Modeling and Storing Scientific Protocols

Abstract

We propose an abstract model for scientific protocols, where several atomic operators are proposed for protocol composition. We distinguish two different layers associated with scientific protocols: design and implementation, and discuss the mapping between them. We illustrate our approach with a representative example and describe ProtocolDB, a scientific protocol repository currently in development. Our approach benefits scientists by allowing the archiving of scientific protocols with the collected data sets to constitute a scientific portfolio for the laboratory to query, compare and revise protocols.