We’re pleased to announce the publication of a new paper in Scientific Data titled
“Ensuring Adherence to Standards in Experiment-Related Metadata Entered Via Spreadsheets”
(Read the paper).

This paper outlines how the CEDAR Workbench has played a central role in ensuring that experiment-related metadata collected by the HuBMAP consortium adheres to FAIR principles and community standards—despite being entered by researchers using spreadsheets. It also describes the expansion of this approach into the SenNet program, demonstrating how metadata consistency and quality can scale across large, decentralized biomedical research consortia.

The Challenge: Researcher-Friendly Interfaces with Standards-Driven Metadata

Biomedical consortia like HuBMAP face a major challenge: researchers need to enter metadata that is rich, precise, and standards-compliant—but they overwhelmingly prefer working in spreadsheets. This poses a tension between usability and data quality.

Rather than force researchers to abandon familiar tools, the CEDAR team collaborated with HuBMAP to design a solution that lets researchers continue using spreadsheets while ensuring the underlying metadata adheres to formal standards.

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