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Due to ongoing maintenance, you may experience brief authentication outages with Office 365 and other HMS services. To check on services affected and the current status of the eCommons platform, visit the eCommons Outage Status Page on the HMS IT website.

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Research Software & Applications

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  • BioRender

    A web solution for creating and sharing illustrative scientific figures for publication and communication using a scientifically accurate image library.

    Images and illustrations can be imported and the service includes the creation of new custom icons on demand. In addition to saving on expensive illustration software, the goal of this solution is to reduce the amount of time required by researchers to create illustrative figures.

     

    Eligibility

    • Available to anyone working at Harvard University (Faculty, Staff, Postdocs, and Students)
    • 33-digit Harvard billing number required for payment
    • A valid and active HarvardKey account
    • Hospital Affiliates are not eligible

     

    Licensing

    • $120.00 per user per year
    • Harvard Departmental 33-digit billing code required
    • License renews automatically at the beginning of November each year
    • To opt-out of automatic renewal, send an email to rchelp@hms.harvard.edu
    • No prorated pricing available for this software

     

    How to request

    • Request BioRender as an HMS user
    • Request BioRender as Harvard University user outside of HMS.

     

    BioRender access

    • Portal for currently registered users

     

    Support

    • Issues with the BioRender application
    • Setup and account issues contact us at rchelp@hms.harvard.edu

     

    System Requirements

    BioRender is a web-based tool that supports Mac OS, Windows, and Linux browsers.

  • Electronic Data Capture Application (REDCap)

    A web-based Electronic Data Capture (EDC) application designed for building and managing online surveys and data capture for research and clinical studies. REDCap was developed by a multi-institutional consortium initiated at Vanderbilt University and is
    • Existing REDCap users: sign in here
    • Request your REDCap project

     

    Eligibility

    • IRB approval is required for the use of REDCap.
    • Preview or Test Projects can be created in our REDCap Sandbox environment.
    • All REDCap study users must be listed on your active IRB Approval.
    • Available to all HMS, HSDM, and HSPH quad-based staff, faculty, and post-docs. Other HMS affiliates do not qualify for this license.
    • Students who work in HMS-based research labs are also eligible, with Lab or Departmental approval.
    • Survey subjects do not need an HMS ID to take a REDCap survey.

     

    Benefits of REDCap

    • Online or offline project design: Use the Online Designer or offline using a “data dictionary” template in Microsoft Excel that can be uploaded later into REDCap.
    • Secure and web-based: Input data or build an online survey or database from anywhere in the world over a secure web connection with authentication and data logging.
    • Fast and flexible: Conception to production-level database or survey in less than one day.
    • Fully customizable
    • Audit trails: For tracking data manipulation and user activity.
    • Automated export procedures: For seamless data downloads to Excel, PDF, and common statistical packages (SPSS, SAS, Stata, R).
    • A built-in project calendar
    • A scheduling module
    • Ad hoc reporting tools
    • Advanced features such as branching logic, file uploading, and calculated fields.
    • Available in multiple languages
    • Support and training are available via the REDCap Consortium Community Website.

     

    What we can’t offer

    • HMS REDCAP is approved for use with Harvard Data Security Level 4 data. HMS REDCap is NOT a HIPAA compliant service.
    • Provide functional support for Survey (Project) creation, import, conversion, or publication.

     

    Compatible platforms

    • Windows, Mac, Unix, Linux
    • REDCap mobile app for iOS and Android

     

    Cost

    There is no cost to eligible users of this HMS service.

     

    Getting started with REDCap

    • Brief Overview of REDCap (5 min)
    • REDCap introductory resources.
  • SnapGene

    Snapgene offers HMS researchers the ability to plan, visualize, and document their molecular biology procedures. The streamlined interface supports a range of cloning and PCR manipulations.

    SnapGene is molecular biology software that allows users to plan, visualize, and document molecular biology procedures. Select the DNA fragments that you wish to fuse, and SnapGene will design the primers. 

    The Research Computing department manages a pool of licenses for SnapGene is available for both Windows and Mac computers.

     

    Eligibility

    • Available to all HMS quad-based staff, faculty, and post-docs.
    • Students who work in HMS-based research labs are also eligible
    • 33-digit Harvard billing number required for payment
    • HMS eCommons ID
    • HMS affiliates do not qualify for this license.

     

    System requirements

    • Windows 10 or later
    • macOS 10.13 or later
    • Fedora Linux 21 or later
    • Red Hat Linux 7.2 or later
    • Ubuntu Linux 14.04 or later

     

    How to request

    To request SnapGene licenses, complete this online SnapGene Request Form

     

    Licensing

    • $96 per year, per computer
    • Harvard Departmental 33-digit billing code required
    • Licenses are renewed automatically on October 23rd each year
    • To opt-out of automatic renewal, send an email to rchelp@hms.harvard.edu
    • No prorated pricing available for this software
    • License Transfer: Licenses may be transferred between a license holders various computers, but may not be transferred to a different user. If a current license holder needs to transfer the license to a different computer, they should email rchelp@hms.harvard.edu with the Computer Names for both the old and new computer.

     

    Support

    • Software support is available from the vendor by web at SnapGene Support
    • Tutorial Videos
    • User Guide
    • Additional Questions: email rchelp@hms.harvard.edu
  • OMERO

    A visualization platform for the management of microscope images and metadata, available for use across the HMS research community. 

    OMERO

    OMERO is a visualization platform for the management of microscope images and metadata, available for use across the HMS research community. 

    If you would like an HMS OMERO account please fill out this HMS OMERO Account Request Form. 

    Download and install OMERO.insight, which is necessary to import data into OMERO. 

    Guides for using OMERO.insight are maintained on the openmicroscopy.org website. Go to Adding image data for instructions on how to import data into OMERO. 

    More information on getting started is available in the FAQ.

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