HELP_005 | eLabFTW step-by-step guide: Data structuring with the ISA model

Experiments and databases should be divided into small subunits based on the ISA model.

Hereby, a tree-like structure is created. The top of the tree is the top hierarchy level called investigation, which contains the overall view of your research topic.

In the next hierarchical level, the tree is divided into studies. A study could be assigned to a project or publication and contains all related informations to this.

The final level is composed of assays ( = your experiments).

Here is an example how this looks in eLabFTW:

The investigation and the studies are databases. The assay is an experiment.

If we now look at the invetigation, we get a small overview by seeing all related studies and the basic informations:

The next hierarchy level is the study. There we can see more details:

In the study, we see both the link to the investigation and the associated experiments.

The (meta-) table describing the study contains the recommended information, but can be supplemented with additional optional columns.

These columns can contain additional links, such as the publications in this example.