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THE CONNECTED LAB

Setting up RSpace for your Lab:

Five Simple Steps

Sign Up The first step is to sign up– it’s completely free for you and your lab, and takes only a few minutes. To set up your lab as an entity in RSpace, you

create a LabGroup and then invite the people in your lab to join the group, whether they are signed-up users or not. You, or someone you designate will act as PI with overall authority in the LabGroup.

Delegate Tasks The next step is for someone in the lab to take on the task of setting up RSpace with specific resources, templates and protocols for the lab

workflow. This person may be the PI, but is more likely to be an administrator or Postdoc. Let’s assume this person is you. You will firstly want to import pre-existing documents used in lab procedures into RSpace. Any type of document can be imported – just open the Gallery from the main tabs and drag-and-drop into the Gallery space. Files will be sorted by type into the Gallery sections.

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Create Protocols Next, you may want to create one or more protocols, for example by copying and pasting from your existing files or importing your MSWord

docs, singly or in batches, to be automatically converted into RSpace documents. There are three ways to create a protocol in RSpace:

a) Import MSWord documents directly. In your Workspace, select Create, choose “from MSWord”, then select your files from your computer directory, identify the RSpace folder to which they should be added and click “import.”

b) From your Workspace, Create a new document in which you outline your protocol, and then save the document as a template for future use, then share it with the lab. One possible workflow is to create your experiments in a Notebook, and from there you can link to existing protocols and experiments elsewhere in RSpace.

c) Under the My RSpace tab, you can create a form. A form in RSpace is a re-usable structured document framework which you create and publish to become available for others in the lab to use repeatedly. A form can have content added and then be saved as a Template.

Result is collection of documents

Click ‘Create’ then ‘From MSWord’ Choose or create folder within RSpace & push ‘Import’

Select documents in your computer directory

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Share your Protocol However you choose to create it, you can easily share your new protocol with other users. It is possible to share documents with your entire

LabGroup, or with an individual user or selection of users.  Forms can be published to become available to the lab or individuals for use.

Document Experiments Now you and other lab members are ready to document experiments in RSpace! There are two ways to do this: you can choose to organize your

data into Notebooks or Folders. Note also that there are sample experiments included in the ‘Examples’ folder in your Workspace for your convenience.

1) To document an experiment using a Notebook, the workflow is as follows: 2)

1) Create a Notebook and name it according to your protocol • Create entries in your new Notebook • Organize entries by date, by project/goal/experiment, or in another way in

accordance with your lab protocol

2) To document an experiment using a Folder, the procedure is slightly different:

• Create a Folder and name it according to your protocol • Create new documents in your new folder or move existing documents into it • Organize entries by date, by project/goal/experiment, or in another way in

accordance with your lab protocol

That’s it! You and your lab are now ready to get started with RSpace! Please visit our support and FAQ pages for more information.