Setting up a well-organized notebook structure is essential for making the most of your ELN, and can easily be shared or standardized across your team. By taking the time to establish folder and page structures, you can streamline your workflow, maximize the utility of ELN features, and efficiently onboard other team members.
This article walks you through an example ELN page, demonstrating how a researcher might organize and record an experiment using the various ELN entry types and tools available. This example incorporates common best practices from the LabArchives ELN community.
Recording Experiments in Your Notebook
With the ability to duplicate pages without file attachments, you can turn any existing page into a reusable template that can be iterated over time. In this example, a single experiment run gets recorded within its own unique page, with each page organized under a folder that is specific to that experiment type.
Depending on your needs, different experiments may require different page templates depending on the type of data uploaded or the software integrations (ie. Prism, Snapgene, Chemdraw, etc.) that can be taken advantage of.
To organize pages within a folder, we recommend standardizing a naming convention based on date, such as “YYYY/MM/DD - Experiment Type”
Organizing Page Sections
Similar to paper notebooks, a notebook page may contain the experiment’s protocol, experimental observations, raw data, and/or final data.
Header Entries are often used to visually separate these sections of the notebook page.
Experiment Design / Protocol
Protocols for an experiment are typically written using an RTE entry or as a Microsoft Word attachment. An additional RTE entry might be used to note modifications. You can also use hyperlinks within RTE entries or entry links to refer to past experiments in which the protocol was used.
If your lab also uses LabArchives Inventory, you can add an Inventory List entry to note specific samples or consumables used within the experiment. Any time an Inventory item is documented in the ELN via Inventory list, it will also be recorded in LabArchives Inventory with links back to all ELN pages in which it is used.
Experiment Notes and Observations
For bench experiments, you can dedicate a section in your notebook page to recording experiment notes or live observations. These notes are typically recorded using RTE entries.
When recording notes in real-time during an experiment, users can create a separate RTE entry for each unique observation to have multiple time-stamped entries.
Users can also use LabArchives on their mobile browsers to easily take notes at the lab bench or upload photos taken on their mobile devices (including photos of handwritten notes).
Raw Data and Analyses
An experiment page can contain a section specifically for uploading raw data or analysis files.
This includes images and Microsoft Office files, both of which can be directly viewed or edited from within the browser. In this example, an excel sheet is used for calculating the final results and is uploaded as an editable file attachment.
For image attachments, the Image Annotator tool can be used to mark or highlight an image, as demonstrated with the red arrows in the second image below.
When reviewing data, team members can leave comments on specific entries and notify specific users using the @ mention feature.
Final Data and Conclusions
A section may be dedicated to uploading the “final” data.
This might include a formatted figure of the experiment results, including images, pdf’s, and PowerPoint slides. PowerPoint slides are particularly useful for formatted figures since they can be edited directly within your browser.
For those with GraphPad Prism, prism files can be uploaded and accessed directly from the Prism application via the LabArchives-Prism integration.
Both the Microsoft and Prism integrations can be useful to ensure version control and eliminate the need for local files among team members.
In the example illustration, tags are also used to note that a particular entry is publication-ready.