User support, training and outreach

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.

The Library service of Standford University has compiled a series of case studies with examples of good and bad practices about different RDM topics, such as file organization and naming, data storage, metadata, spreadsheets and publishing data online. The examples explain the consequences of bad practices and provide solutions.

Utrecht University organises regular workshops to teach R basics: data handling and visualisation, and making research reproducible with R and R Markdown. The R Café has a more informal set-up, where researchers with R programming skills can meet and learn from each other, or from prepared exercises.