Course Information
Course Title: Emerging IT for the Laboratory
Categories: 1 - Management/Professional Development
2 - Data Analysis
3 - Data Management
4 - Laboratory Information and Management
Instructor(s): Burkhard Schaefer Course Number: 130
Affiliation: BSSN Software
Course Date: 03/14/2012 - Wednesday Course Length: 1 Day Course
Start Time: 08:30 AM End Time: 05:00 PM
Fee: $455 ($655 after 2/13/12) Textbook Fee:

Course Description
This one-day short course will provide an overview of current and emerging IT (Information Technology) topics that are applicable to labs in the bio-pharma, healthcare, and clinical sectors. The course presents approaches to cover the entire life span of laboratory data: data storage, data management, data transfer, data analysis, and data archival. We will examine current IT trends, technologies and products to support us in our quest to optimize our laboratory informatics infrastructure. For each technology, we will discuss its applicability in a laboratory environment. We will also address potential implementation risks and total cost of ownership

Target Audience
Individuals looking for a overview of information technology topics relevant to a laboratory environment. The target audience for this class is laboratory IT decision makers and professionals from pharmaceutical, biotech, clinical companies, and research institutions. There are no prerequisites for this class.

Course Outline
- Data representation and transformation
- Scientific Data Management (e.g., 21 CFR Part 11 compliant e-record management) 
- Storage & retrieval (e.g., Relational vs. Object-Oriented databases, distributed vs. centralized storage, Storage Area Networks (SAN)
- Data mining, interpretation and reporting
- XML and database technologies
- Distributed computing strategies
- Web technologies (e.g., Web Services) 
- Instrument control, integration and data acquisition
- Laboratory data standards (e.g., AnIML, JCAMP-DX)
- Long-term data archiving
- Component software technologies and frameworks (Microsoft .NET, J2EE)
- Virtualization
- Cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS)
- Networking technologies (e.g., Gigabit Networks, Wireless Networks, Security Considerations) 
- Communication and integration technologies (e.g., SOA, SOAP, .NET, Web Services, Java Messaging, software agent technologies) 
- Open source software
- Current trends in information technology

Course Instructor's Biography
Burkhard Schaefer is an independent consultant specializing in laboratory informatics applications. He is a regular contributor to the Pittcon short course program and has been involved with the LECIS standardization effort at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the AnIML standardization project with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). He is currently working on standardized XML data formats for the documentation of laboratory workflows. He holds a Diploma of Computer Science from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern and has been teaching short courses for 11 years.