OpenTox Prototype Evaluation, Improve API and Interface Designs
In the OpenTox report on Prototype Evaluation, Improve API and Interface Designs available at http://www.opentox.org/data/documents/development/opentoxreports/opentoxreportd13, two initial OpenTox prototype applications were evaluated: ToxPredict (toxpredict.org) which predicts and reports on toxicities for endpoints for an input chemical structure, and ToxCreate (toxcreate.org) which builds and validates a predictive toxicity model based on an input toxicology dataset. Templates were created for the recording of user feedback and beta testing results; initial testing provided useful guidance for subsequent development which is ongoing and will be subject to further testing as OpenTox evolves towards its final prototype applications in 2011.
The OpenTox Application Programming Interface (API) published openly at opentox.org/dev/apis has already found interest in the cheminformatics and bioinformatics communities. Currently, integrations into several different software packages are under development. We have received feedback and demand for new features from these collaborating developer communities.
A platform for continuous availability and performance monitoring of selected OpenTox web services has been designed and deployed. We discuss the rationale for such monitoring and provide an overview of the results obtained so far.
Based on initial evaluation and discussion of the OpenTox API in 2009, the API 1.1 was developed and released in late 2009, and included a commitment to the semantic representation of all OpenTox resources. Experiences with the API 1.1 during prototyping has led to numerous modifications and improvements which have been included in version 1.2 released in late 2010.
