eLabJournal and RSpace
Jones recounts her frustration with relying on paper notebooks to record experiments. “It becomes problematic when you need to replicate experiments or continue a research project conducted by a researcher who has since left your institution without documenting their work properly.” Jones identifies some difficulties of understanding handwritten information (including her own!) “Locating and interpreting data from past experiments can be challenging using paper notebooks”, she admits. “Finally, after rifling through pages of scribbled diagrams, photocopies and post-it notes you find the experiment you’ve been searching for and it can be impossible to decipher the handwriting and bridge the gaps of missing information”. These problems sound all too familiar to most lab-based scientists and have increased the demand for digital solutions, such as ELNs, that can improve the rigour, robustness and reproducibility of scientific research.
Dr. Siân Jones, quote taken from Keep calm and go paperless: Electronic lab notebooks can improve your research. CC-BY-4.0
An electronic laboratory notebook (ELN), also called a digital lab notebook, offers a text editor for writing notes similar to a paper notebook, along with spreadsheet tools for calculations and formatting tables and graphs. They include protocol templates to record standard procedures and laboratory inventories to keep track of samples, reagents, and equipment. Additionally, ELNs provide collaboration tools to share experimental information with others, making them a straightforward solution to research documentation.
TU Delft has a subscription to eLABJournal and RSpace ELNs, and both offer similar functionalities.