Core Facility Operations

Institutional core facilities: prerequisite for breakthroughs in the life sciences (EMBO Press)

• Long-term, large-scale project planning
• Experimental troubleshooting and large-scale infrastructures
• How to build projects
• How to prepare before building an imaging core facility
• Renovations
• Imaging core facility timeline
• Imaigng core facility capabilities
• Lessons learned and take-home messages

1. Setting up a light microscopy core facility: Facility design (Journal of Microscopy)
2. Staying on track – Keeping things running in a high-end scientific imaging core facility (Journal of Microscopy)
3. A practical guide to bioimaging research data management in core facilities (Journal of Microscopy)
4. Design and Function of a Light-Microscopy Facility (Springer)
5. Setting Up and Running an Advanced Light Microscopy and Imaging Facility (Current Protocols)

• List of things to think about when setting up an imaging core facility (Jeremy Sanderson)
• Imaging core facility checklist (Jeremy Sanderson)

Global BioImaging YouTube channel

• Why should universities invest in core facilities
• Demonstrating the value of core facilities
• Models of core facilities administration
• Core facilities job categories
• Core facilities require skilled full time employees
• Core facilities require dedicated laboratory space
• Institutional support for core facilities
• Institutional evaluation of core facilities
• External evalution of core facilities
• External partnerships with core facilities

• Introduction to leasing of microscopes
• Advantages of leasing compared to purchasing
• Example of successful leasing program at Harvard Center for Biological Imaging called Evergreen Program
• Disadvantages of leasing compared to purchasing

1. Building a Sustainable Portfolio of Core Facilities: a Case Study Hockberger et al. (2018). Building a Sustainable Portfolio of Core Facilities: a Case Study. Journal of Biomolecular Techniques. 29(3):79-92.
2. To buy or to lease: The advantages and costs of leasing versus buying scientific instruments for academic core facilities Wang and Richardson (2020). To buy or to lease: The advantages and costs of leasing versus buying scientific instruments for academic core facilities. EMBO reports. 21(5).

1. Developing a sustainable portfolio of core facilities: Institute of Biotechnology (National Autonomous University of Mexico) YouTube channel
2. Leasing versus buying scientific instruments: Global BioImaging YouTube channel

Global BioImaging international recommendation: Measuring imaging core facility impact: Key Performance and Socio-Economic Indicators

• Why it is important to measure the impact of imaging facilities and imaging scientists who work there
• The importance of language used when conveying the importance of scientific platforms such as imaging
• Mission and values of an imaging facility
• Types of indicators need be tailored for each imaging facility
• How to measure the impact of imaging facilities

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are used to measure imaging facility's impact and progress or evolution over time within a given infrastructure.

KPIs are not are not intended for comparing different facilities but for assessing continuous improvement of an individual facility. KPIs provide a comprehensive understanding of the quality of the infrastructure.

• KPIs can be broken down into three categories:
  • Infrastructure and personnel
  • Scientific platform performance
  • Financial performance
• How often should KPIs be measured?
• Levels of complexity to measure each KPI

Research infrastructure enables high quality research outcomes that in turn have an impact on broader socio-economic factors.

Assessing impact through Socio-Economic Indicators (SEIs) is a powerful way for imaging core facilities to demonstrate their value to key stakeholders such as funders, governments and institutions and maintain long-term partnerships.

• Social Economic Indicators (SEIs) are more qualitative and as a result are more difficult to measure
• SEIs can be broken down into four categories:
  • Resources
  • Highly qualified personnel
  • Collaboration/innovation
  • Public visibility
• Levels of complexity to measure each SEI

Global BioImaging YouTube channel

Global BioImaging international recommendation: Measuring imaging core facility impact: Key Performance and Socio-Economic Indicators

• What are Socio-Economic Indicators (SEIs)?
• Example of telling stories: Imaging Scientist
• Example of telling stories: International society for advancement of cytometry
• Example of telling stories: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative stories blog
• Example of telling stories: Added value of open access imaging core facilities by Global BioImaging
• Aligning impact with the vision/mission of the imaging core facility or stakeholder(s)

• Topics that can be included in a story:
  • Professional training
  • Development
  • Good user experience
  • Collaboration
  • Good laboratory practice
• Examples of vision and mission statements
  • Latin America BioImaging
  • Microscopy Australia
  • NanoFAB (Edmonton, Canada)
• Aligning with the facility's values and understand your stakeholders' priorities
• Example of telling stories: Platform scientist awards (Canadian Network of Scientific Platforms)

• Preproduction and planning before creating a video
  • Why are you doing the video and what is the angle of the video?
  • Who is the target audience of the video?
  • How to engage the audience and keep them interested?
• Tips for making quality videos
• Examples of poor and good videos and content

Global BioImaging YouTube channel

Global BioImaging international recommendation: Measuring imaging core facility impact: Key Performance and Socio-Economic Indicators

• Scholarly communication
• Citation at a glance
• Measuring impact with bibliometrics
• Use bibliometrics wisely
• Live demo of Web of Science

• The first scholarly publication
• Brief history of scholarly journals
• Significant increase of scholarly journals in the 20th century

• Functions of scholarly publications
• Criteria to be considered for authorship

• Functions of scholarly publications
• Why peer review is needed
• How peer review works
• Peer review limitations
• Rejection rates

• Purpose of authorship
• Credit and responsiblity
• Activities eligible for credit
• CRediT (Contribution Roles Taxonomy)

• Databases can be used to count citations
• Web of Science database
• Scopus database
• Other databases

• Criteria for a good indicator
• What can you do with citations

• Citations as an impact measurement
• NSERC study - Impact of Scientific Platforms on Research Success report (2019-2020)
• Journal impact factor

• Live demo of the Web of Science database

Global BioImaging YouTube channel