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NATIONAL HEALTH & ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS RESEARCH LABORATORY BEGINS IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ELECTRONIC SCIENTIFIC DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Citation:
ROGERS, R. NATIONAL HEALTH & ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS RESEARCH LABORATORY BEGINS IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ELECTRONIC SCIENTIFIC DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM. Presented at 9th International Conference on Environmentla Mutagens, San Francisco, CA, September 03 - 08, 2005.
Impact/Purpose:
To pilot a commercially available scientific data management system to improve records management
Description:
Data and records management have changed greatly as a result of progress in computer technology, but many organizations, including the US EPA's National Records Management Program (NRMP) and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), still struggle to escape the paper burden. That task seems particularly difficult for research groups where, for various market reasons, data files often take proprietary forms that are not easily managed. NHEERL is piloting a commercially available scientific data management system (SDMS) brought to our attention in 2000 by two NHEERL researchers who recognized it as an easily used electronic file cabinet. A few QA and Records Managers quickly saw other potential values. By piloting this SDMS in RTP, we're also contributing to efforts by EPA and by NARA to resolve the R&D records issue and move to �records systems. EPA has committed to the development and use of an Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS), and selected Documentum as the platform. NARA recently awarded very large contracts for the first year of work to design a system to begin handling all federal records electronically. Despite the great potential of e-records systems, adequate labeling remains key to success. Data ownership in the private sector is generally clear, but many academic and government researchers view their data as personal intellectual products, which is usually not completely true. As a result, their records labeling approaches are often aimed only at their own individual needs. In addition, several of the tools used (e.g., labeled file cabinets and drawers, Windows directory trees) do not transfer easily to e-records archive systems. The NHEERL SDMS is application independent, permitting the easy capture of a wide range of file types; it provides very powerful search and reuse capability even in the absence of adequate labels; and its label-dependent auto-tag and tag-sort functions create a major incentive for improvements in labeling. It is server based and web accessible, with highly selectable security, from access open to everyone on the SDMS server to access limited to named individuals such as collaborators, statisticians, and QA or data reviewers.