Electronic lab notebooks (ELN) for chemistry

Hi Philipp,
Whilst I have no direct experience of ELNs myself, the following resources may be of interest:
Last year, a working group at the University of Cambridge, UK undertook a trial of some ELN systems and came up with the following guidance for researchers who are interested in adopting an Electronic Lab Notebook system for documenting research and managing data: https://www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/institute-life/computing/elnguidance
Daureen Nesdill at the University of Utah has produced the following library guide to ELNs which looks to contain some useful information: http://campusguides.lib.utah.edu/ELNs.
Some personal thoughts from me on Open Source vs Commercial systems: There’s presumably no reason why a commercial solution can’t be configured to provide access to all and thus support an Open Science policy. Conversely, I am sure there are Open Source solutions that can be configured to prevent public access! Whilst there may be philosophical reasons for supporting Open Source solutions over Commercial ones, these are perhaps tangential to access permissions and whether or not a system can enable Open Science.
Whichever system you choose, an important consideration in my view is the ability to export data and information in formats that can be ingested into a different system should there be a need to move away – in other words, avoiding vendor lock-in. Ideally these formats should be standard formats of course – cataloguing these for chemistry is one of the projects that the chemistry data community are currently engaged in.
I hope this response is useful.
Kind regards,
Ian.
- Show quoted text -From: philipp.conzett=***@***.***-groups.org [mailto:***@***.***-groups.org] On Behalf Of ***@***.***
Sent: 05 February 2018 14:06
To: Chemistry Research Data IG <***@***.***-groups.org>
Subject: [chemistry-research-data] Electronic lab notebooks (ELN) for chemistry
The research data management (RDM) services at our university have got a request from a research group within organic chemistry asking for advice on what kind of electronic lab notebooks (ELN) they should use. They have done some review and concluded that Signals from PerkinElmer would do a good job.
Since the RDM policy of our university is promoting open science, our imediate thought was that a open source ELN would probably be more suitable. Some possible candidates would be sciNOTE and Indigo ELN. However, we don't have any clear guidelines on use of ELN at our university yet.
Therefore, I would like to ask whether anyone in the Chemistry Research Data IG has any thoughts or recommendations for ELNs for chemistry.
Any feedback is highly appreciated.
Best regards,
Philipp
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Thanks, Ian, for valuable input!

