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Table of Contents

Background and overview

Specimens are considered ‘distributed’ when they are shared with or given to collaborators or other labs on campus or externally. When a sample is marked as ‘Distributed and Closed’, it no longer is available for any future processing or editing. This is slightly different from the term ‘shipped’ a ‘Shipment’ in OpenSpecimen, in which the samples still remain as . If a sample is shipped, it remains active and available in the system, they might simply be but is likely located in a different laboratory. That other laboratory can access the specimen in your protocol (with permissions) and perform and record additional processing on that sample.

In most cases, labs on campus will be ‘distributing’ samples unless the laboratory receiving the samples will also have access to your OpenSpecimen collection protocol to continue to track and process those samples and their derivatives and aliquots. 'Shipments' are specifically used to track the movement of specimens from one location (site) to another. For instance, you can ship samples to the CTRC for processing and long-term storage. In this case, your samples are still active and available for you to see, but their location is elsewhere. And the new location (CTRC) can now perform services on them, like extracting DNA or creating blood separation products, and those events can be tracked within your protocol.

Distribution Protocols are created to capture important information regarding the distribution of samples to collaborators or to track samples sent for processing at cores that won’t be returned (like sending an aliquot for NGS that won’t be returned to you). Creating a Distribution Protocol with the details below not only serves to ensure important details as outlined in this document ensures that all necessary information is captured for future reference (i.e. audits), but also allows for multiple shipments over time to the same project without having to reenter all of the information.

Prerequisites

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titleExpand to read the what needs to be done prior to beginning the process of creating a DP and distributing specimens

  1. To use requests and approvals, you should have a Specimen Catalog: this will allow you or your collaborators (with permissions) to select the samples that they would like to request. Specimens can be distributed directly from any specimen screen, but the requests and approvals will not be tracked using this method.

  2. Order Custom Fields (optional): If you want to collect additional information (fields like ‘shipping address’ or MTA) you need to create these as a custom form and they should be attached to your DP.

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  2. Order Report Query (optional): To specify the data to include along with the specimens, you can create a query with the columns to include when distributing specimens. (link to KB)

  3. To create a DP, your user role must include Create/Edit Distribution Protocol rights.

  4. The receiving Institute, Principal Investigator, and receiving Site (optional) need to be added to OpenSpecimen by an Administrator.

Creating a Distribution Protocol

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Optional features to add to a DP

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titleAdding consent and specimen dependencies or services to a DP

  1. Consents: If you capture answers to specific consent statements, you can set requirements that samples can only be distributed to a DP based upon a specific answer to a consent statement. For instance, Samples can only be distributed if the participant answered ‘yes’ to ‘samples may be shared with external researchers' or ‘I consent to genetic analysis’.

  2. Requirements: You can set the DP to only allow specimens that meet certain criteria

  3. Services: You can manually assign services associated with a DP that you can subsequently bill for, such as aliquotting and relabelling, add a cost and note if it will be paid with internal or external funding.

Distributing Specimens

Process to Distribute Specimens directly (bypasses the catalog and requests)

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