The advantage of digital lab books is significant given the possibility to easily store, port, and search them. The only potential disadvantage is to ensure an unchangeable digital record of your labbook is maintained, just for legal reasons. Therefore, please follow this guidance:
- Use any system of your choice to log information when you are in the laboratory
- Keep a record of experiments, observations and analysis in OneNote
- Every month, export the relevant pages as pdf for storage on the NAS
1. In the laboratory (SOPs)
Ensure your activities are properly risk assessed and protocols are well defined, either as stand-alone documents or SOPs. I advise generating visual SOPs (see templates in the H&S folder) that could be printed/laminated and used in the lab. At each use, you can add temporary notes on the SOP, then take a picture and upload them to your OneNote.
While we can’t be flexible with Risk Assessment, it is completely understandable that occasionally we tweak protocols or borrow protocols from other groups. Ensure these are at least reported in your OneNote to support the reproducibility of your data. However, if protocols are on old laboratory files, or are new and become used routinely, invest some time to make appropriate SOPs.
2. At the office (OneNote)
We are all extremely busy, but do invest some time in curating your lab book. The use of OneNote for experimental work is mandatory, but you might also use OneNote for meeting notes, ideas, etc.
You are expected to share the Lab Book at least with the PI.
Your Lab Book should be at least organised by date. As you see below, each year, each month has a section.
Each section should have an entry corresponding either to a day or a week
Make sure that from the lab book you can identify the location of data
3. Storage and archiving
The easiest way to store your Notebook is in the OneDrive folder. However, it is important you follow this guidance.
Every month, export the corresponding section of the Notebook as a pdf to be stored in your project folder on the NAS.
Lastly, when you stop working for Brunel, your OneDrive account will be closed. Make sure the entire mirror copy of your data and notes are stored on the NAS, as this is the only way to ensure long term storage, and retrieval of information.