Research project

MyTea

Lead researchers:

Professor m.c. Schraefel
Other researchers:

Professor Jeremy Frey
Research funder:

EPSRC
Status:

Not active

Project overview

In order to share data generated in experiments among the scientific community, the data needs to be digitally available. The current mode for recording annotations on experiements is the use of paper lab books. Past digital lab book efforts have not been well-received. CombeChem's Smart Tea project has developed a design methodology for useable digital lab book systems in Synthetic Chemistry, and myGrid has developed a set of workflows to support the particular information needs of bioinformatitians running experiments.The purpose of this proposal is to take the design methodology from Smart Tea and apply it to the myGrid context where experimental steps are captured in workflows, but digital annotation support - comments on results and hypotheses etc - is not possible. The Smart Tea methodology will look at how best to integrate both the workflow services and current paper-based recording practices into an integrated, usable application for bioinformatitians. As with the synthetic chemistry context, we anticipate that the result will be a new usable integrated experimental recording process. As well, the opportunity to apply the Smart Tea methodology in another domain will demonstrate the viability of this design method for more general eScience applications requiring human interaction.