CPSA Digest 2003

Day 3

WeOC4

Gaining Additional Value from NuGenesis Archive for Scientific Knowledge Management

Information Challenges in Analytical R&D

• Need to work with many groups and areas within the company
• Need to share information easily
• Need to get information from many sources and among departments
• Need to separate "wheat from chaff" (information overload exists, limited time to review this information, need a concise summary quickly and easily)

System Requirements

• Easy Information Submission
  • Get chemists to input information voluntarily when it is easy to do.
• Preferred Information Notification
  • If you are an HPLC chemist, have little interest in looking at NMR data or a formulation report for projects you are not involved with; then develop a view of information that is of interest and filter away the rest.
• Connections to Other Information Sources
  • Not just another computer system but THE computer system; submit information directly or pull from a multitude of sources.
• Discussion Forum
  • People submit a document and put it out for questions, "Does anyone have any ideas about this problem?"

Analytical Knowledge Management Initiative AKMI

• Developed in-house using existing tools (ASP and JavaScript)
• Web-based front end
• Oracle and Documentum back end

Click on image for larger view

Features of AKMI

• Consistent "look and feel"
  • Keep the screen as "clean" as possible; apply standards from the web as people are used to. Log-in to the system brings email as well as desired preferences. Not GMP-compliant system but information sharing system is "as open as possible."
• Setting Preferred Topics
  • Can send preferences to colleagues; useful if starting a group.
• History Page
  • Retrieval history and submission history.
• Information Submission
  • Goal is minimum amount of effort to submit a document to encourage usage. Put in a file, title, author filled in automatically, then topic of interest (categories). Quick-text is for a quick note to input directly and submit to a group of colleagues.
• Inserting Rich Text
  • A tool is supplied that creates an HTML document without having to know HTML; acts like a word processor in its ability to add fonts, colors, tables and pictures.
• Information Search
  • Topics that you are interested in are always listed at the top of a page
• Saving Queries
• Automatic Notification

NuGenesis Archive as Web Crawler

• This system could not be just another information source.
• Needed to be THE information source.
• NuGenesis Archive provided an easy way to search other information sources, find valuable new information and include it in AKMI.
• Today: NuGenesis searches department file systems.
• Tomorrow: NuGenesis will search Documentum-based document repositories.

Conclusion

• Scientists need to get at information quickly and easily.
• Scientists DO NOT want more computer systems to complicate their lives, they want less.
• With the glut of information received each day by scientists, there needs to be a way to bring the most important information to the top of the pile.
• NuGenesis Archive is a valuable tool to help bring data from many sources into one central location.

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