Before I say an ELN is appropriate for a researcher I talk to people in a few offices on campus to get their view and ok:

Legal Counsel

IT Security

Tech Transfer group

Environmental Safety - Lab Safety ( ya gotta have appropriate space in the lab for the computer, laptop, tablets, etc and a way of using them without contamination)

The British version of the US FDA Compliance Officer 



Daureen



Daureen Nesdill, MS, MLIS

Data Curation Librarian

The Faculty Center @ the J. W. Marriott Library

University of Utah

801-585-5975

[log in to unmask] 

ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0126-5038 









-----Original Message-----

From: Research Data Management discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andrew MacLellan

Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2015 10:05 AM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: Evernote as an ELN



Hi Mary,



I think the main thing which Evernote (and OneNote) lack is the ability to sign and counter sign entries. Paper lab notebook entries are pretty much 'uneditable', ELNs offer the same functionality through electronic signatures, but after an entry is made in Evernote, anyone can go back and change that and as far as I'm aware, it doesn't record what changes are being made and who is making them (the premium version has some kind of revision functionality I think). If you speak to your contracts/IPR managers I'm sure they would agree that lab notebook entries need to be traceable and easy to authenticate - it should not be possible to delete or edit parts of a lab notebook entry after it has been created and signed.



The data storage location issue I think is more of an institutional decision, I'm not familiar with Evernote's data security.



There are definitely examples of people using Evernote as an ELN and being quite happy with it, a google search will bring up various articles including this one - doi: 10.1177/2211068212471834.



Andrew



Andrew Maclellan

Research Data Support Officer | Research Data Management and Sharing Project Research and Knowledge Exchange Services University of Strathclyde, Graham Hills Building, 50 George Street, Glasgow, G1 1QE

Tel: 0141 548 4581

Email: [log in to unmask]





-----Original Message-----

From: Research Data Management discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mary Donaldson

Sent: 28 April 2015 16:09

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Evernote as an ELN



Hello,



Not sure how relevent this topic is for this list, but invistigating the feasibility of using ELNs is something that falls under the remit of our service. We've been approached by an EPSRC researcher who is considering using Evernote as an ELN, including uploading photos of lab book pages as well as data. 

Does anyone have any experience with this?

Some questions that have come to mind are...



-where does the data reside in Evernote? Would it comply with EPSRC Expectation VII - 'all reasonable steps will be taken to ensure that publicly-funded data is not held in any jurisdiction where the available legal safeguards provide lower levels of protection than are available in the UK'



-do any examples of workflows encorporating Evernote exist?



Cheers,

Mary



Service Coordinator

Research Data Management Service,

University of Glasgow