Why did your lab decide to start using an electronic lab notebook (ELN) system?
We expect that there will be more expectations in the future [for EU research projects] to have some kind of data management plan – on how you will record the data that you gather, how you will store it, and how other people will be able to access it.
Can you tell us a bit about your work?
The Wigner Research Center for Physics is one of the largest research centers in Hungary. Members of the research center study a wide range of topics, from particle physics to space physics, and from theoretical physics to applied research.
Among them, we have chemistry and materials science groups who produce the samples and materials used in quantum physics experiments.
For example, we are testing and characterizing the physical properties of different materials to see what can be used as a basic unit (quantum bit; qubit) in a quantum computer. One of the materials we are working with is the nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond.
Why did your lab decide to start using an electronic lab notebook (ELN) system?
One of my supervisors gave me the responsibility to try out digital systems that we can use to document our scientific work. This is a requirement for all European Union-based projects. We expect that there will be more expectations in the future to have some kind of data management plan – on how you will record the data that you gather, how you will store it, and how other people will be able to access it.
There are recommendations that we can follow, but we decided we need a tool that can help us with data management, which is otherwise pretty boring thing to do. I looked into a few options and reviewed some promising ones. In the end, I found out that SciNote is one that’s the most well-built and takes data management most seriously, while others did not meet these expectations.
We expect that there will be more expectation in the future to have some kind of data management plan – on how you will record the data that you gather, how you will store it, and how other people will be able to access it.
What was your first impression of SciNote in your selection process?
I feel that those whoever built SciNote worked hard to make sure the structure of SciNote is well-thought-out, and that it is easy to use. The user interface is clean and simple. At the same time, SciNote has all (or most) of the features that we need – a critical one being the search ability. For example, if I need to find some specific results, I can type the keyword in the search bar, and then I can find it. This is not the case with other basic note-taking software or electronic lab notebook systems.
Plenty of other features also look promising to us, such as protocols and report generation. In the future, we are hoping to test out the manuscript writer feature.
I feel that those whoever built SciNote worked hard to make sure the structure of SciNote is well-thought-out, and that it is easy to use.
What was the process of implementing SciNote in your lab?
At the moment, SciNote is being used by the experimental group, most of whom are chemists. Electronic lab notebooks are particular useful here because as chemists, you need to document every single measurement of the materials you are using.
There are still a few practical difficulties we are trying to solve. For example, if you work in a lab where you handle toxic materials, you would want to avoid typing when you have gloves on, or placing a laptop or tablet on the lab bench where chemicals could spill. A smart phone might work better here, given that it can be placed safely in my pocket, but I still need to remove my gloves before I can enter anything. I hope that in the future, things like smart labs, smart glasses, or voice commands will help resolve this problem.
Some people are also working on how best to incorporate lab notebooks into their electronic lab notebook; I hope they will finally realize how this is the best way to safeguard their data and for them to easily find what they are looking for in the future. If they feel this is good for their research, I hope slowly they will document their work in the electronic lab notebook more frequently.
What benefits did you see after you started using SciNote?
A benefit of implementing SciNote has been that lab members can see each other’s lab notes, giving the possibility to learn from each other. An electronic lab notebook can make it very efficient for group members to work together.
The other benefit is that recorded data will be stored forever in a readable form, versus people’s writing, which is sometimes not actually readable. You could also enter many other types of data, from photos, data sheets, to voice and video recordings. Basically, you can use the platform for all the possibilities that digital systems can give us.
A benefit of implementing SciNote has been that lab members can see each other’s lab notes, giving the possibility to learn from each other.
How does SciNote fit into your workdays, and where is it the most helpful?
Before we use SciNote, we tried many other software solutions, sometimes in combinations. But those other software products are not designed to work interchangeably. People can’t figure out how to do one thing in one software and then need to switch to another software for another thing. Now we can simply use one single software anywhere because SciNote is cloud-based.
With SciNote, group members can figure out which protocols are most commonly used, and everyone can have access to the same protocols and use them. Also, as long as you do your note taking well, report generation is very easy – in just a few clicks – and you don’t need to spend hours to put together lab reports for group meetings anymore.
SciNote’s inventory management function is also amazing, especially with the new stock management function. All the materials and consumptions we have in the lab can be tracked and traced back. I also see this preparing us for the next step in preparatory chemistry, which is the automation of experiments – and that requires a very good inventory system, and this is in SciNote. So, I can see in the future, SciNote will be a good platform for these automated labs.
Before we use SciNote, we tried many other software solutions, sometimes in combinations. But those other software products are not designed to work interchangeably. People can’t figure out how to do one thing in one software and then need to switch to another software for another thing. Now we can simply use one single software anywhere because SciNote is cloud-based.
Do you have any tips for those who are considering SciNote?
It’s a good thing that SciNote provides nice videos, courses, tutorials, and examples to learn the platforms. They helped me learn a lot about SciNote’s capacities and features. Since I couldn’t request everyone to watch all the videos and read all the materials, I sat down with everyone one by one to show them what I learned.
So, if one person in the group puts in the efforts to go through all the materials and really understand the features, this person can really show the other group members how things work one by one.
If one person in the group puts in the efforts to go through all the materials and really understand the features, this person can really show the other group members how things work one by one.
This testimonial was prepared based on a video interview with János Tamási from the Wigner Research Centre for Physics.
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