Introduction

The ‘Specimen Type’ dropdown defines the available list of specimen types. Each specimen type belongs to a 'Specimen class,' such as Fluid, Molecular, Tissue, Cell, and others. In recent versions, OpenSpecimen has added the ability to create custom specimen classes and support for multiple specimen units per specimen type per Collection Protocol.

Create ‘Specimen Class’

Before version 10.3, the system supported only four specimen classes: Fluid, Molecular, Tissue, and Cell. However, starting with version 10.3, users can now incorporate additional specimen classes such as plants, microbes, and more, tailored to their specific needs.

  • Navigate to 'Dropdown Manager'

  • Click on the 'Specimen Type' value

  • Click on 'Add'

  • Enter the Class name in ‘Dropdown value', leaving 'Parent Dropdown’ blank.

  • Add the mandatory properties: ‘quantity_unit', ‘concentration_unit’, and ‘container_color_coding’

    Once the new class is added, this can be used as a ‘Parent Dropdown' for new specimen types.

Below are the specimen-type properties

Attribute

Property Name

Property Value

Description

Specimen Type

quantity_unit

Quantity units for the specific specimen type

Used to display the units on the specimen pages. Value can only be plain text. If special characters like symbols need to be used, then they need to be specified under quantity_display_unit. E.g., μg/m3

By default, the units are set at the class level, which will apply to all types under it:

  • Tissue: gm

  • Fluid: ml

  • Molecular: µg

  • Cell: count

Specimen Type

concentration_unit

Concentration unit for the specific specimen type

For example - microgram/ml

Specimen Type

container_color_coding

The colour representing the specimen class in the container location view

For example - background=red, opacity=0.5

 

Create ‘Specimen Type’

  • Navigate to the Dropdown Manager.

  • Click on Specimen Type and click ‘+Add’

  • Select a class (Fluid, Molecular, Tissue, Cell, or custom) - this is required.

  • Enter the specimen type name in the 'Dropdown Value'

  • Add any properties if needed. (Refer to this page for more on properties.)

  • Click ‘+Add’ to save.

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