RSpace (Research Space)
RSpace (Research Space) has been developed in close consultation with research institutions to meet scientists’ needs. As a Harvard supported ELN (electronic lab notebook), it has many advantages over paper notebooks or ad-hoc digital tools. RSpace offers centralized research records, seamless collaboration and sharing, integration with various tools, secure and compliant data storage, and professional data management practices to improve reproducibility, facilitate compliance with data policies, and save time in organizing and retrieving information.
How to request an RSpace account
- RSpace is accessible to Principal Investigators (PIs) at Harvard who possess faculty appointments, as well as to members of their research laboratories. PI can request an RSpace lab account and subsequently add their lab members, including graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and lab managers, as users within that lab group.
- Unlike some commercial online services, you cannot self-signup directly on the RSpace website for the Harvard instance. Instead, Harvard has an onboarding process to ensure proper setup of your lab group. PIs should request RSpace for their lab by completing the Harvard RSpace ELN Onboarding Request Form. This form asks for basic information about your lab and will initiate the creation of your lab’s space in RSpace.
Account setup
Once your request is processed, you and the people you’ve identified in your lab will receive RSpace accounts under Harvard’s RSpace system. You’ll log in to RSpace via Harvard’s dedicated RSpace portal: harvard.researchspace.com. Simply click the login link and use your HarvardKey credentials to sign in with no separate RSpace password required. Because RSpace is integrated with HarvardKey single sign-on, it will recognize your Harvard affiliation and securely log you in.
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For lab members: If you are a researcher in a lab whose PI has set up RSpace, you will either receive an invitation or confirmation when your account is created. Going forward, you’ll also log in at the Harvard RSpace portal with your HarvardKey. You will see the lab group space once inside RSpace.
Orienting yourself in RSpace
After logging in, you will arrive at your RSpace Workspace, which is the main dashboard where you can create and organize your notebooks and documents. From here, you can start a new notebook (for a sequence of experiment entries) or a document (for a single entry or protocol). RSpace’s interface is designed so you can easily format text, embed images or data files, and even create templates for common procedures. Spend a few minutes exploring the Workspace and menu options. You might begin by creating a test document or importing a protocol.
Watch a brief video overview of RSpace functionality.
