
Show HN: Labit – a network of laboratory pages for research groups - ArslanAtajanov
https://labit.io/
======
ArslanAtajanov
What’s Labit?

\- Laboratory pages for research groups.

Why Labit?

\- We want to bring research groups closer to each other, give them
opportunity to establish connections and simplify collaboration.

How Labit works?

\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJClMIWOh-M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJClMIWOh-M)

As it is with many ventures, Labit started out of frustration. We are a team
of 4 people (2 researchers and 2 software engineers). We were frustrated that
laboratories and research groups around the world were working in a relative
isolation. Their webpages are outdated, unorganized, scattered on the
Internet, and in many cases broken. This realization sparked a discussion that
led to creation of Labit.

Any questions and feedback are welcome. Thanks!

~~~
ivan_ah
Very cool. It's like a CMS adapted for a research groups (a.k.a. labs --- note
potential source of confusion since lab can also mean actual lab with test
tubes etc).

One thing that I found confusing is the lack of pricing info. Is this going to
be free and if so how will you pay the hosting bill when you get 1000+
freeloaders?

Or do you see it as a run-it-yourself free software?

~~~
ArslanAtajanov
Hi there. Good questions. We will be introducing pricing for some advanced
features (that we are working on right now) and analytics later, but the core
functionality will stay free. We are covering the hosting bill with the help
of some local startup programs and some bootstrapping for small things. And
currently we are actively seeking funding from investors/accelerators. Some
are interested, but waiting to see if this gains traction. So right now, we
have to onboard as many users as we can, get feedback from users and then we
will have a considerably higher chance to find some funding.

------
sleavey
I wrote a guide to using WordPress to run an academic labbook [1]. It's
basically just a case of installing some free plugins, and you've turned it
into a collaborative platform. I've thought about combining the plugin code
together into a single one for ease of setup, so if anyone finds that
interesting then I can look into it properly.

This avoids proprietary solutions like the one here and allows self hosting.

[1] [https://attackllama.com/2015/10/online-labbooks-for-
scientif...](https://attackllama.com/2015/10/online-labbooks-for-scientific-
research/)

~~~
ArslanAtajanov
Awesome stuff! You should make it and see what happens. Many
researchers/students struggle with the discovery of research groups,
collaboration etc. The more people/companies try to tackle these issues the
merrier.

------
clarkevans
What is your monetization model? Is the goal to get big enough to have
Facebook, Google, LinkedIn buy you out? Or will there be advertisements?

Might you consider a monthly fee and organize as a self-sustaining cooperative
of researchers ([https://platform.coop/](https://platform.coop/))? For
example, Stocksy is a cooperative owned by artists
([https://www.stocksy.com/service/about/](https://www.stocksy.com/service/about/))
and is profitable.

~~~
ArslanAtajanov
We are currently working on several advanced features and analytical tools
that will be offered as a subscription on individual basis or as a package
(enterprise tier, e.g. for universities, companies).

To answer your question on getting big, our focus now is implementation of a
platform that is a home to research groups of the world. We have to do it
fast, and we have to do it right. In other words, the goal is to get big and
be useful. That doesn't mean that our exit strategy is to get bought by a big
player.

------
ArslanAtajanov
Here is a link [1] to a post on Medium written by my co-founder and a link [2]
to our YouTube page that has some tutorials if you want to know more about
Labit.

[1]: [https://medium.com/@chengeerlee/bringing-research-groups-
onl...](https://medium.com/@chengeerlee/bringing-research-groups-online-one-
step-forward-to-open-science-85896de77704)

[2]:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxzIti06vZguLlJjXhBaQKA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxzIti06vZguLlJjXhBaQKA)

------
justin--sane
I would actually be interested to move our research groups website there.
However, I'd first have to check with the Uni IT / security if it is allowed
to host a website externally. This could be a general problem - did you look
into University policies to see if this could be an often occuring issue?

~~~
ArslanAtajanov
Your question is quite common among our first adopters. We have talked with
representatives of a few universities. As of now they don't have any
objections. However, we are working on clarifying this with other universities
in US and Europe.

In any case, the functionality that Labit currently offers doesn't pose a risk
to individuals and research groups. Moreover, many labs host their pages on
Wix, WordPress, SquareSpace etc. and their university administration doesn't
mind. I think that these are the reasons why there were no objections from
administration so far.

And a question for you in return.

How important for you is the ability to have a custom domain for your research
group? On a scale from 1 to 10.

