Title
Social support for collaboration and group awareness in life science research teams.
Abstract
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have revolutionarily reshaped the landscape of ’-omics’ research areas. They produce a plethora of information requiring specific knowledge in sample preparation, analysis and characterization. Additionally, expertise and competencies are required when using bioinformatics tools and methods for efficient analysis, interpretation, and visualization of data. These skills are rarely covered in a single laboratory. More often the samples are isolated and purified in a first laboratory, sequencing is performed by a private company or a specialized lab, while the produced data are analyzed by a third group of researchers. In this scenario, the support, the communication, and the information sharing among researchers represent the key points to build a common knowledge and to meet the project objectives. We present ElGalaxy, a system designed and developed to support collaboration and information sharing among researchers. Specifically, we integrated collaborative functionalities within an application usually adopted by Life Science researchers. ElGalaxy, therefore, is the result of the integration of Galaxy, i.e., a Workflow Management System, with Elgg, i.e., a Social Network Engine. ElGalaxy enables scientists, that work on the same experiment, to collaborate and share information, to discuss about methods, and to evaluate results of the individual steps, as well as of entire activities, performed during their experiments. ElGalaxy also allows a greater team awareness, especially when experiments are carried out with researchers which belong to different and distributed research centers.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1186/s13029-019-0074-4
Source Code for Biology and Medicine
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Social interactions, Working group awareness, Life science teams collaboration
Journal
14
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
1
1751-0473
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Delfina Malandrino131044.08
Ilaria Manno2536.11
Alberto Negro37411.67
Andrea Petta4414.68
Luigi Serra5414.01
Concita Cantarella600.34
Vittorio Scarano760971.49