Startup News: WSU research software wins innovation award

Wayne State University is making the lives of its researchers a little easier and gaining some hardware to show for it by winning a Campus Technology Innovators award.

The university’s Computing & Information Technology office and the Office of the Vice President for Research created the Researcher’s Dashboard, a software application that allows researchers to monitor and manage proposals, grants and projects by providing them real-time information and updates. The idea is to minimize administrative time so that researchers can maximize time in the lab and the field.

“This is the first time the research tool was built with the researcher in mind,” says Jim Barbret, associate vice president of research at Wayne State University.

The Researcher’s Dashboard is a Web-based application that combines and integrates multiple applications. For instance, it can instantaneously show a researcher how much work is left to be done or when they should look to apply for new funding. The dashboard’s creators ultimately want to provide researchers with more accurate information in real time.

“The objective of the dashboard is to get really simple answers quickly,” Barbret says. “They can ask, ‘How much money do I have left for research?’ and have the answer at their fingertips.”

Source: Jim Barbret, Wayne State University
Writer: Jon Zemke