WG 7 – Objectives
The Work Group 7 focuses on various aspects of Image Metadata (initially primarily Microscopy Metadata but also Sample and Analysis Metadata). These span from defining and continually revising the 4DN-BINA-OME (NBO) Microscopy Metadata model, to facilitating metadata capture through user-friendly tools, to integrating the captured metadata into cloud-ready storage containers such as the newly developed Open Microscopy Environment (OME) Next-Generation File Format (NGFF). To promote the uptake of metadata tools and models, educational material and outreach strategies are also developed.
To carry on these tasks, WG7 is organized into four Subgroups (see “Subgroup” tab below), each of which carries out specific objectives. These subgroups are created, paused, or dissolved on a needs basis as agreed by the WG7 as a whole.
The general meeting serves as a space for reporting back on the progress that has been achieved within the Subgroups, connecting the dots, strategic planning, and general discussions.
The Subgroups (see “Subgroup” tab below) identify specific tasks to be carried out to move our work forward. To participate, please first fill in the general QUAREP-LiMi membership form and then enter your name here. Still confused? No worries, we have a specific list of tasks that you can check out to know exactly how you can lend a hand.
WG 7 – Co-Chairs
WG 7 - Latest News
Last meeting: 5th May 2025, 5:00 pm
Global Bioimaging Training Module: Reporting and Reproducibility in Microscopy.
- Reporting and Reproducibility in Microscopy modules are dedicated to image metadata, an essential additional information including dimensions, pixel size, image type, bit depth, and microscope settings, all necessary for extraction of meaningful data from images, quantitative image analysis, and reproducibility of experiments. The training module can be found here.
Protocols.io: Getting started with Micro-Meta App Tutorial
- The tutorial can be found here.
NBO Microscopy Metadata Specifications (full name 4DN–BINA-OME):
- Hammer, Mathias, Maximiliaan Huisman, Alessandro Rigano, Ulrike Boehm, James J. Chambers, Nathalie Gaudreault, Alison J. North, et al. “Towards Community-Driven Metadata Standards for Light Microscopy: Tiered Specifications Extending the OME Model.” Nature Methods, December 3, 2021, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-021-01327-9. CITE
- Huisman, Maximiliaan, et al. “A perspective on Microscopy Metadata: data provenance and quality control.” arXiv, 24 Oct. 2019, arxiv.org/abs/1910.11370v6.
- Explore
- Provide feedback (How to)
Micro-Meta-App
- Rigano, Alessandro, Shannon Ehmsen, Serkan Utku Öztürk, Joel Ryan, Alexander Balashov, Mathias Hammer, Koray Kirli, et al. “Micro-Meta App: An Interactive Tool for Collecting Microscopy Metadata Based on Community Specifications.” Nature Methods, December 3, 2021, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-021-01315-z. CITE
- Download
- How to
- Provide feedback
MethodsJ2
- Ryan, Joel, Thomas Pengo, Alex Rigano, Paula Montero Llopis, Michelle S. Itano, Lisa A. Cameron, Guillermo Marqués, Caterina Strambio-De-Castillia, Mark A. Sanders, and Claire M. Brown. “MethodsJ2: A Software Tool to Capture Metadata and Generate Comprehensive Microscopy Methods Text.” Nature Methods, October 15, 2021, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-021-01290-5. CITE
- Download
- How to
MDEmic (OMERO.mde implementation)
- Kunis, Susanne, Sebastian Hänsch, Christian Schmidt, Frances Wong, Caterina Strambio-De-Castillia, and Stefanie Weidtkamp-Peters. “MDEmic: A Metadata Annotation Tool to Facilitate Management of FAIR Image Data in the Bioimaging Community.” Nature Methods, October 11, 2021, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-021-01288-z. CITE
- Download
- How to
- GitHub
- Subgroup: Improving the usability of Metadata tools
- Aims: Develop user-friendly tools to input, update, and visualize image metadata.
- Co-leads: Caterina Strambio De Castillia and Roland Nitschke
- Contact information: caterina.strambio@umassmed.edu
- On-going tasks:
- Provide feedback for the design and usability of Micro-Meta App canvases for capturing Laser Scanning Confocal (LSM) and for Spinning Disk Confocal (SDC)
- Cloud storage location (can be accessed as a member) → here
- Subgroup: Metadata education and outreach
- Aims: Develop guidelines and educational material for users to understand and record image metadata
- Co-leads: Nathalie Gaudreault and Aastha Mathur
- Contact information: aastha.mathur@eurobioimaging.eu
- Cloud storage location (can be accessed as a member) → here
- Subgroup: Metadata storage specifications
- Aims: Develop ways and options (e.g., OMERO) to store/manage/retrieve metadata together with image data and, in particular, OME-NGFF
- Co-leads: Guillaume Gay, Ken Ho, and Damir Sudar
- Contact information: dsudar@qitissue.comandkenneth.ho@crick.ac.uk
- On-going tasks:
- Developing Micro-Meta App plugin for OMERO.web
- Integrating Micro-Meta App with OMERO.mde
- OWL/RDF ontology
- Testing JSON-LD as a standard for metadata storage for OME-NGFF
- Cloud storage location (can be accessed as a member) → here
- Subgroup: Metadata model revision
- Aims: Revise the published version of the 4DN-BINA-OME Microscopy Metadata on the basis of feedback from commercial manufacturers and the imaging community.
