Automated Experimentation

From ESIWiki

International Conference on Automated Experimentation 2011

The popular image of traditional science involves researchers toiling laboriously over laboratory experiments, driven by the desire to establish definitive and permanent results. Modern natural sciences, applied sciences, e-Science, and Web science provide more opportunities for yet larger series of experiments. Demand for experimental results also has become more diverse, requiring results that have direct connections to systems outside the laboratory. With this has come an ability to automate many areas of experimental science, not only the experiments themselves but also the larger processes that contribute to experimentation and analysis more broadly. Our aim is to bring together the diverse forms of automated experimentation and, by studying them in an abstract but practical way, understand how they generalise across domains. In this way we hope to promote new styles of computationally inspired experimental thinking. For example:

Formal process languages allow rapid replication and enactment of experimental designs;
Service and grid architecture permit experimental data to be shared in large volume;
Roboticised laboratory systems permit fast translation of experiments to the physical world;
Verification methods allow experimental protocols to be more rigoriously tested;
Systems are available for maintaining experimental context, such as provenance of data; and
Systems exist to chart broader requirements and argumentation surrounding experiments.

The main objectives of this multidisciplinary conference are to:

identify relevant methodologies and technologies that would enable automated scientific experimentation,
survey test protocols and guidelines for conducting and reporting automated experiments, and
establish an international network of research collaboration with universities and institutes for conducting automated experimentation research.

Best papers from this conference will be selected to publish in the Automated Experimentation journal, which is a new open-access journal published by the BioMed Central.

The scientific programme will be announced soon. If you have any relevant manuscripts to present in this conference, please feel free to contact us.

International Workshop on Automated Experimentation

23-24 February 2010

This workshop was held as part of an e-Science Institute theme on Automated Experimentation led by Dave Robertson (principal contact, University of Edinburgh), Stephen Oliver (University of Cambridge), Jano van Hemert (University of Edinburgh) and Siu-wai Leung (University of Macau).