Skip to main content

Seekest thou the road to, all that’s digital and FAIR – the Ballad of the ELN Journey

About the Webinar​

This Webinar, presented by Dr. Samantha Pearman-Kanza, explores the sociotechnical challenges of implementing Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs) to achieve FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data in research labs. Through PSDI, she has evaluated diverse ELN solutions, uncovering key barriers and strategies for success.

Abstract​

​With the ever increasing realisation that a majority of scientific research that is published is not “FAIR” (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) there has been a strong push in recent years to implement digital tools within the labs (namely Electronic Lab Notebooks) to combat this. However, implementing an Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) is no mean feat, it is a sociotechnical challenge with a range of barriers and considerations that need to be taken into account if this is to be achieved successfully. Furthermore, we need to understand that implementing an ELN is not the end of the journey; digital tools and digitally produced data are arguably no more FAIR than the original paper based lab book if they are not utilised to their full extent. Through PSDI we have worked on a number of case studies to examine and evaluate ELN implementations, ranging from in-house custom solutions, to fully fledged industrial solutions, across both teaching and research laboratories, which have vastly enriched our insight on these complex matters.

Join Samantha to delve into her twisty turny decade long journey in the trials and tribulations of implementing Electronic Lab Notebooks, and despite the title, she promises she won’t sing!

Biography​

Dr. Samantha Pearman-Kanza is a Principal Enterprise Fellow at the University of Southampton. She is the Principal Investigator for the Careers and Skills for Data-driven Research Network, and the Pathfinder Lead on Process Recording for the Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI) Initiative.

Samantha sits on the Advisory Boards for the Future Labs Live Conference in Basel, London Labs Live in the UK, the Machines Learning Chemistry Project at the University of Nottingham, and the Knowledger Project at the University of North Florida, in addition to being a member of the UK electronic information Group (UKeiG) STRIX Committee. She is also a regular columnist for the Lab Horizons Magazine under the name CompSci Cat, discussing important issues around process recording and FAIR data. Samantha’s key research areas are ELNs, process recording, FAIR data, data stewardship and research data management, and semantic web technologies.

Watch the recording​

You can watch this recording via our You Tube channel. Slides are available on Zenodo.

What to do next​

Related links:

About this page

If you would like to contribute content to the PSDI Knowledge Base or have feedback you would like to give on this guidance, please contact us.