The missing link: augmenting biology laboratory notebooks
Proceedings of the 15th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology
Breaking the book: translating the chemistry lab book into a pervasive computing lab environment
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
ButterflyNet: a mobile capture and access system for field biology research
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
From individual to collaborative: the evolution of prism, a hybrid laboratory notebook
Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work
Adapting the electronic laboratory notebook for the semantic era
CTS'05 Proceedings of the 2005 international conference on Collaborative technologies and systems
Beyond data sharing: artifact ecology of a collaborative nanophotonics research centre
Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
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Prolific adoption of digital media across scientific fields has led to inevitable transformation of a traditional lab book into an electronic lab notebook (ELN). Research so far has focussed on designing ELN prototypes and learning from their limited deployments. At the same time, a variety of commercially available ELNs have been adopted by industrial and academic laboratories. That provides opportunities for situated research and a deeper understanding of the role that ELNs assumes as an integral part of a scientific environment. In this paper we present a study of ELN design that has emerged as scientists appropriated commercial off-the-shelf note-taking software and adapted it to their work. Through in-situ observations we analysed the interplay between the technology and emerging practices. Our study reveals a tension that is intrinsic to the digital nature of ELNs: a conflict between the flexibility, fluidity, and low threshold for modifying digital records and the requirement for persistence and consistency. This led to refined requirements and design considerations for ELNs.