~~~
justin--sane
10, since it is policy here to use a subdomain of the university.

Of course, all data hosted on the lab website is usually not sensitive. But I
know of a couple of unis where the policy is quite rigid and they simply do
not allow _any_ external hosting. Do you have any plans to allow self-hosting?
It seems to work quite well for wordpress and ghost...

~~~
ArslanAtajanov
For those cases, where the policy is very strict, we are going to contact
universities directly first. If that doesn't work then we will have to find a
way to allow self-hosting while preserving the connection to the whole
platform/network as that is the main purpose of the service.

Can you tell me the name of your university? You can send me an email
(rc[at]labit.io) if you would rather not share this information on HN.

And regarding custom domains. We are definitely working on that. It is our top
priority right now.

------
edjay
Nice to see your work here. I am one of the co-founders of Labit. Here to
answer your questions if you have any.

------
flor1s
It's not quite clear to me what kind of features you have to "reduce
isolation"? Also, how easy is it to integrate an existing web page design into
labit?

~~~
ArslanAtajanov
Re "reducing isolation":

Currently, all research group web pages are scattered across the web and we
want to connect them, make them discoverable.

E.g.:

Let's say an undergraduate/graduate/researcher who wants to find all research
groups/professors working in a certain field has to scour the web to find a
handful of labs that are interesting to him. With Labit s/he will be able to
filter all laboratories/research groups that might be interesting to him/her.
And as user base grows the benefits of having all labs connected into a single
network will yield even more benefits.

The above example is from personal experience of mine and my peers and the
reason why we started to work on Labit. And there are many more similar
examples that can be thought of.

Re Design:

Customization of the design is one of the top requested features. We are
working on it. That being said one of the goals of the platform is to organize
information in a structured way. We are still not sure how availability of
deep customization will affect overall structure, ease of use and
discoverabilty. This is something we are experimenting with. Locking down most
of the structure and design of the web pages, while allowing minor
customization might be a good thing in the long run.

I would love to hear your argument on adding advanced customization options.

~~~
jamessb
> Let's say an undergraduate/graduate/researcher who wants to find all
> research groups/professors working in a certain field has to scour the web
> to find a handful of labs that are interesting to him. With Labit s/he will
> be able to filter all laboratories/research groups that might be interesting
> to him/her. And as user base grows the benefits of having all labs connected
> into a single network will yield even more benefits.

This requires you to actually get "all the research groups" to migrate their
sites to your platform, which would be difficult to achieve (particularly if
you restrict them to a design they don't want).

I have _strong reservations_ about your apparent aim of making a single for-
profit company the gatekeeper to the websites for every research group.

An alternative way of making research groups discoverable would be to create a
directory of researchers that links to their existing websites, rather than
trying to replace them.

~~~
ArslanAtajanov
> This requires you to actually get "all the research groups" to migrate their
> sites to your platform, which would be difficult to achieve (particularly if
> you restrict them to a design they don't want).

Exactly. The platform will be increasingly more useful as user base is
growing. The same is applicable to majority of other networks. It is most
likely that we will have to continue onboarding users almost "manually" until
we reach a critical mass.

> I have strong reservations about your apparent aim of making a single for-
> profit company the gatekeeper to the websites for every research group.

Good point. As researchers ourselves, we have tendencies to favor open-source
projects/organizations over for-profit companies. There is no denying it. But
considering all the things, I believe that for-profit companies achieve their
goals much more efficiently. Simply put, we are a social purpose for-profit
company started by researchers who got tired of redundancies, poor
discoverability, lack of sane structure etc., and are trying to build a
solution.

