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iSMART – Instrument Management, Scheduling, and Reporting

ORIP has introduced an online instrument Schedule Management, Access Requesting and Tracking (iSMART) toolset to improve the operational efficiency of S10-funded instruments and reduce administrative burden for S10-funded principal investigators (PIs). Accessible from the S10 Reports Dashboard and available free of charge, iSMART is particularly valuable to budget- and resource-sensitive institutions. An intuitive online tool for users to request services or access to the instrument, iSMART reduces PIs' workloads by democratizing the management duties to multiple users and leveraging instrument access requests. The instrument requests are saved and converted into usage data needed for the S10 annual reports. iSMART can be used for access management of systems other than the S10 instrument, which is ideal for core laboratory facilities. In the future, S10 instrument availability and usage summaries will help enhance user recruitment, improve efficiency of instrument use, increase transparency, promote FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principles, and enable other long-term benefits.

Key features of iSMART include the following: 

  • Graphic Availability Calendar for easy and intuitive access
  • Ability to delegate S10 system administrative tasks to the core laboratory manager
  • Ability for users (i.e., project PIs) to delegate instrument requests to their associates
  • Ability to request usage of multiple non-S10 instruments
  • Reminder for instrument users to acknowledge the S10 grant
  • Publication screen that allows users to add publications associated with an S10 grant
  • Capacity to automatically convert access requests into a usage list for the S10 annual report, and ability for the S10 PI to modify the content
  • Ability to import and export data via Microsoft Excel