Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Concordia University, 1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West, Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1M8, Canada.
BMC Bioinformatics. 2012 Jan 26;13:15. doi: 10.1186/1471-2105-13-15.
In many laboratories, researchers store experimental data on their own workstation using spreadsheets. However, this approach poses a number of problems, ranging from sharing issues to inefficient data-mining. Standard spreadsheets are also error-prone, as data do not undergo any validation process. To overcome spreadsheets inherent limitations, a number of proprietary systems have been developed, which laboratories need to pay expensive license fees for. Those costs are usually prohibitive for most laboratories and prevent scientists from benefiting from more sophisticated data management systems.
In this paper, we propose the EnzymeTracker, a web-based laboratory information management system for sample tracking, as an open-source and flexible alternative that aims at facilitating entry, mining and sharing of experimental biological data. The EnzymeTracker features online spreadsheets and tools for monitoring numerous experiments conducted by several collaborators to identify and characterize samples. It also provides libraries of shared data such as protocols, and administration tools for data access control using OpenID and user/team management. Our system relies on a database management system for efficient data indexing and management and a user-friendly AJAX interface that can be accessed over the Internet. The EnzymeTracker facilitates data entry by dynamically suggesting entries and providing smart data-mining tools to effectively retrieve data. Our system features a number of tools to visualize and annotate experimental data, and export highly customizable reports. It also supports QR matrix barcoding to facilitate sample tracking.
The EnzymeTracker was designed to be easy to use and offers many benefits over spreadsheets, thus presenting the characteristics required to facilitate acceptance by the scientific community. It has been successfully used for 20 months on a daily basis by over 50 scientists. The EnzymeTracker is freely available online at http://cubique.fungalgenomics.ca/enzymedb/index.html under the GNU GPLv3 license.
在许多实验室中，研究人员使用电子表格在自己的工作站上存储实验数据。然而，这种方法存在许多问题，从共享问题到数据挖掘效率低下等。标准的电子表格也容易出错，因为数据不会经过任何验证过程。为了克服电子表格固有的局限性，已经开发了许多专有的系统，实验室需要为此支付昂贵的许可证费用。这些成本对于大多数实验室来说通常是不可承受的，并且使科学家无法从更复杂的数据管理系统中受益。
在本文中，我们提出了 EnzymeTracker，这是一个基于网络的实验室信息管理系统，用于样品跟踪，它是一个开源且灵活的替代方案，旨在促进实验生物数据的输入、挖掘和共享。EnzymeTracker 具有在线电子表格和工具，用于监测由多个协作者进行的大量实验，以识别和表征样品。它还提供了共享数据库，如协议，以及使用 OpenID 和用户/团队管理进行数据访问控制的管理工具。我们的系统依赖于数据库管理系统进行有效的数据索引和管理，以及用户友好的 AJAX 界面，可以通过互联网访问。EnzymeTracker 通过动态建议条目和提供智能数据挖掘工具来有效检索数据，从而方便数据输入。我们的系统具有许多用于可视化和注释实验数据以及导出高度可定制报告的工具。它还支持 QR 矩阵条形码，以方便样品跟踪。
EnzymeTracker 的设计易于使用，并提供了许多优于电子表格的优势，因此具有促进科学界接受的特点。它已经在 50 多位科学家的日常工作中成功使用了 20 个月。EnzymeTracker 可在 http://cubique.fungalgenomics.ca/enzymedb/index.html 上免费在线获得，根据 GNU GPLv3 许可证。
