Team:Michigan Software/HP/Silver

Michigan Software Team
Protocat 3.0 - Human Practices

Protocol Model Development

Prior to begining the development of ProtoCat 3.0, we did research on something. We began by brainstorming with members of our team who had lab experience to get a foundation upon which we could improve. We tested the robustness of this initial model by trying to represent the protocols uploaded to ProtoCat 2.0 with our new model, tweaking and updating it along the way. Once we felt our model could adequately handle the protocols we anticipated in ProtoCat 3.0, we met with our adviser, Dr. Santiago Schnell, and ran our protocol model by him. Taking his feedback, we went back and further refined our model to the one that we use in our current implementation of ProtoCat 3.0.

OpenWetWare

Protocol standardization things.

Our work with openwetware.

Our protocol database is not the only one out there. OpenWetWare and protocols.io are some of the most popular alternatives. Since there are so many different databases, our team wanted to find a way to ensure that no matter which database someone decides to use, they can upload their protocol to all of them the same way. We reached out to OpenWetWare and began discussing how to standardize the file format of protocol to be uploaded. Our format is based on the JSON format, and we gave them an example of one of our protocols to begin the collaboration. The first steps were taken to build a cooperative relationship and create a standard protocol that will help make protocols even easier to use, test, review, and design.