Hands-on: Experiment Lifecycle and Permissions

• 10 min
• Easy

Overview

The goal of this hands-on is to understand the specific lifecycle of experiments and discover the permission/sharing capabilities

Walkthrough

In Hands-on - Explore protocols, we learned how to create protocols and experiments, and best combine the two. While executing the instructions on experiments, you may have noticed many fields that we (intentionally) did not mention. Let's explore those.

Step 1. The different status of an experiment

• Navigate to one of the experiments created in the previous ELN hands-on. In the picture below, different fields corresponding to dates are boxed in orange.

The many dates of an experiment

Certain dates are common to all items:

• The Created on or the creation date corresponds to when the object was created in LabID (i.e. when you clicked on new). This cannot be edited.
• The Modified date or the modification date corresponds to when the object was last modified (goes together with the modified by field). This cannot be edited.

We then have experiment-specific dates which are best explained with help of the next picture that reflects the experiment lifecycle:

Experiment lifecycle is closely monitored

The experiment lifecycle from creation, to completion and freezing. From creation to freezing, a PDF snapshot of the experiment is created every night. The Estimated Completion Date is used to trigger experiment overdue warnings to the experiment's owner. Once an experiment is completed, auto-freezing occurs five days later.

• The Start Date indicates when the experiment started (or should) start; it defaults to the creation date but can be edited e.g. in case of an experiment planned in the future.
• The Estimated Completion Date indicates when the experiment should be completed; it defaults to the creation date plus 7 days but should be adjusted to match actual expectations. An experiment overdue warning (e.g. email) is sent weekly to experiments' owners listing overdue experiments ( Estimated Completion Date in the past).
• The Completed or Completion Date is set when the user changes the status to "completed" or "failed" (the "failed" status indicates a completed experiment that failed and should most likely be repeated)
• The Freeze Date is set when user freezes the experiment. Once frozen, the experiment cannot be edited anymore.

Why should experiments be frozen?

One of the key roles of a lab notebook is to prove when a particular experiment was performed; for example to arbitrate in patent/ownership/copyright disputes.
For this reason, written lab notebooks must observe rules like holding precise dates, notes must be continuous (no space left), pages must not be torn and it is even advised to have every page signed by the owner and the supervisor...

Electronic lab notebooks are no exception and procedures to guarantee authenticity must be in place. The freezing procedure is how LabID does it. At freeze time, the whole content of the experiment (including the text, the embedded pictures & the attachments) are wrapped into a zip archive and digitally timestamped. The certificates holding the timestamps are also included in the archive. This archive represents the frozen experiment and can be downloaded.

• Edit your experiment: set the status to completed ; then & exit
• Now freeze your experiment by clicking on the Freeze

The page now displays a blue information banner ; also notice how the Edit button is now disabled and the Unfreeze button in place of the Freeze . In the background, the whole content of the experiment (including the text, the embedded pictures & the attachments) are wrapped into a zip archive and digitally timestamped. Note that a banner warning you that the experiment has changed will pop up when the archive is ready (this assumes that you stay on the experiment page).

Header of a frozen experiment

• Scroll down to the Autogenerated Files section and open it. You should see a zip archive named like "export_TODAY-TIMESTAMP.zip". If not, the archive is still under construction, please wait a moment. You may try to download and unpack it to check its content.

What's inside the experiment archive?

The experiment description is available both as PDF and HTML files. Additional files with .tsr and .tsq extensions contain the digitally encrypted timestamps. Together with the content of the certificates folder, they can be used to prove that the e.g. PDF file was exactly like this one when it was signed. See FAQ - Availability - How do I validate a timestamp? for technical details.

• We mentioned that a Unfreeze button is now available. Scroll to the top and click this button.

What happens upon unfreezing ?

• To hint users that unfrozen state is expected to be for a short time, the blue banner is continuously displayed.

• The export archive from the previous freeze is still available and cannot be removed.

• Freeze the experiment again. A new archive is created and available in the Autogenerated Files section. Notice how all archives are kept reflecting the freezing/unfreezing history of the experiment.

Freezing/unfreezing strategy for long-lasting experiments

Unfreezing an experiment should be seen as the exception. Often users need to unfreeze because of the auto-freezing process which happened before they finished writing down their notes. It is important to avoid too many freeze/unfreeze rounds to avoid wasting space (which is bad for your budget and for the planet). Freezing/unfreezing strategy may be an interesting approach in situations where the experiment lasts over a long time; here, you can freeze the experiment during long periods of inactivity.

Step 2. The LabID permission/sharing system

• Create a new experiment with a personal name (to avoid all trainees to have the same name). Write a line.

What are the default permissions of your new experiment?

Owner has all permissions while the group has read-only. This differs from the protocol where we saw that group also had edit permission by default (this is the case for all items but the experiments): the rationale is that your lab notes are personal in most of cases; and collaborating on an experiment is the exception.

• Share your experiment with your neighbour (view + edit permissions), then save the experiment.

Sharing an experiment with a user

Start typing in the user drop-down to filter users. Check the permissions and click Add.

• Ask your neighbour to open your experiment and edit it (add a few words in the description), then & exit
• Back to your computer (you should still be in edit mode), start typing in the experiment description. What happens?

Concurrent edition warning

Warning displayed when LabID detects that the experiment was modified elsewhere and a newer saved version is available.

Congrats! You now have completed this hands-on!