OpenSpecimen

OpenSpecimen

Developer(s)	Krishagni Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Initial release	September 25, 2014 (2014-09-25)
Stable release	10.3 RC1  (December 20, 2023 (2023-12-20)) [±]
Preview release	9.0 RC1  (April 21, 2022 (2022-04-21)) [±]
Written in	Java
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Laboratory informatics software
License(s)	BSD 3-Clause License
Website	OpenSpecimen.org

OpenSpecimen is a free and open source biobanking informatics platform that is used in 20+ biobanks in eight countries across the globe. OpenSpecimen streamlines the process of collecting high quality standards-based (SNOMED, LOINC, ICD, etc) data. OpenSpecimen allows users to collect disease-specific annotations, clinical and pathology data, study-specific parameters, patient questionnaires, QA/QC data, specimen lifecycle events, and any other site-specific custom data. OpenSpecimen also contains a reporting module extract data from all types of datasets. OpenSpecimen exposes REST APIs to enable integration with other clinical databases and instruments. Those APIs can also be used to develop custom user interfaces and workflows.

The software comes in a free Community edition and a priced Enterprise edition, with the various Pro versions including support and additional plug-ins. Krishagni Solutions Pvt. Ltd. leads development and maintenance of the software for the OpenSpecimen user community. The company also sells a number of professional support services, including developer support, remote server maintenance, customization, and data migration support.

Product history

OpenSpecimen was originally developed by Krishagni as caTissue Plus, a free open-source biobanking LIMS/LIS heavily modeled after the National Cancer Institute's caTissue product. Krishagni also offered fee-based support services for the free software.

In July 2014, Krishangi revealed caTissue Plus was being rewritten as OpenSpecimen, with the rewrite tentatively set to be complete by March 2015. The company stated on their website: "caTissue is a 10 year old code base. The design and architecture is old technology-based, difficult to maintain and add new featured [sic] on top of it." On July 22, release candidate one of the software was released to GitHub. Several other release candidates were made available, culminating in the first version 1.0 stable release of the software on September 25.

Features

Features of OpenSpecimen include:

• Role-based user authentication & authorization
• Storage and inventory management
• Planned and unplanned biospecimen collections
• Participants and informed consents
• Track specimen lifecycle events
• Custom fields and forms
• Complete audit trial
• Disease or study based annotations
• Bulk upload data in CSV files
• Upload files: consent forms, pathology reports, images etc.
• Specimen request and distribution
• Shipping and tracking
• Reports: data query, pivot table, export
• Scheduled reports
• Generation and printing of labels and barcodes

Upcoming features include:

• Configurable user interface
• Invoicing module
• Mobile application

As of 2014, development of the platform is ongoing; for information on the most current release and all associated features, visit the project's website.

Pricing

The Community edition is free and open-source, available under the BSD 3-Clause License.

A dedicated OpenSpecimen trial version is also offered for 30 days, which is configured according to the end users' needs. OpenSpecimen experts guide the end-user through the installation, setup, and training process.

Pricing for the Silver Enterprise version is $10,000, while the Gold Enterprise is $20,000.

Packages and their features can be compared on the pricing page.

Hardware/software requirements

Software Requirements

• Apache 2.2
• JBoss-5.1.0.GA
• MySQL 5.1.x or Oracle 10g or Oracle 11g
• Windows server or any Linux server (Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora, etc)
• Ant 1.7.1

One can download all the OpenSpecimen prerequisites from here.

Hardware Requirements

• 4 GB RAM
• 100 GB HDD
• Server class CPU

Deployment strategies

• For QA / test environments a single-server machine can be used to deploy both the database and app server (JBoss).
• For production environments the database and app server (JBoss) should be deployed on two different servers.

Integration Strategies

• HL7-based integration: OpenSpecimen servers should be able to receive HL7 messages from the server (i.e. in terms of VPN/network).
• Barcode printers: The barcode printer should be in the same network accessible to OpenSpecimen server.

For more about installation requirements and instructions, consult the documentation.

Videos, screenshots, and other media

• A demo site of OpenSpecimen can be found here.
• The OpenSpecimen Introductory Video is available at Vimeo.

Entities using OpenSpecimen

Examples of organizations using OpenSpecimen include:

• Washington University (U.S.)
• Johns Hopkins University (U.S.)
• University of Michigan (U.S.)
• University of Nebraska (U.S.)
• Edward Cancer Center (U.S.)
• Notre Dame University (U.S.)
• Thomas Jefferson University (U.S.)
• University of Missouri (U.S.)
• University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (U.S.)
• University of Leicester (U.K.)
• BRISSKit (U.K.)
• University of New South Wales (Australia)
• St. Vincent's Hospital (Australia)
• Victorian Cancer Biobank (Australia)
• Singapore Health (Singapore)
• Sapien Biosciences (India)
• Aga Khan University (Pakistan)
• Children's Cancer Hospital (Egypt)
• National Cancer Institute (Egypt)
• King Hussein Cancer Center (Jordan)

See also

• Krishagni Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

External links

• Krishagni Solutions corporate site
• OpenSpecimen home page
• OpenSpecimen at GitHub
• OpenSpecimen support center
• OpenSpecimen release notes