1. Facility Access & Onboarding

Card key access to XRD facilities is managed by the METRIC Operations Coordinator (or designee). To gain access, users must complete the onboarding process below.

Step 1: Complete Prerequisite Safety Training

Register for these courses via Reporter:

• NCSU Laboratory Safety Training – EHPS-LS103 Safety Orientation Checklist
  • Note: If you are actively working in a research lab, you have likely completed this already.
• General Analytical X-Ray Safety Training – EHPS-RS200 Analytical X-ray Safety.
  • Note: A refresher course (EHPS-RS201) is required every 4 years.
  • Action: Print your completion certificate; you must bring it to your hands-on training.

Step 2: Establish Financial Agreements

Before scheduling instrument specific training, ensure the appropriate paperwork is active in the Lab Management Portal:

• Internal Users:  Must have an active Financial Agreement. PIs are responsible for maintaining active agreements, including setting up agreements for new grant awards and adding/removing participants as the research group changes over time.
• External Users: Signed Services Order Form and a Lab Use Agreement (if working onsite). ID card acquisition will be facilitated by METRIC administration.

*** Please note that all stated service rates are regularly evaluated by the Office of Facilities and Administrative Analysis, which is responsible for reviewing and approving use rates for service centers that anticipate charging Federal Contract and Grant projects and/or external Federal customers. Although we cannot definitively project future rate increases, users should anticipate 2 – 5 % increases annually.***

Step 3: Request Instrument Training & Card Activation

1. Request hands-on training via the Lab Management Portal. (See below.)
2. Once training is complete and financial forms are verified, please complete the X-ray Diffraction Card Access Request. This process typically takes 1 – 2 business days.

⚠️ Strict Access Policy: Sharing your ID card to grant facility access to unauthorized individuals is strictly prohibited and will result in an immediate loss of facility privileges.

2. Instrument-Specific Training

All users must complete hands-on training on their selected diffractometer before receiving unsupervised facility access.

Licensing & Compliance: During training, you and your instructor will complete and sign a instrument-specific training checklist. This checklist, along with your X-ray safety certificate, will be filed in the facility’s safety binder to comply with the requirements of our state instrument license.

What to Expect:  A qualified instructor will cover general safety, proper operation, and technique-specific configurations. A multi-phase training program spanning several supervised sessions over a narrow, multi-day timeframe is required to learn crystal handling, instrument operation, and data processing. The length of hands-on instruction will depend on the nature of the samples under study to ensure new users gain the competence needed to independently generate publishable crystallographic results. Similarly, the sample type must be considered when scheduling instrument time; please discuss the recommended time allowances with METRIC staff.

Shared-Facility Reminder: Because this is a shared space, the instrument configuration may differ from how the previous user left it. Always verify the setup before beginning your run.

3. Instrument Reservations & Workstation Use

Booking & Logbooks

• Reservations: You must reserve instrument time in advance via the Lab Management Portal.
  • Note: The minimum reservation time is one hour.
• Usage Tracking: Record your actual instrument usage time in the Lab Management Portal. Check in at the start of use and check out when data collection is complete.
  • Note: Please notify METRIC staff if your run ends significantly earlier than expected so that others can adjust their start times.
• Physical Logbooks: You are required to log your experimental details in the physical logbook located at the instrument workstation using the designated format.
• Scheduling priority: Reservations are assigned in the following order: Internal NC State users, External Academic and Federal users, and External Industry and Commercial users, reflecting the facility’s primary mission to support NC State research and education while also providing access to the broader scientific and industrial communities when capacity permits.

Technical Support

• If an instrument malfunctions or goes down during use, immediately report the issue here:
  • Bruker D8 Venture Technical Support Request.
  • Rigaku Micro-MAX 007 Technical Support Request.

Workstation Restrictions

Workstations are dedicated strictly to instrument control, data acquisition, and data processing. To protect instrument integrity and cybersecurity:

• No external hard drives or flash drives are permitted.
• No personal web browsing or unauthorized program downloads are allowed.

4. Laboratory Safety & Sample Management

Chemical Restrictions: Instrument rooms lack the required safety infrastructure (e.g., eye washes, safety showers) for long-term chemical storage or complex chemical manipulation.

Sample Removal: Bring samples into the facility only for active data collection. Remove them promptly when your session ends.

Spills: Users are responsible for immediately cleaning up any chemical spills. Involve Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) immediately if the spill is hazardous or cannot be safely managed.

Equipment Damage: If equipment is damaged due to user misuse or negligence, the user’s PI (or the external organization) will be billed for the cost of repairs.

5. Data Retention Policy

METRIC stores raw and processed data for a minimum of 1 week post data collection.

• After one week, METRIC assumes no responsibility for data storage.
• Users are highly encouraged to securely transfer their data immediately following acquisition and processing.

6. Citations & Authorship

Institutional Citation

To support our funding and continued operations, users must cite METRIC in any publications, presentations, or grant proposals utilizing data collected at the facility. Please use the following text:

“This work was performed in part by the Molecular Education, Technology and Research Innovation Center (METRIC) at NC State University, which is supported by the State of North Carolina.”

Authorship Policy

Co-authorship on scientific papers should be extended to METRIC staff members who provide meaningful, substantive contributions to the intellectual content or design of the published work, as recommended by ICMJE.

In general, co-authorship is customary when a staff member provides essential intellectual contributions to a publication. This includes non-routine data collection and experiment design, complex structure solution, data interpretation, or drafting crystallographic sections and depositing structural data for publication.

An acknowledgment is appropriate instead of authorship if the data is collected and processed entirely by the user, or if the crystallographer’s contribution is routine—such as verifying a previously known structure or checking text for technical accuracy without adding new structural insights.

To prevent misunderstandings, users are expected to have a candid discussion with staff regarding authorship expectations before any work begins.

7. Policy Enforcement & Violations

Failure to comply with facility policies, safety protocols, or staff instructions will result in the following progressive disciplinary actions:

Violation	Consequences
1st Violation	Written notification of the violation(s) and a formal reminder of facility policies.
2nd Violation	Loss of independent access privileges for 1 month. The user’s PI or supervisor will be notified. Any data collection during this period must be performed by METRIC personnel at the standard hourly staff rate.
3rd Violation	Loss of independent access privileges for a minimum of 6 months. Data collection must be handled by METRIC personnel at the hourly staff rate. The user must undergo full instrument re-certification before independent access is reconsidered.