Niobi Research Center

Niobi Research Center is a research management system aimed at grantmaking institutions and university laboratories. It grants administrative power at an organization, department, and group level, to allow for efficient and structure communication between users at each of these three levels. Niobi further facilitates operations, monitoring, and reporting for inventory, research, and broader impact work within a research center.

Department/Group approach

Niobi is built on the assumption that the site is for a single organization. Within this organization are Departments, which are further subdivided into Groups. Org/dept/group roles are mapped out as follows:

Version 2.0 roadmap:

• Facilities and Locations: Organization (global)
• Resources: Department/Group
• Task Alerts: Department/Group
• Grant/Application Management: Group
• Inventory: Group
• Library (checkout reservations of multiple items): Department/Group
• Shared Equipment (Reservations for time on a machine): Group
• Broader Impact Reporting: Organization
• Outreach Management: Organization/Department/Group
• Expense Tracking and Billing

Examples:

Group A adds all of its lab inventory into its group page. When a user in Group B (in the same department or an access-granted department) visits the inventory page, he sees Group A's inventory on the department page.

Group C buys a very nice LC-MS system, and since it requires special in-person training, only people on an "approved" list may access it. However, they are open to adding new users. When a user visits the department's equipment page, he can see the LC-MS, but he cannot reserve time on the machine.

Department D has a fellowship program for graduate students, and wants to set up an application-review system with two rounds of review, as well as have the option to return applications to students with a request for additional feedback.

A user from the organization looks at the global inventory, and is able to see all access-granted items. This allows for the user to quickly find an item he is looking for, anywhere in the organization.

An REU student from outside of the organization may visit the "grants and applications" page to see all available grants and applications. They may then apply for an REU at the organization, and the appropriate administrator is notified of the application.

Roadmap:

Alpha

While the project is in alpha, it is incomplete. We will add documentation as features are built. The "complete" features will be ready for people who want to try them.

Beta

Once the project moves to beta, the v1 features will largely be done, and we will be refining the administration area and site theme at this point. Niobi will be usable for intermediate Drupal users at this point.

RC

We will move the project out of beta once we complete the base features, theme, and install profile, and we will focus on testing. At this point we will welcome all Drupal users to try the distribution and give us feedback.

Current Status of Features

2.x-alpha to 2.x-beta:
Complete/Ready to test:

• Install Profile
• Resources
• Task Alerts
• Single Forms
• Grant/Application Management

2.x-beta to 2.0:

• Facilities and Locations - In development
• Inventory
• Library (checkout reservations of multiple items)
• Shared Equipment (Reservations for time on a machine)
• Datastores: simple API for storing/retrieving/processing experiment data - In development
• Broader Impact Reporting: Organization
• Outreach Management: Organization/Department/Group
• Expense Tracking and Billing: Organization/Department/Group