When we first discussed a joint webinar showcasing how protocols.io and RSpace work together, little did I imagine the result would be nothing short of a glimpse into the future of collaboration in the lab . . .  only it’s happening already!   In the webinar Anita Brollochs from protocols.io and Rob Day from Research Space enact a real life workflow involving sharing Anita’s RNA amplification protocol in protocols.io, incorporating it into Rob’s RSpace ELN, tailoring the protocol to Rob’s needs, and communicating back and forth via Slack as they go.

To run the experiment, Rob needs access to his lab, but using just these three modern tools in combination, Rob and Anita were able to accomplish every other step in the workflow, from planning the experiment, discovering, sharing and modifying the protocol, and communicating throughout the process, while working from home.

The webinar stimulated some great questions.  Here are a few, with the answers:

Q: Does RSpace integrate with Microsoft Teams as well as Slack?

A:  Yes!

Q:  If you export the a pdf of the experiment run from the protocol, does the protocol get exported too?

A:  Yes!

Q:  Once you’ve refined a protocol in RSpace, can you push it back to protocols.io?

A:  For now, you can do this via exporting the protocol from RSpace as a pdf and importing the pdf into protocols.io.  On the roadmap — direct ingest from RSpace into protocols.io.

Q: Do you have to be part of a protocols.io group to search protocols.io?

A:  No!