How Electronic Lab Notebooks can galvanise Research Data Management

Edinburgh University

Dealing with Data Conference

Rory Macneil

Research Space

26 August 2014

What we’re going to cover

• Research data management challenges

• Universities: a three pronged response

• The emergence of the institutional ELN for

universities

• How the institutional ELN can galvanise RDM

Research data management challenges

Traditional research workflow

And the data gets discarded/lost

Publish results

Document research

Collect data

The model under threat• Why? Data moving from afterthought to centre of value as

technology drives:– Generation of more data

– Better means of recording and sharing data

• Pressure from:– Funders demanding

• Data be made public

• Data be preserved

• More efficient and accountable research

– Researchers demanding

• Easier/cheaper access to publications

• Better attribution of credit

– Universities demanding

• Cost reductions

• Access to data to satisfy demands of funders

Universities’ response

Three (un?)related initiatives

• Initial data capture with data storage facility

• Make data publicly available with data repository

• Preserve data with data archive

Archive

Storage

Repository

Who is carrying these initiatives out?

• IT

• Data librarians

• Research administrators

Who are the initiatives ‘for’?

• Funders √√√

• PIs √?

• Researchers ?

Will the initiatives be taken up???

The emergence of an institutional ELNfor universities

Three generations ofELNs

• 1990s – for Big pharma

• 2000s – for individual labs and researchers

• 2010s – for universities

2010sThe (Third generation)Revolution is coming

2011/12 Wisconsin pilot“We need an ELN that can be rolled out across the

university”It has to:

• Be easy to use• Be platform agnostic• Support intra- and inter-group collaboration• Have enterprise capabilities• Support data publishing and archiving

and . . .Still be affordable!!!!!!!!!”

Three constituencies

• Researchers– Utility and convenience of paper lab book + online capabilities – On multiple devices– File management /integration

• PIs– Controlled sharing– Collaboration– Group management– File management /integration

• IT, data librarians, research admin, commercialisation office– Enterprise features: Scalable deployment, Single Sign On– Multi-group support– IP protection– File management /integration– Archiving and repository integration

How the institutional ELNcan galvanise RDM

Conduit through the entire research process

Infrastructural glue for RDM

ELN

Storage

RepositoryArchive

Appeals to three key constituencies

• Researchers

• PIs

• IT/Research Admin