Electronic Lab Notebooks in Research
Why bother with ELNS?
Electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs), when used in research labs, can allow for increased efficiency in recording experimental results, help maintain data provenance, and provide greater reproducibility. An ELN can also allow managers and/or principal investigators to oversee lab research and manage documentation in a structured way to meet regulatory requirements. Furthermore, the ability to integrate ELNs containing preclinical research data to patient information stored in electronic medical records or electronic health records can be a boon for clinical data managers seeking to improve traceability.
Alongside the specific benefits listed above, the use of ELNs for lab research can provide several other benefits. For example, adherence to the FAIR data principles recognized by the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Data Science Strategy can make academic labs favorable candidates to receive federal funding.
Broadly speaking, digital records stored on a web-based ELN can allow PIs and lab managers to prevent loss of information due to personnel turnover, accidental damage to physical devices like laptops, or illegible handwritten laboratory records. All these measures can make experimental results easier to find and share.
It is important to note that the benefits of ELNS are often felt by organizations in the long term accompanied by future employees who will need access to protocols and historical context. So, research labs must convince their current employees to take on the burden of learning a new software, by first allowing them to weigh the pros and cons.
What are the caveats?
The transition from paper notebooks to ELNs is not without challenges. The current market for life sciences software consists of a vast variety of products that can assist lab researchers in documenting experiments, workflows, and protocols while allowing for collaboration. The process of choosing the right ELN is a difficult one, and must account for budget, ease of use, scalability, and whether the software of choice will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future. A review paper in Nature shows that since the 1980s numerous opensource and proprietary ELNs have emerged and have been sunsetted. With that in mind, a major concern for many organizations is whether or not to invest in a platform that might be defunct in the future.
Even after accounting for the above needs, an important yet hard to define issue lies ahead — user adoptability. Organizations face loss of time and resources when their users are unable and/or unwilling to adopt ELNs into their routine record-keeping.
A real-world example
A 2022 study published in the Journal of the Medical Library Association presents a case study for implementing an institution-wide ELN for 800+ lab researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine. The study consists of two stages — an initial pilot with a small subset of 67 users that was followed by a survey to record reasons for successful adoption. Ultimately followed by a full implementation spanning a one-year period and expansion to 829 users. The pilot study was an invaluable fact-finding practice that allowed the lab data management team to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
This case study is especially impactful due to the sheer number of scientists who were able to successfully adopt to the use of ELNs. At the end, the authors summarize the main strategies to encourage cultural and behavioral change in researchers that can result in successful ELN implementation.
The authors found that there were 5 key drivers of change:
Infrastructure — Centralizing licensing and easy access to ELN accounts for all lab scientists on a cloud-based platform. This allowed users to access the software from anywhere - either their personal device or a lab computer.
Interfaces and User Experience — Lab scientists reported that their work became easier and more efficient after switching to an ELN, specifically through the use of experimental templates, shared protocols with their team, standard naming conventions, and widgets for routine analysis/calculations.
Communities — Establishing resources and avenues that allow users to share knowledge can help create safe spaces to learn. Popular mediums include wikis, office hours, or dedicated groups on chat-based apps like Slack.
Incentives — In this study, users were mainly incentivized via added efficiency to their work and the ability to use handheld devices like mobile phones and tablets in their laboratory workflow. However, there are other strategies smaller organizations can employ; for example, an established weekly social hour for lab workers to collectively update and share ELNs.
Policy — In order to change research culture and behavior, an organization’s policies must directly address ELNs. In addition, the policies should clearly describe how ELNs should be used and their net benefit to the organization.
A technical and cultural challenge
Biologists have been writing their observations by hand since the 1800s when Darwin drew his beloved finches and Mendel noticed an interesting pattern in pea plants.
Transition from the longstanding practice of handwritten lab records to ELNs is not just a technical hurdle but also a social one. To successfully implement ELNs and other laboratory information management systems, organizations must focus not just on the technical side of handling data, but also the key catalysts of behavioral changes in scientists conducting bench science. At the end of the day, scientists want software that can shorten the time spent on administrative tasks like note-taking, searching and keeping data clean.
References
Considerations for implementing electronic laboratory notebooks in an academic research environment https://www.nature.com/articles/s41596-021-00645-8
The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship
NIH FAIR Data Strategy
Implementing an institution-wide electronic lab notebook initiative
Note: I previously wrote this article for the Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) shared here with additional references for a wider audience