LabArchives Digital Notebook

LabArchives is a cloud-based Digital Notebook that has commonly been referred to as Electronic Lab Notebook or ELN. The solution is specifically designed with academic researchers in mind. LabArchives gives faculty, staff, and students the ability to digitally manage information in the cloud and offers secure collaboration for research groups.

Request Login Access/Activation

This link is a one time activation request. Once your Tufts account is activated, you may use the link below to login and utilize LabArchives. 

 

LabArchives Login Page 

This link is for already activated Tufts accounts. If you need access to a notebook not created or owned by you, scroll down to "Using Digital Notebooks".

 

LabArchives

Consultation

Does your research team requires assistance getting started or just need help fine tuning your data management workflow in LabArchives? Please email tts-research@tufts.edu to request a LabArchives Digital Notebook consultation.

Help

Please note: LabArchives require network connectivity. In cases where you have no access to the internet, such as being in the field, we recommend recording your work locally and then transferring/copying information into LabArchives when you re-establish network connectivity.

FAQs

Below are a number of frequently asked questions (FAQs) related to using Digital Notebooks at Tufts.

General Questions

Digital Notebooks are an extension of the traditional bound and numbered lab notebook. Being electronic confers additional features into the notebook such as search capabilities, collaboration, and auditing and version history from funding agency compliance. Additionally, electronic documents, such as spreadsheets, images, and data files can be added to a Digital Notebook. Digital Notebooks are centrally maintained and can be accessed remotely by one or more people.

Anyone with a Tufts account who uses notebooks to record their work can use Digital Notebooks. In fact, many research groups and activities from art history and humanities, engineering projects, to Core facilities are welcomed to use LabArchives in an effort to introduce research data management principles. Our consultants can help you to decide on what project work-flows and functionality best aligns with the solution.

If you use Digital Notebooks, you can:

  • Manage and collect data from multiple data streams including instrument, processed data, metadata (“Data about Data”) and notes.
  • Provide a complete and lasting record of discovery.
  • Deliver local/remote easy, safe and secure access to data
  • Reduce loss of lab expertise when students and staff leave by providing a repository of information for others to access.
  • Through-document search function supports multiple formats including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF.
  • Create forums to collaborate, query, comment, re-think, and interpret results.
  • Meet NIH and NSF research data management plan requirements and provide public sharing of information
  • Protect Intellectual Property (IP) including know-how and new technology

Digital Notebooks are not a substitute for Box, etc. Digital Notebooks have more enhanced capabilities for organizing your research notes, protocols, and outputs.

Please have each member of your research team complete the LOGIN access to LabArchives request form. Access will be granted with 24 hours of submitting the form.

For general support issues (i.e. browser issues, etc) contact the TTS 24/7 Service Desk at 617-627-3376 or send an email to it@tufts.edu.

Using Digital Notebooks

If you need access to a another notebook not owned by you (i.e., group, lab, project, personal, etc.), please reach out to the owner. If the owner needs assistance in giving you access, they may try following the self-service link below or call LabArchives support at 800-653-5016, or email tts-research@tufts.edu.

https://www.labarchives.com/labarchives-knowledge-base/6-3-sharing-a-notebook-folder-page-or-single-entry/

Generally most data generated on a desktop can be stored directly in the Digital Notebook. For LabArchives, the limit is 15GB per file upload.

 

LabArchives stores your notebook activity in the cloud. This storage is redundant and secure on the vendor’s storage infrastructure.

No. These products are not designed for such compliance and do not satisfy the requirements for data coming under these regulations.

Yes. These products are designed with features which allow collaboration.

Digital Notebooks require network connectivity. In cases where you have no access to the internet, such as being in the field, we recommend recording your work locally and then transferring/copying information into the Digital Notebooks when you re-establish network connectivity.

LabArchives runs a virus scan on all uploaded files and prohibits upload of any files that fail the scan as well as executable code.

User Community

It is important that we keep the Tufts community informed on the status of Digital Notebooks at Tufts and the usage progress to the community.

