Electronic Lab Notebook

The Centre is pioneering the use of Electronic Work Book from IDBS, an Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) which has been selected for use throughout the Chemistry Department at Cambridge.

Experiments are at the heart of the activities of research scientists.  Scientists use numerous sources to plan their experiments; running an experiment generates many data outputs.  The ELN is at the hub of the wheel of research data, capturing the inputs and outputs, recording their context and the links between them.

In addition to assisting individual researchers to record their work, the ELN will provide a collective memory for the benefit of future generations.  Typically, researchers in university departments stay for 3-4 years, so it can be a challenge to find out experiences of previous group members.  While the legacy of successful projects is retained in the literature, it can often be just as useful to know about unsuccessful experiments.  The ELN keeps a record of all experiences, and makes them searchable both as text and as chemical structures.

Storing original data and its context has other benefits in the future.  The ability to tag and cross-reference work streamlines the writing up of doctoral theses and the submission of papers.  It is increasingly common for journals or funding agencies to request that original data be made available; it can require a huge effort to collate this information if was not organised when it was originally generated.  The ELN improves the protection of Intellectual Property, and can help prepare reports required for the regulatory authorities.

The ELN improves the way that a scientist can explore and use their data by enabling  captured data to become “active”.  Plug-in applications within the ELN allow graphs and displays to be dynamic and interactive, enabling the researcher to enlarge chosen portions of a graph, or to rotate complex visualisations.

Introducing the ELN is just the start.  It is the base on which further innovations can be built in order to facilitate the way that research is done at Cambridge.  Future efforts will be made to automate links to other systems, and to find optimum ways for chemists to interact with the ELN in the laboratory.

See IDBS for more details of Chembook.
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