Title: A quick guide for student-driven community genome annotation,
Abstract: High quality gene models are necessary to expand the molecular and genetic
tools available for a target organism, but these are available for only a
handful of model organisms that have undergone extensive curation and
experimental validation over the course of many years. The majority of gene
models present in biological databases today have been identified in draft
genome assemblies using automated annotation pipelines that are frequently
based on orthologs from distantly related model organisms. Manual curation is
time consuming and often requires substantial expertise, but is instrumental in
improving gene model structure and identification. Manual annotation may seem
to be a daunting and cost-prohibitive task for small research communities but
involving undergraduates in community genome annotation consortiums can be
mutually beneficial for both education and improved genomic resources. We
outline a workflow for efficient manual annotation driven by a team of
primarily undergraduate annotators. This model can be scaled to large teams and
includes quality control processes through incremental evaluation. Moreover, it
gives students an opportunity to increase their understanding of genome biology
and to participate in scientific research in collaboration with peers and
senior researchers at multiple institutions.