Electronic Lab NotebooksITC – 2/18/2011

Jan Cheetham & Alan Wolf DoIT – ATCheryl Scadlock & Victoria Sutton WARF

Lab notebooks are used to document research, experiments

and procedures.

By Julia Manzerova

Electronic lab notebooks replicate traditional lab notebooks offering both

advantages to paper versions, but challenges as well.

Why?

• Researchers contacting WARF & DoIT• Interest expressed at lab notebook workshops• Labs & departments exploring ELNs

independently • ELNs could improve – record keeping– collaboration– data management

Project outline

• Determine needs• Determine requirements and feasibility • Identify participants • Identify ELN tools and plan pilots • Implement pilots • Evaluate pilots and provide recommendations

for next steps

Decision making

• Decision to proceed, reassess, or stop at each project milestone

• Executive committee– Sarah Castello (Grad School)– Irwin Goldman (CALS)– Steve Harsy (SMPH)– Jim Muehlenberg (DoIT – AT)

Current practice

• While using paper notebooks, many have digital workflows shoehorned into notebooks

• Digital data sets referenced in notebook• Back ups are rare• Searching requires knowing who and when • Consistency of practice within labs varies

greatly

Interest in ELNs

• Market research finds significant growth in ELN implementation

• ~50% of respondents to survey of Biotech Center Sequencing Core users express interest

• Interviews– Most noted significant digital workflows– Many would consider being part of a pilot– Represents the future of data recording

Where are we?

• Establishing requirements• Surveying available products• Select products for testing

• Pilot groups • Evaluate pilots • Make recommendations

Other considerations

• Primary audience are traditional LN users– However, we will consider wider utility

• We are exploring commercial products– We could find no viable open source candidates

• Products hosted off-site as SaaS