases including the content from PubMed Central, gene data, mouse brain images, ontologies about molecular functions and a number of others, all pulled in to make a local system to prove the power of open digital knowledge.

The knowledge base also contains the digital descriptions of the physical research materials through our MTA work, showing the value of using these methods on physical tools. When a scientist gets a precise list of genes they can, with a single click, order those materials directly from a third party, thanks to the metadata. This is one of many opportunities and benefits of building this system on an open, commons-based foundation.