I am interested to hear your opinion on some of your points above. Could you
elaborate on your reservations? What is it that you are most concerned about?
What could we do to improve on that apart from going non-profit?

> An alternative way of making research groups discoverable would be to create
> a directory of researchers that links to their existing websites, rather
> than trying to replace them.

As you have said it, this approach will work to make research groups
discoverable. However, it would be difficult to solve many other issues we are
trying to solve. A single platform is a better option in this case, as it
allows deeper integration and interconnection.

~~~
jamessb
I think that you are attempting to address several distinct problems that
would be better addressed separately.

For example, catalog of shared facilities/equipment across groups is a useful
thing to have, but it can be centralised without centralising group web sites
(and constructing a list by simply aggregating lists of what individual groups
have will miss facilities shared at the department/division/university level).

I trust my university to continue providing web hosting. If I were to switch
to your service, what assurace would I have that you:

\- will continue operating for (at a minimum) several decades

\- will continue providing the service for free, and not start charging

\- will not add adverts

\- will not redesign or remove a feature that I rely on

\- not loose data (how should I backup a Labit page?)

as you grow, your costs increase, and network effects cause people to feel
'locked-in'?

The 'lack of sane structure' and 'redundant effort in designing' problems can
be solved by creating good templates that researchers can use to create sites
hosted by their own universities. I think that most lab pages that I've
encountered have had a reasonable structure, and in many cases switching to
the Labit structure would be a regression rather than an improvement:

\- several pages are empty for many of the showcased sites, suggesting that
they are not necessary, but cannot be removed (e.g. Gallery)

\- details of people on the 'Members' page are displayed only on a modal panel
after clicking on a person's face. It also doesn't seem to show the
destinations of alumni, despite the medium article saying you want to help
career planning.

\- it is common (at least in certain fields) for papers to have a dedicated
page on the group's website, grouping together the abstract, embedded demo
video, links to supplementary material, etc. This doesn't appear possible with
Labit.

~~~
ArslanAtajanov
Thanks for such a detailed answer.

> I think that you are attempting to address several distinct problems that
> would be better addressed separately. For example, catalog of shared
> facilities/equipment across groups is a useful thing to have, but it can be
> centralised without centralising group web sites (and constructing a list by
> simply aggregating lists of what individual groups have will miss facilities
> shared at the department/division/university level).

Our experience with how labs operate tells us otherwise. I think that close
integration of various aspects of research activities will be valuable not
only from the networking point of view, but also it will allow us to add
"feature layers" for improvement of the process itself.

> \- will continue operating for (at a minimum) several decades

Same as with other major networks, you will be able to download all you data.
This feature is on our to-do list.

> \- will continue providing the service for free, and not start charging

This is contrary to the purpose of the platform. The core functionality will
always be free. We want it to be free. We plan to monetize advanced features
and analytics that will be built on top of the core features.

> \- will not add adverts

My co-founders and me are strongly against advertisements.

> \- will not redesign or remove a feature that I rely on

Good point. We will have to make sure to gather extensive feedback before we
make big/breaking changes.

> \- not loose data (how should I backup a Labit page?)

This feature is on our to-do list.

> as you grow, your costs increase, and network effects cause people to feel
> 'locked-in'?

Also a good point, but a bit premature in our case. As of now we are focusing
on delivering a good product to users who need it.

> \- several pages are empty for many of the showcased sites, suggesting that
> they are not necessary, but cannot be removed (e.g. Gallery)

Yes. Believe it or not, I raised this question on our meeting recently. We are
working on this.

> \- details of people on the 'Members' page are displayed only on a modal
> panel after clicking on a person's face. It also doesn't seem to show the
> destinations of alumni, despite the medium article saying you want to help
> career planning.

Thanks for the suggestion.

> \- it is common (at least in certain fields) for papers to have a dedicated
> page on the group's website, grouping together the abstract, embedded demo
> video, links to supplementary material, etc. This doesn't appear possible
> with Labit.

Awesome idea!

jamessb, thank you for taking your time to write out such a detailed reply.

