Abstract
The aim of the Committee for Open Science's Electronic Laboratory Notebook Working Group is to put forward an analysis methodology for scientific teams who need to choose an electronic laboratory notebook (ELN). An ELN is the dematerialised digital version of the conventional lab notebook which is basically a logbook used to detail the day-to-day activities of research projects. Researchers use it to list descriptions of the experiments and protocols they use along with details of each individual's contribution. The working group makes recommendations on the need for the different tools scientists use to be interoperable and sets out criteria to help researchers choose the right tool. It does not provide absolute elements of comparison between different tools and does not recommend a single tool for use by the whole higher education and research community. The report also includes a comparative list of existing tools along with a method for implementing an ELN.