CLC Bioinformatics Database includes the option of attaching an extra layer of data to all data-objects in the database like primers, reports, alignments, raw sequence data, etc.

This extra layer of data – metadata – can be defined freely as needed by the database users. Examples could be

• Physical location of primers and vectors
• Freezer position
• Number of samples at a given location
• "Has the report or result been quality checked?" (yes/no)
• LIMS identifiers
• Research project ID

The metadata are "searchable" by any user having access to the underlying data, and it is thus easy to get an overview of e.g. content of a freezer, data related to a given research project, or research results not yet quality checked.

In order to help the users of the database, it is possible to attach a list of possible values within an element according to the attribute definitions. Example of attribute definitions could be like Location = Lab 23, Lab 65 or Lab6.

For each data object, all metadata values can be viewed and edited from within the Workbench or from a web client:

In order to reduce the risk of errors, and to ensure that the whole data structure is considered thoroughly before implementation of the meta data fields, the definition and implementation of the metadata is carried out by the database administrator.