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Towards a global open scientific notebook infrastructure

Towards a global open scientific notebook infrastructure
Towards a global open scientific notebook infrastructure
The original World Wide Web vision was of a global and shared information space, and the Web as we now know it is a powerful facilitator of scientific endeavour, as well as being vital for modern commerce, leisure, and public awareness. Recently, calls for scientific research to become more open have gathered momentum: in the UK, the Royal Society has issues a comprehensive report arguing for intelligent openness to become standard. Funding bodies across the world have mandated the sharing of data and other supporting materials generated in the course of publicly funded research. In a press release outlining measure to improve access to scientific information, the European Commission undertook to “develop and support e-infrastructures to host and share scientific information (publications and data) which are interoperable on European and global level”.

The infrastructures required comprise more than linked data repositories: there is widespread acceptance of the importance of metadata for describing, classifying, and linking the data. Provenance information is essential: indeed, it has been suggested that the provenance reflects the probability of having quality metadata. However, the utility of any infrastructure will depend heavily on proper curation. Although many researchers regard curation as a burden, capture at source can do much to relieve that perception. Electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) are a key enabling technology for scientific data infrastructures, with their built-in provisions for metadata capture, provenance trails, and curation at source. In this paper, we describe LabTrove, a cross-disciplinary ELN, with a range of resources and facilities for assembling a scientific notebook infrastructure. We give examples of international collaborations using LabTrove, and illustrate its application for open notebook science.
Frey, Jeremy G.
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Milsted, Andrew J.
c28cf092-dfbe-488a-a624-4427f68bada2
Coles, Simon J.
3116f58b-c30c-48cf-bdd5-397d1c1fecf8
Bird, Colin Leonard
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Willoughby, Cerys
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Neylon, Cameron
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Todd, Matthew
7e2a5b37-a4da-4e91-9e43-1a8ee0c0ad78
Frey, Jeremy G.
ba60c559-c4af-44f1-87e6-ce69819bf23f
Milsted, Andrew J.
c28cf092-dfbe-488a-a624-4427f68bada2
Coles, Simon J.
3116f58b-c30c-48cf-bdd5-397d1c1fecf8
Bird, Colin Leonard
0b41e36f-14b8-4995-a441-0467cce0201a
Willoughby, Cerys
118d1e49-2c54-4f4d-bd49-fe3a192df9d7
Neylon, Cameron
697f067b-db25-4c41-9618-28f4b74f73aa
Todd, Matthew
7e2a5b37-a4da-4e91-9e43-1a8ee0c0ad78

Frey, Jeremy G., Milsted, Andrew J., Coles, Simon J., Bird, Colin Leonard, Willoughby, Cerys, Neylon, Cameron and Todd, Matthew (2013) Towards a global open scientific notebook infrastructure. Research Data Access & Preservation Summit (RDAP13), Baltimore, United States. 04 - 05 Apr 2013.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Other)

Abstract

The original World Wide Web vision was of a global and shared information space, and the Web as we now know it is a powerful facilitator of scientific endeavour, as well as being vital for modern commerce, leisure, and public awareness. Recently, calls for scientific research to become more open have gathered momentum: in the UK, the Royal Society has issues a comprehensive report arguing for intelligent openness to become standard. Funding bodies across the world have mandated the sharing of data and other supporting materials generated in the course of publicly funded research. In a press release outlining measure to improve access to scientific information, the European Commission undertook to “develop and support e-infrastructures to host and share scientific information (publications and data) which are interoperable on European and global level”.

The infrastructures required comprise more than linked data repositories: there is widespread acceptance of the importance of metadata for describing, classifying, and linking the data. Provenance information is essential: indeed, it has been suggested that the provenance reflects the probability of having quality metadata. However, the utility of any infrastructure will depend heavily on proper curation. Although many researchers regard curation as a burden, capture at source can do much to relieve that perception. Electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) are a key enabling technology for scientific data infrastructures, with their built-in provisions for metadata capture, provenance trails, and curation at source. In this paper, we describe LabTrove, a cross-disciplinary ELN, with a range of resources and facilities for assembling a scientific notebook infrastructure. We give examples of international collaborations using LabTrove, and illustrate its application for open notebook science.

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e-pub ahead of print date: 4 March 2013
Venue - Dates: Research Data Access & Preservation Summit (RDAP13), Baltimore, United States, 2013-04-04 - 2013-04-05
Organisations: Chemistry

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 353869
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/353869
PURE UUID: 01236220-2ff6-46a2-ada6-c7313b6d8f0c
ORCID for Jeremy G. Frey: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-0842-4302
ORCID for Simon J. Coles: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-8414-9272
ORCID for Cerys Willoughby: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1721-9212

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 21 Jun 2013 14:21
Last modified: 10 Apr 2024 01:45

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Contributors

Author: Jeremy G. Frey ORCID iD
Author: Andrew J. Milsted
Author: Simon J. Coles ORCID iD
Author: Colin Leonard Bird
Author: Cerys Willoughby ORCID iD
Author: Cameron Neylon
Author: Matthew Todd

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