Lifecycle

Experiments are expected to have a certain lifespan, meaning they are created a given date and finished at a later date - experiments should not remain indefinitely open for edition. The system handles different flags: the status flag records whether the experiment is in progress, completed or (completed and) failed, and the frozen flag tells whether the experiment is expected to be further modified or not.

Cycling through the different lifecycle events is not only useful to understand the current status, it also triggers important lifecycle related events. This includes for exemple digital timestamping (for proof of intellectual property), and automated reminders (when the estimated completion date is outdated and the experiment overdue).

Lifecycle of an experiment in LabID.

• Creation

  Upon creation, the Status , Creation Date and Estimated Completion Date are set automatically. The status is set to IN PROGRESS , the Creation Date to the current day and the Estimated Completion Date to 7 days later (which can be modified by users).

  The Estimated Completion Date can be modified. This allows automated emails to be sent in case the experiment is overdue.

• Edition

  When the experiment is open and in progress, all edition features are available. Please refer to the relevant sections (Lab note, Visual editor)

• Completion

  Completion occurs as soon as the experimental procedure is completed. The Status should at this time be set to either COMPLETED or FAILURE . The Completion Date is then automatically set to the current day upon saving. Interpretation of results and further documentation can still be added after completion - this will be prevented only later on after freezing.

Freezing

• Freezing

  Freezing should occur when the experiment is not going to move further. The experimental procedure is done, the text is not going to be amended, and the completion status is set.

  Upon freezing, the experiment becomes read-only for everyone, preventing further edition. At this point, an archive including the text and all attached documents is created. Each element and the archive are individually digitally signed by a trusted third-party, providing the proof of intellectual property when necessary e.g. in case of patenting.

  This archive is then made available for download.

  Completed experiments are automatically frozen a week after completion, please see Autosave & Autofreeze for more information.

Available operations on frozen experiments

The user owning the frozen experiment can still:

• move it to a different project
• adapt its access rules by changing its permissions
• add notes into the note panel

• Unfreezing (not recommended)

  An admin, or the owner of the experiment, can unfreeze it. This can be done when information is missing, but it is not advise doing it for minor corrections like typos. In any case, previous signed archives are kept, but a new one will also be generated upon re-freezing.

  Unfreezing does not resume nightly generation of archives; and unfrozen experiments won't be automatically frozen again (this must be done manually)

Autosave & Autofreeze

To prevent situations where the user forgets to complete their experiments or freeze them, the following behavior is implemented:

• An archive is generated nightly (when one does not exist already, or the experiment was modified since the last one was generated). This archive is available in the experiment attachments, but are not embedded in the archive generated upon freezing.
• Archives are not generated anymore when the experiment has been frozen.
• In case any experiment is overdue (i.e. when Estimated Completion Date is passed), nightly emails are sent as a reminder. To stop email, amend the Estimated Completion Date to a more accurate deadline.
• Once an experiment is flagged as Completed, the freezing automatically happens a week later. The user is notified of every auto freeze event.

Download PDF vs. Freeze

Just downloading the PDF is less secure than downloading the archive after freezing. Upon freezing, details of the linked collections (consumables, materials, specimens, and samples) are included in the archive, but they are never present in the PDF. The PDF only contains the names of these items and a link to their detail page. Additionally, large tables can fail to render in the PDF.

PDFs are mainly meant for printing. The PDF cannot be seen as proof of your work. Only signed archives are.