Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELNs)

Chemotion is an Open Source Electronic Laboratory Notebook for chemical researchers. The Chemotion ELN is equipped with the basic functionalities necessary for the acquisition and processing of chemical data, in particular the work with molecular structures and calculations based on molecular properties. The ELN allows the search for molecules and reactions not only within the user’s data but also in conventional external sources as provided by SciFinder and PubChem. The ELN provides tools to share data in the Chemotion Data Repository. More information available at: Tremouilhac, P., Nguyen, A., Huang, Y. et al. Chemotion ELN: an Open Source electronic lab notebook for chemists in academia. J Cheminform 9, 54 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13321-017-0240-0

This guideline helps researchers to use OneNote as an Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN). It provides tips to adapt OneNote to an ELN workflow with a focus on the biomedical sciences, which can be adjusted to other nonscientific ELNs. It covers several topics such as how to structure and label experiments, data acquisition and representation. It also provides relevant recommendations on how to approach data storage and security to comply with applicable legislation.

The University of Glasgow has prepared a detailed guideline on how to use Microsoft OneNote as a research notebook. It guides researchers from the initial steps of accessing the software and setting up a notebook, to more specific functionalities such as inserting tables, images, equations. It also provides information onhow to manage and share content.

The University of Glasgow run a work package between 2018 and 2019 to investigate the user requirements for Electronic Research Notebooks (ELNs). They organized a series of workshops to understand user needs, and run software trials to increase the interest and understand barriers inhibiting the uptake of ELNs. The results and conclusions of the exercise have now been published.