1 / 21

Advancements in Remote Access to NMR Instruments at the Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory

The Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory (EMSL) at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory offers shared NMR instruments to external users through advanced remote access technology. Funded by the Department of Energy, EMSL dedicates 50% of instrument time to external users, facilitating collaborations between onsite scientists and remote users. With tools like the Electronic Lab Notebook and CORE 2000, researchers can easily share knowledge and manage experiments electronically. Despite challenges like user balkanization, the platform emphasizes seamless collaboration and innovation diffusion in scientific research.

davina
Télécharger la présentation

Advancements in Remote Access to NMR Instruments at the Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory (EMSL) Collaboratoryat the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

  2. EMSL function types • Primary type: shared instrument • Secondary: product development, expert consultation

  3. EMSL collaboratory basics • Makes NMR instruments at Pacific Northwest Labs available to external users remotely • DOE funded instruments, mandated 50% of instrument time to external users • EMSL collaboratory has developed both synchronous and asychronous tools to support remote use

  4. Clarification of terms • External users- not housed at PNNL • Remote users- external users who decide to operate instruments remotely • Local experts- scientists who work at PNNL full time

  5. Phases of EMSL

  6. Access to… • Access to instruments • Acess to people • Access to information

  7. Access to instruments • NMR set at PNNL, + other instruments at PNNL • Higher powered NMRs are oversubscribed 2x to 3x

  8. Access to people • Dedicated staff for external user support • Onsite scientists have a fund to charge for assisting external users • Work with onsite scientists often turns into full-fledged collaboration • Remote access means less casual contact with other users- Balkanization

  9. Access to information • Electronic Lab Notebook provides small group workspace • Little demand for larger-scale knowledge management (e.g. other researchers’ experiments) due to the small project size of the scientific work

  10. Technology used • CORE 2000 • VNC • E-lab notebook

  11. CORE 2000 (Collaborative research environment) • Screen sharing • Chat, whiteboard • Video conferencing, remote-control camera on instrument panel • Molecular modeling • Voting tool • Extensible

  12. VNC • Replaced custom tele-viewer • General purpose screen sharing, uses whatever interface is available • Free, open source from AT&T lab London • Supplemented with phone, instrument camera • (Is commoditification the future of collaboratory tools?)

  13. Electronic Lab Notebook • General purpose lab notebook • Form-based text and formula composition, editing, publishing • Image capture+ molecular modeling software • Two levels of security, digital signatures • Can capture direct from instruments, including settings and output • ‘Killer app’ for collaborations that are distributed, image-intensive, or access controlled

  14. Resourcediagram

  15. Issues from diagram • Flow of money is much simpler than a fee-for-service, one of the EMSL success factors • Balkanization issue- remote users don’t talk to each other (do they need to?) • PNNL very central for information flow, instrument time allocation, opportunity for co-publication

  16. Usage • Instruments oversubscribed for external users, proposals evaluated and time awarded on a 6-month schedule • Remote acces is optional for all remote users, currently is about 25% of use • Not always the same 25%! • Often groups include both collocated and remote collaborators • (E-lab has a separate base of ~1500 registered users)

  17. Motivation of collaborators • Professional support • Local experts have a fund to draw from for external user support • Collaboration (co-authorship) is common between local and remote users • Co-authorship usually given to instrument experts

  18. Diffusion of innovation • Reasons for using: • Save $ on travel • Involve more people, e.g. students, outside collaborators • Occasional changes of plans, e.g. pregnancy • Other factors promoting adoption • Fits with existing practice • Trialability- use students to try out remote access with lower risk • Adoption by new disciplines-- Biologists

  19. Diffusion of innovation • Where is EMSL on the adoption curve? • Is 25-30% remote use the peak penetration for this facility?

  20. Diffusion of innovation • Given that this project has tried a nearly comprehensive set of collaboratory technologies… • What set of CORE 2000 and ELN are most used/ useful?

  21. Operations versus R&D • Some EMSL work was funded to support current users, some R&D • Pragmatic concern for users led to VNC adoption, de-emphasis of some other aspects • Yet there was always some research $ available for advanced development • This balance seems to have been very healthy- (was it?)

More Related