Laboratory Forensics for Open Science Readiness: an Investigative Approach to Research Data Management

Abstract

Recently, the topic of research data management has appeared at the forefront of Open Science as a prerequisite for preserving and disseminating research data efficiently. At the same time, scientific laboratories still rely upon digital files that are processed by experimenters to analyze and communicate laboratory results. In this study, we first apply a forensic process to investigate the information quality of digital evidence underlying published results. Furthermore, we use semiotics to describe the quality of information recovered from storage systems with laboratory forensics techniques. Next, we formulate laboratory analytics capabilities based on the results of the forensics analysis. Laboratory forensics and analytics form the basis of research data management. Finally, we propose a conceptual overview of open science readiness, which combines laboratory forensics techniques and laboratory analytics capabilities to help overcome research data management challenges in the near future.