Studies

An experimental campaign within an investigation.

What is a study?

A study represents a specific experimental campaign or work package within an investigation. It groups related processes and provides context about the experimental design — what was studied, how, and why.

One investigation can contain multiple studies. For example, an investigation into moth transcriptomics might have:

• Study 1: "Larval tissue RNA-Seq" — tissue-specific expression profiling
• Study 2: "Developmental time-course" — expression changes across life stages

Creating a study

1. Navigate to the investigation you want to add a study to
2. Click New Study
3. Fill in:
   • Title — Descriptive name for the experimental campaign
   • Description — What this study aims to achieve
4. Click Create

Study page

The study view shows:

• Description — Study summary and goals
• Processes — All processes linked to this study, grouped by category
• Samples — All samples involved in the study's processes
• Investigation context — Link back to the parent investigation

Linking processes to studies

Processes can be linked to a study when they are created, or afterwards:

1. On the study page, click Link Process
2. Select from existing processes in the group, or create a new one

A process can belong to one study. If you need to reference the same activity in multiple studies, create the process under the most relevant study and reference it from others via the process chain.

Study design metadata

Studies support ISA-compatible metadata fields for describing the experimental design:

• Study design descriptors — The type of study (e.g., "case-control", "time series")
• Study factors — Variables being investigated (e.g., "tissue type", "treatment")
• Study protocols — Procedures referenced by the study's processes

These are included in ISA-JSON and ISA-Tab exports from the parent investigation.