Abstract
The concepts and current developments of a research data infrastructure for materials science are presented, extending and combining the features of an electronic lab notebook and a repository. The objective of this infrastructure is to incorporate the possibility of structured data storage and data exchange with documented and reproducible data analysis and visualization, which finally leads to the publication of the data. This way, researchers can be supported throughout the entire research process. The software is being developed as a web-based and desktop-based system, offering both a graphical user interface and a programmatic interface. The focus of the development is on the integration of technologies and systems based on both established as well as new concepts. Due to the heterogeneous nature of materials science data, the current features are kept mostly generic, and the structuring of the data is largely left to the users. As a result, an extension of the research data infrastructure to other disciplines is possible in the future. The source code of the project is publicly available under a permissive Apache 2.0 license.
Highlights
In engineering sciences, the handling of digital research data plays an increasingly important role in all fields of application (Sandfeld et al 2018)
The focus of the features implemented so far is on the repository component, the topics of structured data management and data exchange in particular, as well as on the workflows, which are a central part of the electronic lab notebooks (ELN)’s functionality
With the help of such metadata, a description of subject- and application-specific records becomes possible. This is relevant in an interdisciplinary research field such as materials science, where using a fixed schema would be impracticable, due to the heterogeneity of the data formats and the corresponding metadata
Summary
The handling of digital research data plays an increasingly important role in all fields of application (Sandfeld et al 2018). Generic research data systems and software are available for both ELNs and repositories, which, in principle, could be used in materials science. The listed open-source solutions are of particular relevance, as they can be adapted to different needs and are generally suitable for use in a custom installation within single research groups Both aspects can be a considerable hurdle, especially for smaller groups. The system should support researchers throughout the entire research process, starting with the generation and extraction of raw data, up to the structured storage, exchange and analysis of the data, resulting in the final publication of the corresponding results In this way, the features of the ELN and the repository are combined, creating a virtual research environment (Carusi & Reimer 2010) that accelerates the generation of innovations by facilitating the collaboration between researchers. The source code of the project is publicly available under a permissive Apache 2.0 license (Brandt et al 2020)
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