Electronic lab notebooks are here

Since 2018, Oxford has been running a pilot electronic lab notebook (ELN) service for its researchers, working with cloud-based provider LabArchives. Available to anyone with an Oxford Single Sign-On (SSO), the Oxford ELN service offers extensive, backed-up, version-controlled storage which has been approved for use with any Oxford data. IT Services is pleased to announce that this service has now left the pilot phase and is available long term. 

Benefits of using an electronic lab notebook 

Handwritten notes with beverage stain

So what is an ELN? Traditionally in scientific laboratories day-to-day activities, experimental plans and compliance information were written up on paper. In recent years, this traditional paper lab notebook has started to be replaced by a digital surrogate: the electronic lab notebook. These systems make it much easier to search research records, and they can hold digital data from instrumentation directly. Even better, they cannot get singed, stained or mislaid.

Who should use ELNs?

Person typing on a laptop - paper notebook to one side

Over 1800 Oxford users have already signed up for our ELN system, and more than 650 are active each month. While most of these are from the more traditional scientific divisions of the University, the system can be used by any researchers looking for a tool to securely store and share data such as documents, images and audio.

Find out more

If you are interested in using Oxford's ELN service for your research, visit our ELN webpage for information on getting started. You can also email researchsupport@it.ox.ac.uk if you have questions about this service.