Guidelines for Requesting New Terms

The following is a checklist of information elements that are required to create a complete term in ECO. Include as much of this information as possible in your request. Once you have collected the information for your term request, please use the Submit New Term Request button that will take you to our GitHub tracker. The information elements below should go into the “comment” field for the GitHub request form. Give the tracker issue a title indicating this is a new term request (“NTR”) and the topic of the request. If you were unable to provide information for a particular element or need help in structuring it, we will be happy to help you once your request is submitted.

  • Term Label (Name)

    Labels for terms should be succinct. Most, but not all, ECO term labels end with the word “evidence”. See existing terms in ECO for examples.

  • Parent Term

    Indicate what existing ECO term should be the parent of the term you are requesting. The parent may also be a new term you are requesting if you are requesting multiple terms that are related to each other.

  • Definition

    Definitions for a new term should be in Aristotelian form, such as “A type of [parent term] that [description of what differentiates this term from it’s parent and other children of the parent]”. See existing terms in ECO for examples.

  • Definition Reference

    Include a reference to where you got the information that was used to define the new term. Ideally this will be a literature publication (for which you could provide a PubMed id), but may also be a url to an authoritative website or could be a person or organization.

  • Your name, email, and organizational affiliation

    This allows us to provide proper attribution in the term information and helps us to track groups using ECO.

  • Anything else you think is relevant

    Other fields associated with terms that can capture additional information are “comment” and “example of usage”. Please include any additional information that you feel is relevant.