Booking, lab admin & equipment service
From BioImagingUKWiki
Chair: Philippe Laissue (University of Essex)
Background
We had a look at different strategies and options for booking instruments and charging users. There are different solutions, from low-key to advanced. The best solution depends on
• number of users and instruments
• IT support for setting up internal server-based solutions and creating workgroups etc.
• financial support for purchasing commercial solutions
• policies of University/Department/Museum (e.g. for data protection)
As facilities vary considerably in their provision of instruments and technical solutions, any solution should be customisable.
Most solutions have the problem that they do not log the actual use on the instrument, but the hours booked on the calendar.
Swipe card/code-protected access does not prevent ‘rogue’ use of instruments. If users really want to break something, they can.
Another problem exists with users who last operated the instrument many months ago. It would be helpful if a booking system could show that a user has not been active for X amount of time and/or flag up the user after X months of delay. This does not seem to exist in any of the listed solutions. An option however is to delete accounts if they are inactive for more than e.g. six months.
If you are interested in any of the solutions listed below, please consult the website or contact the person who talked about it.
Open Source Solutions
Google calendar
(Philippe Laissue, University of Essex)
Pros: Free, easy to set up, hosted externally. Ties in with other Google applications (I set up a Google training site with calendar and Google Docs, forms & code tied in, which can all be easily changed/adapted). Charging is not automated, but can be exported to Excel using Gcal2Excel app.
Cons: Only booking (does not log actual time spent on instrument). Not fool-proof. Users can modify or cancel their own and other people’s reservations retroactively. Details are visible to everyone (compare to Calcium below). Gets very busy with many instruments in facility.
