The electronic laboratory notebook would enhance good scientific practice and increase research productivity

Detailed note-keeping is a prerequisite for, if not a key component of, scientific discovery. An unrecorded experiment is lost to the world even if it sparks a great idea in a scientist’s mind: Additional work is needed to reproduce and confirm the original observation and to test the hypothesis by novel experimental strategies. Hence, a detailed record of the experimental setup, observations, and analysis is a crucial requirement for presenting a new discovery to the scientific community.