Activity: Finding and Using Laboratory Protocols

Overview

If you work in a lab, it’s likely that your team has shared protocols that have been developed and refined to suit the research you’re doing.  Sometimes, though, you’ll want to look at a standard protocol – a sort of “best practice” – for a lab method, or you’ll want to see if another group has developed a specialized protocol that you can learn from.

Find Laboratory Protocols

To find laboratory protocols through the UW Libraries, take a look at the Laboratory Protocols guide.  Examples of resources on this guide include video journal articles from JoVE, standard protocols from SpringerNature Experiments, and the open access protocol-sharing site Protocols.io.  (A lock icon next to a resource indicates that it is licensed (paid for) by the UW Libraries, and a UW NetID is required for access.)

• Use one of the resources to look for a protocol that relates to your research interests.
• Once you find a protocol, ask yourself if enough details are provided that you could carry out the protocol yourself.  Is there a feature that lets you save and/or edit the protocol you’re looking at?

Finding Open Protocols

Before you go, take a look at Protocols.io.  This is a good example of open science.  Researchers freely share protocols they’ve developed and invite other researchers to try them and improve them.

If at some point you decide to share a protocol on this platform, notice that there’s a citation and DOI that you can cite on a CV or grant application to provide an example of your work.