- Lead: Caterina Strambio De Castillia
- Contact information: caterina.strambio@umassmed.edu
- On-going tasks:
- Implement changes requested for the Detector/Camera model collected during a series of meetings held in Spring 2022 with Camera manufacturers and organized jointly by WG2 and WG7
- Cloud storage location (can be accessed as a member) → here
To join one or more of the groups, you need first to become a member of QUAREP-LiMi here, where you can select WG7 as one of the Work Groups you want to participate in. Once you have access to the cloud server, you can enter your name in this spreadsheet to join the respective subgroups.
Subgroup Model 2nd Meeting, 5th of October 2022
Meeting date
05/10/2022 @ 4:00 PM (CET/CEST)
Meeting summary
–Caterina and Mathias are having a series of twice-a-week in-person meetings at UMass Med to produce a revised version of the NBO-Q model Excel Spreadsheet that incorporates all proposals for change that emerged from the series of meetings with Camera Manufacturers (referred to as JOINT CAMERA FEEDBACK GROUP)
The product should be done in 1 month.
–This revised spreadsheet will be used as a starting point for our work as well as to solicit a final round of feedback from the JOINT CAMERA FEEDBACK GROUP.
–We will use LinkML as the framework to represent the metadata model. LinkML core format is YAML but a SPREADSHEET can be used as the core representation from which other representations can be generated.
DECISIONS:
NEXT MEETING ON 11/7/2022 AT 11 am ET and then every 1st Monday after that
LinkML will be tested to support the production of different interlinked representations of the model
17th meeting, 19th of September 2022
Meeting date
19/09/2022 @ 5:00 PM (CET/CEST)
Meeting summary
The work of QUAREP-WG7 is done within WG7-Subgroups that have clear goals listed on the WG7 homepage (https://quarep.org/working-groups/wg-7-metadata/).
The general meeting serves as a space for reporting back on the progress that has been achieved within the Subgroups, connecting the dots, strategic planning, and general discussions.
This organization allows WG7 to carry out several parallel tasks that span from image metadata model specifications, the development of metadata collection tools, the improvement of the metadata storage formats, and the development of educational and training material to onboard biomedical researchers.
DECISIONS:
- The general organization of WG7 is sound, and it will be maintained.
- To leave more time for Subgroup work and reduce time waste, it was decided that we will reduce the frequency of WG7 general meeting while making Subgroup meetings regular and consistent.
- Specifically, the general meeting will be held on the third Monday once every 2 months —> NEXT GENERAL MEETING will be on 11/21/2022 (17:00 CEST / 11:00 EST)
- The same slot will be utilized as needed by the subgroups. For example, the next WG7-Subgroup 2 meeting will take place on the 17th of October (17:00 CEST / 11:00 EST).
- At the same time, it is essential to improve communication and progress management to make sure people have a clear idea of what is happening, and how they can contribute.
- To facilitate the division of labor and communication, we will create granular task lists in Excel and link the list from the WG7 homepage (https://nextcloud.quarep.org/index.php/s/DgJBQnjg3jSMgx8). The list will be bae on the tasks emerging from Sub-Group meetings, will provide precise instructions, and include clear due dates (e.g. Subgroup 1: TASK = provide feedback on Micro-Meta App Confocal canvases; DUE=10/17/2022)
Subgroup Model, 1st meeting, 19th of September 2022
Meeting date
19/09/2022 @ 4:00 PM (CET/CEST)
Meeting summary
This was the kick-off meeting for Subgroup 4 of WG7 on Metadata. The purpose of this working group is to revise the published 4DN-BINA-OME Microscopy Metadata model on the basis of feedback from commercial manufacturers and the imaging community.
As a starting point, we are going to revise the Camera model.
During this meeting we described the current status of the work conducted by the WG2-WG7-Camera Manufacturers series of feedback meetings to revise the NBO-Q Camera metadata specifications:
– GitHub —> https://github.com/WU-BIMAC/NBOMicroscopyMetadataSpecs/tree/master/Model/in%20progress/v02-10/Components/Detector
– GoogleDrive —> https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1uCjLqRj9jS1pBXmFlk7sOUIrJCVeCrZS?usp=sharing
After that, we started discussing the specifics of the requested changes.
In particular, we discussed how to implement the concept of CAMERA OPERATIONAL MODE.
For more details, see the video recordings.
16th meeting, 18th of July 2022
Meeting date
18/07/2022 @ 5:00 PM (CET/CEST)
Meeting summary
Despite considerable progress (publications, collaborations with other working groups, feedback from manufacturers, further development of metadata collection tools, educational material, outreach, etc.), participation has been waning.
To address this issue, we discussed the following topics:
1) What can we do to improve motivation and participation?
2) What should be our goals for the upcoming year?
The discussion was very animated and participated. Several constructive suggestions were made. In summary:
1) Having subgroups allows to achieve tasks, but it can be very confusing. It is important to improve the organization of the work and communication to members on what needs to be done and what is done:
– agreed upon, small, and achievable tasks
– clear schedule (always advertised on the QUAREP calendar)
– report back consistency on goals and progress
2) It is important to shift focus from Microscopy Metadata to Experimental/Sample Metadata capture. Would it make sense for WG7 to be involved in developing standards around these topics?
3) It is important to develop guidelines but for work to be successful and productive, WG7 has to be involved with developers to produce tools that implement the guidelines and bring them to life for imaging scientists.
Next steps:
– The August meeting is canceled. See you back in September
– In September, all Subgroups will have a meeting to organize next year’s schedule (regular or not?) goals and activities.
– Co-Chairs will meet to decide whether a survey to collect feedback on future goals is needed for all WG7 members (even those that do not participate in sub-groups).
Memberlist WG 7