Data storage, security and compliance requirements The third selection was tendering and live demos. The second selection involved detailed analysis based on user requirements (interviews and evaluation weighted by feature) and price.
The first selection was based on disciplinary and technical requirements. To decide which tool to use they undertook a three phase selection process. The two tools used mostly in Switzerland are SLims (commercial solution) and openBIS (homemade tool). He described a study, as part of a national RDM project, where they separated ELNs (75 proprietary, 12 open source – 91 features) and Lab Info Management Systems (LIMS) (281 proprietary, 9 open source – 95 features) and compared their features. Jan Krause from the École pPolytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) gave a non-UK perspective on ELNs. Getting buy-in from people is the top issue to overcome in implementing an ELN. What they don’t want are the “bells and whistles” features they don’t use. An ELN solution should be easy to use, cross platform, have a browser front end, be generic/adaptable, allow sharing of data and experiments, enforce Standard Operating Procedures when needed, have templates for standard work to minimise repetition, include inputting of data from phones and other non-specific devices. With 99% of their data electronic many of the issues in the use of lab books generally are around data management and not ELNs. It was interesting to hear about bad habits such as storing data in non-standardised ways, missing data, printing out Word documents and sticking them into the lab books. They are hard to read and easy to destroy, a poor return on effort, often disappear and not searchable. He showed how paper log books pile up, deteriorate over time and sometimes include printed information. He reinforced what Alastair had said about ELNs. Marko Hyvönen (Dept of Biochemistry) gave the PI perspective and the issues with an ELN for a biochemical lab. There is clear interest across the school at all levels, but it requires a push with guidance and direction. Researchers want training, voice recognition and remote access. However, when asked for the most important features, cost was less important but ease of use was the most. Cost and complexity were given as the main reasons not to use ELNs. Alastair conducted a survey to gather more detail on the use and requirements of ELNs and received an impressive 345 responses.
The importance of trust frequently came up during the day. Research groups currently use a variety of tools, such as Evernote and Dropbox, and often these are trusted more than ELNs. Alastair Downie ( Gurdon Institute) talked about their requirements for an ELN as well as anxieties and risks of adopting a particular system. The first part of the workshop focussed on the practitioners’ perspective with presentations from the School of Biological Sciences. Institutional and researchers’ perspective on ELNs at Cambridge A poll at the start showed that the majority of the audience were researchers (57%). The audience were mostly from Cambridge, but there was representation from other parts of the UK, as well as Denmark and Germany.
A range of perspectives and experience was given through presentations, group and panel discussions. Its purpose was to open up the discussion about how ELNs are being used in different contexts and formats, and the concerns and motivations for people working in labs. On Friday 13 January I attended the E-Lab Notebooks workshop at the University of Cambridge, organised by Office of Scholarly Communication. Recently, interest in this area has been renewed with the Next Generation Research Environment co-design challenge.
Jisc has been involved in this work through funding projects such as CamELN and LabTrove in the past. To improve on this situation and resolve many of these issues, e-lab notebooks (ELNs) have been developed. They pile on desks and shelves, vary in quality and often include printed data stuck in. However, these paper-based solutions are not ideal when it comes to sharing and preservation. Chris Brown from Jisc wrote an excellent blog post with his reflections of the event* and agreed for us to re-blog it here.įor researchers working in laboratories the importance of recording experiments, results, workflows, etc in a notebook is engrained into you as a student. The Office of Scholarly Communication started 2017 with a discussion about ‘going digital’ – on 13 January 2017 we organised an event at Cambridge University’s Department of Engineering to flesh out the problems preventing researchers from implementing Electronic Lab Notebook solutions.
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