PNNL

Abstract

The practice of science is critically dependent on complete and accurate documentation of experiment processes and results. Scientific records enable confirmation of results, allow researchers to share findings and avoid duplication of work, and provide a means to establish credit and accountability for scientific discoveries. Traditional documentation methods have become ineffective because of increasing experiment complexity, data size and dimensionality, and the overall number of experiments performed, as well as the growing use of distributed computations and community databases. As these trends continue and experiments and research teams become more cross-disciplinary, documentation strategies must be improved dramatically. More complete, more searchable, computer-interpretable records will be required. Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are developing a system to enable the creation of such records in the collaborative, cross-disciplinary, dynamically changing environment that is increasingly typical of modern scientific research.