Data management expert labfolder and the Max Planck Society have recently announced a licensing agreement to provide up to 11,000 Max Planck scientists with labfolder’s laboratory data management digital platform. This is the first time that a tool for digital laboratory data management is being provided across an entire research organisation for scientists in all scientific disciplines ranging from physics, chemistry, life sciences and humanities.
labfolder’s data management tool enables scientists from all disciplines to record, integrate and manage scientific data from different sources including tablets and devices, with simple compliance to industry standards, protocols and regulations. The tool speeds up research and development, facilitates data analyses and collaboration of scientists and teams on all continents. It can be used either on a central server or on a local server, which will be installed on the premises of the institutes. The digital platform is fully flexible and can be customised by the Max Planck scientists themselves.
The classical paper-bound laboratory notebook is still the most commonly used tool for data management for many scientists. This continuous documentation is the key to understanding experiments and their underlying hypotheses as well as to interpret recorded data in a meaningful way. “There is an enormous demand for scientists within the Max Planck Society for switching to digital lab notebooks,“ states Dr Frank Sander, general manager of the Max Planck Digital Library, the central unit for the provision and development of information and data management services in the Max Planck Society.
“We are very happy to provide our scientists via labfolder with a solution that helps them to efficiently handle their daily data management tasks. The flexibility of the system allows the use of labfolder across the different research disciplines in the Max Planck Society and facilitates the exchange between scientists and with scientific data tools and services.”
Most laboratories still use a mixture of paper notebooks, locally stored files, and file servers for data management. Data management across storage media makes the compliant documentation, retrieval, and re-use of research data notoriously difficult and sometimes even impossible. Additionally, the amount of data generated in research and healthcare grows exponentially. Thus, research organisations, enterprises, and policy makers see further optimisation of data management in research and in clinics as a crucial next step.
