Structured Data¶
Data that can be queried using SQL. Structured data is stored in a relational database and is collected against a strict dictionary of terms. Key data should be structured.
Classically this is used to in detailed analysis for data with questions like find the best 10 compounds for inhibration of enyzme xxx. This needs a lot deeper understanding of the data then the 'google' style free text search for which is more aimed as simple identificiation of documents.
For most scientists table of data in excel are the simplist types of structured data used. with values classified the the value in the row and the titles of the columns. This data has difference need then semi or unstructured data data like long word documents. It way most people end up rewriting reports in word and handling data in excel.
The free text search engine like google and eln's are very good and the word side of the operation but fail on structured side. There is only so far added meta tags to block goes and well before find me the best n compounds from the results of these assays!