 

1340 Tufts users have been given access to LabArchives as of 10/23/2021 with an average activity count 10,000.

 

LabArchives Users by Department

Medford Boston Grafton
Biology Developmental, Molecular & Chemical Biology (DMCB) Clinical Sciences
Biomedical Engineering Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy Infectious Diseases & Global Health
Chemical & Biological Engineering Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA)  
Chemistry Immunology  
Electrical & Computer Engineering Molecular Biology & Microbiology  
Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study & Human Development Neuroscience  
Psychology Ophthalmology  

Sample Use Cases

The McVey Lab in the Biology department studies DNA repair in model systems, such as Drosophila, using genetic mutants in repair pathways. The lab has relied heavily on paper notebooks to record procedures, experimental methods and materials, and results. The McVey lab also has many research collaborations with labs at other institutions.

The lab needs to manage the data and knowledge generated by students and postdocs to reduce any loss of expertise when students and postdocs leave the lab. Thus, being able to manage and collect data from multiple data sources as the lab moves to new methodologies, such as nextgen sequencing, is a requirement. Secure access, either local or remote, to procedures and data from the lab are also key criteria. Finally, meeting the funding agency requirements for Research Data Management is also a critical need.

To address these needs, the McVey lab has chosen LabArchives as their research data management solution due to the ease of use and versatility in creating notebooks for the lab, as well as its accessibility. Prof. McVey is very satisfied with LabArchives overall as he and his lab tech use it heavily. McVey is able to keep up to date with what is happening in his lab using LabArchives. The lab tech uses LabArchives to help manage the various laboratory processes. The lab uses several notebooks in LabArchives: a notebook for all students and experimental details, a notebook for lab management, and a personal notebook for McVey.

Planning the organization of a notebook (by Project, by Person, etc) involves a rigorous decision making process to make sure to start with the right data structure since it will be used for a long time. McVey encourages his students to use the LabArchives notebooks but it has been a slow process. To increase usage, McVey suggests requiring that his students use LabArchives to present material during lab meetings where results can be presented and displayed electronically.

The Tytell Lab in the Biology department studies the biomechanics and neural control of swimming in fishes using experiments and mathematical modeling to understand the control of fish locomotion. The lab makes use of video recordings and graphical analysis of video recordings using Matlab. Additionally, the lab has many collaborations with external researchers at other universities.

Of primary importance to the Tytell lab is to provide a complete and lasting record of discovery as well as to reduce loss of lab expertise by providing a repository of information. As a result, being able to search through laboratory data files and notes efficiently in a safe and secure fashion is a priority.

To address these needs, the Tytell lab has chosen LabArchives as their research data management solution. The lab has been using LabArchives for the past 3 years with 9 current users. LabArchives allows multiple notebooks and the lab has 2 project based notebooks and a lab management notebook. The lab feels that being able to use the robust search capabilities of LabArchives is crucial to managing long term projects and data. The ability to share selected data is also an important component of their collaborations with other universities.

Though moving content within a notebook is straightforward, moving content between notebooks has proved to be more difficult. The Tytell lab suggests that planning an optimal notebook structure at the beginning is the key to success.

Training Options

There are a number of options for developing your LabArchives Digital Notebooks skills.

Weekly Webinar by LabArchives Instructor

This is a one hour "Introduction to LabArchives". The webinar will go over the feature tools and show you the benefits of moving from a paper to a Digital Notebook. To sign-up, CLICK HERE, select "ELN for Research" and register with your Tufts email address.

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Specialized Training for Groups or Single Person by LabArchives Expert

Want to learn an advanced or customized training (e.g., create/customize widgets, utilize advanced search, folder structuring, etc.)? Specialized webinars are on offer for those who are already using LabArchives. Want to take a deep dive into specific workflows or functions? 

Please send an email to support@labarchives.com.

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    Self-Pace Learning & Online Resources

    If you enjoy learning at your own pace, the Quick Start Guides and video tutorials can be accessed by logging into LabArchives and clicking on the information (i) icon in the upper right corner of your browser. Below are additional self-pace resources.