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Benefits of Digital Notebooks

Electronic notebooks, especially Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs), offer a variety of benefits for researchers and scientists.

Efficient data entry and organisation​

Digital notebooks not only allow users to input text-based information but also enable the integration of various data formats, including photographs, 2D and 3D chemical structures, audio, video, and data files, which would be impossible to include in a paper notebook. With paper notebooks, such data would have to be printed and attached or referenced manually, posing a risk of data loss over time. In contrast, many digital notebooks, especially ELNs, facilitate easy linking of data to experimental notes by creating direct links or embedding the content within the notebook itself. Often this allows all the information relating to a particular experiment to be stored together making it easy to access and understand in context.

For some ELNs it is possible to connect them directly to instruments or other sources of information such as Laboratory Information Systems, Chemical inventories, and other databases making it easier to automatically incorporate information into the notebook.

Many digital notebooks also offer features to record metadata for entries, including a title for the page or experiment, the author's name, and the dates when the content was created. Additionally, some digital notebooks enable categorization and tagging of content, making it easier to search for information, for example, specific experiments or reactions involving particular chemical compounds. In a paper notebook, this task would require manually searching through each page until the desired information is found.

Access​

Digital notebooks and ELNs hosted on servers or in the cloud offer the advantage of being accessible from virtually anywhere, whether it's the office, laboratory, home, or even on the move. These notebooks can be accessed using various devices, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and even mobile phones. While paper notebooks are portable, they are not suitable for all environments, such as cleanrooms, and cannot always be taken out of certain laboratories due to contamination risks. Using different devices, researchers can prepare for experiments outside the lab and record notes directly in the lab, reducing the need for duplicate recordings or delayed documentation.

Collaboration​

A strong advantage of digital notebooks over paper notebooks is readability. It can be difficult to read handwriting, but even where the notes in a digital notebook are captured with a pen, there are often tools to automatically convert them to text format so that they are easier to read and to search.

Beyond readability, sharing paper notebooks is challenging since they can only be accessed by one person at a time. In contrast, digital notebooks allow for real-time sharing of experimental data, protocols, and findings among team members, no matter where they are located. Authorization and authentication settings can be configured to ensure that sensitive data is accessible only to individuals with the appropriate permissions. Additionally, many digital notebooks feature commenting and annotation capabilities, fostering more rapid feedback and better communication. These collaborative features contribute to enhanced productivity and research quality.

Reproducibility and data quality​

Digital notebooks, and ELNs in particular can help enhance the reproducibility and quality of data in a number of ways:

  • Standardised data entry using templates ensures that all the necessary information is captured consistently and in a structured manner for each experiment.
  • Integration with instruments enables data to be captured automatically, improving the accuracy of the recorded data and reducing the chance of errors, for example through transcription errors or misreading the measurements.
  • Integration with databases allows access to relevant literature, datasets, and materials information providing comprehensive background and context for the experiment.
  • Metadata for the experiment can be automatically captured or prompted for by the digital notebook
  • Collaborative features can improve data quality by making review of the notes and data easier and faster
  • Automated calculations and data validation can be used to minimise manual errors in data processing
  • In many ELNs, experiments can easily be duplicated, ensuring that the precise methods, measurements, and calculations are faithfully replicated in subsequent experiments.
  • ELNs help ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and provide clear audit trails for experiments, which is crucial for reproducibility and validation of research.

Backup​

As previously mentioned, paper notebooks are quite fragile, and duplicating them is a labor-intensive manual task. In contrast, digital notebook files or databases can be easily copied and stored in different locations for safekeeping. Additionally, some ELNs offer features that allow the content to be exported into various formats for storage or archiving elsewhere.

Sustainability​

Digital notebooks and ELNs are considered to be more sustainable than paper notebooks for a number of reasons:

  • They reduce the need for paper, which decreases deforestation, water consumption, and carbon emissions associated with paper production, transportation, and disposal.
  • Digital storage and access requires less energy than the physical production and storage of paper notebooks
  • Enhanced collaboration reduces the need for travel and associated environmental impacts

Discipline specific functionality​

ELNs typically have discipline specific functionality that makes them useful for use with particular kinds of scientific research, especially for chemistry, life sciences, biology and related disciplines. Such functionality can include interoperability with commonly used software such as chemical drawing programs, software for designing experiments, and software for viewing chemical and biological structures.

Many ELNs also support laboratory management functions including:

  • Sample tracking
  • Instrument and supply inventories
  • Materials database
  • Freezer management
  • Connectivity to Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS)
  • Protocol and Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs) management

What to do next​

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