Taverna Mobile: Taverna workflows on Android

TL;DR

Taverna Mobile is an Android application enabling scientists to browse, execute, and review scientific workflows remotely, facilitating on-the-go access and management of workflows during conferences, lab work, or commuting.

Contribution

This paper introduces Taverna Mobile, a mobile app that extends workflow management to Android devices, focusing on essential tasks for scientists outside the desktop environment.

Findings

Enables browsing and executing workflows on Android devices

Allows monitoring of long-running workflows remotely

Supports quick access to workflows during scientific activities

Abstract

Researchers are often on the move, say at conferences or projects meetings, and as workflows are becoming ubiquitous in the scientific process, having access to scientific workflows from a mobile device would be a significant advantage. We therefore have developed Taverna Mobile, an application for Android phones which allows browsing of existing workflows, executing them, and reviewing the results. Taverna Mobile does not aim to reproduce the full experience of building workflows in the Taverna Workbench, rather it focuses on tasks we have deemed relevant to a scientist that is not at her desk. For instance, when visiting a conference she might hear about someone's workflow, which she can quickly locate and mark for later exploration. When in the biology lab, faced with updated scientific data, the scientist can rerun her own workflow with new inputs. While commuting, she can monitor the status of a long-running job.