Best,
Philipp

Dear All,
Over the weekend, this comparison spreadsheet of ELNs was shared on Twitter from Harvard Medical School. It looks very useful:
https://datamanagement.hms.harvard.edu/electronic-lab-notebooks
Enjoy,
Vin
—
Vincent F. Scalfani, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
University Libraries
The University of Alabama
109 Rodgers Library
Box 870266
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487
Phone 205-348-5806
***@***.*** | 0000-0002-7363-531X
- Show quoted text -From: bruno=***@***.***-groups.org [mailto:***@***.***-groups.org] On Behalf Of ijbruno
Sent: Monday, February 5, 2018 8:45 AM
To: ***@***.***; Chemistry Research Data IG <***@***.***-groups.org>
Subject: Re: [chemistry-research-data] Electronic lab notebooks (ELN) for chemistry
Hi Philipp,
Whilst I have no direct experience of ELNs myself, the following resources may be of interest:
Last year, a working group at the University of Cambridge, UK undertook a trial of some ELN systems and came up with the following guidance for researchers who are interested in adopting an Electronic Lab Notebook system for documenting research and managing data: https://www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/institute-life/computing/elnguidance
Daureen Nesdill at the University of Utah has produced the following library guide to ELNs which looks to contain some useful information: http://campusguides.lib.utah.edu/ELNs.
Some personal thoughts from me on Open Source vs Commercial systems: There’s presumably no reason why a commercial solution can’t be configured to provide access to all and thus support an Open Science policy. Conversely, I am sure there are Open Source solutions that can be configured to prevent public access! Whilst there may be philosophical reasons for supporting Open Source solutions over Commercial ones, these are perhaps tangential to access permissions and whether or not a system can enable Open Science.
Whichever system you choose, an important consideration in my view is the ability to export data and information in formats that can be ingested into a different system should there be a need to move away – in other words, avoiding vendor lock-in. Ideally these formats should be standard formats of course – cataloguing these for chemistry is one of the projects that the chemistry data community are currently engaged in.
I hope this response is useful.
Kind regards,
Ian.
From: philipp.conzett=***@***.***-groups.org [mailto:***@***.***-groups.org] On Behalf Of ***@***.***
Sent: 05 February 2018 14:06
To: Chemistry Research Data IG <***@***.***-groups.org>
Subject: [chemistry-research-data] Electronic lab notebooks (ELN) for chemistry
The research data management (RDM) services at our university have got a request from a research group within organic chemistry asking for advice on what kind of electronic lab notebooks (ELN) they should use. They have done some review and concluded that Signals from PerkinElmer would do a good job.
Since the RDM policy of our university is promoting open science, our imediate thought was that a open source ELN would probably be more suitable. Some possible candidates would be sciNOTE and Indigo ELN. However, we don't have any clear guidelines on use of ELN at our university yet.
Therefore, I would like to ask whether anyone in the Chemistry Research Data IG has any thoughts or recommendations for ELNs for chemistry.
Any feedback is highly appreciated.
Best regards,
Philipp
--
Full post: https://www.rd-alliance.org/group/chemistry-research-data-ig/post/electr...
Manage my subscriptions: https://www.rd-alliance.org/mailinglist
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Dear All,
Over the weekend, this comparison spreadsheet of ELNs was shared on Twitter from Harvard Medical School. It looks very useful:
https://datamanagement.hms.harvard.edu/electronic-lab-notebooks
Enjoy,
Vin
—
Vincent F. Scalfani, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
University Libraries
The University of Alabama
109 Rodgers Library
Box 870266
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487
Phone 205-348-5806
***@***.*** | 0000-0002-7363-531X
From: bruno=***@***.***-groups.org [mailto:***@***.***-groups.org] On Behalf Of ijbruno
Sent: Monday, February 5, 2018 8:45 AM
To: ***@***.***; Chemistry Research Data IG <***@***.***-groups.org>
Subject: Re: [chemistry-research-data] Electronic lab notebooks (ELN) for chemistry
Hi Philipp,
Whilst I have no direct experience of ELNs myself, the following resources may be of interest:
Last year, a working group at the University of Cambridge, UK undertook a trial of some ELN systems and came up with the following guidance for researchers who are interested in adopting an Electronic Lab Notebook system for documenting research and managing data: https://www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/institute-life/computing/elnguidance
Daureen Nesdill at the University of Utah has produced the following library guide to ELNs which looks to contain some useful information: http://campusguides.lib.utah.edu/ELNs.
Some personal thoughts from me on Open Source vs Commercial systems: There’s presumably no reason why a commercial solution can’t be configured to provide access to all and thus support an Open Science policy. Conversely, I am sure there are Open Source solutions that can be configured to prevent public access! Whilst there may be philosophical reasons for supporting Open Source solutions over Commercial ones, these are perhaps tangential to access permissions and whether or not a system can enable Open Science.
Whichever system you choose, an important consideration in my view is the ability to export data and information in formats that can be ingested into a different system should there be a need to move away – in other words, avoiding vendor lock-in. Ideally these formats should be standard formats of course – cataloguing these for chemistry is one of the projects that the chemistry data community are currently engaged in.
I hope this response is useful.
Kind regards,
Ian.
- Show quoted text -From: philipp.conzett=***@***.***-groups.org [mailto:***@***.***-groups.org] On Behalf Of ***@***.***
Sent: 05 February 2018 14:06
To: Chemistry Research Data IG <***@***.***-groups.org>
Subject: [chemistry-research-data] Electronic lab notebooks (ELN) for chemistry
The research data management (RDM) services at our university have got a request from a research group within organic chemistry asking for advice on what kind of electronic lab notebooks (ELN) they should use. They have done some review and concluded that Signals from PerkinElmer would do a good job.
Since the RDM policy of our university is promoting open science, our imediate thought was that a open source ELN would probably be more suitable. Some possible candidates would be sciNOTE and Indigo ELN. However, we don't have any clear guidelines on use of ELN at our university yet.
Therefore, I would like to ask whether anyone in the Chemistry Research Data IG has any thoughts or recommendations for ELNs for chemistry.
Any feedback is highly appreciated.
Best regards,
Philipp
--
Full post: https://www.rd-alliance.org/group/chemistry-research-data-ig/post/electr...
Manage my subscriptions: https://www.rd-alliance.org/mailinglist
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