In its simplest form, an electronic laboratory notebook can be considered to be a direct replacement for the paper lab notebook. In this instance, it can provide the generic functionality to support broad documentation processes that apply to all laboratory scientists, such as patent evidence creation, cross discipline collaboration and general record keeping. However, the integration capabilities that we readily associate with information technology raise the possibility of a tighter coupling of other laboratory systems into the ‘electronic laboratory notebook’. In other words, can the information that is currently printed from other laboratory systems, cut out and pasted into the paper lab notebook be electronically entered or linked into the electronic laboratory notebook? It is this question that pinpoints the ambiguity in the term ‘Electronic Laboratory Notebook’.
The CENSA definition of an ELN ; “A system to create, store, retrieve, and share fully electronic records in ways that meet all legal, regulatory, technical and scientific requirements” is all encompassing, and can therefore mean different things to different people. In some respects, the definition relates more to an all-electronic or paperless lab than to an electronic lab notebook.
I’ve come across two recent articles that address this question from different angles. Simon Coles picks on the Problem with the Term “ELN”, concluding that one size doesn’t fit all, looking at the problem from the discovery perspective and the respective maturity of Medicinal Chemistry ELNs to Biology ELNs. Randy Hice addresses the elusive nature of a definition for an ELN in his article Roadmap to a Clear Definition of ELN by looking at the relationship between an ELN, LIMS and Laboratory Execution Systems.
Both articles raise interesting points, which to some extent hinge around the question of whether an organisation is looking for a single platform/single vendor informatics solution, or a multi-vendor, best-of-breed solution. And that raises all kinds of questions about the business drivers and the capabilities of the underlying technologies to support integration, taking the issue to another level.
And the other problem is that, as I think you’ve pointed out in your other posts, that the industry terms around LIMS/ELN/SDMS are starting to become confusing as ELNs add LIMS functionality, LIMS add ELN functionality, and as companies start trying to apply other terms to differentiate themselves, when they might even fall into one of these categories. Not only did you mention, but I keep running into this at conferences and also wrote an article coming out this issue just a month ago:
http://www.geometrick.com/eln-lims.html
If I were to give one piece of advice on the issues of figuring out where all the pieces fit, I just keep telling customers to stop thinking about the names. Think about what they want to accomplish, look for products that meet those goals, do a good mapping, and make sure both the gaps and the overlaps are carefully covered.
Also, to comment on whether companies will try to buy a one-size-fits-all product or to integrate a number of best of breed solutions, I’d say it depends on the company and its situation. To test my theory, I brought up this exact issue at one of the workshops I was giving, this year. By asking the participatns to tell what they’d do and why, it wasn’t a good statistical sample where I could state that x% want to do one and y% want to do the other. However, universally, their reasons for selecting one over another had to do with organizational structure, general goals, age and viability of current systems, and a few other factors that would be about what you might expect.
I have also found out that there are companies out there that specialize in the integration of the “best of breed” stategy, and one of the software vendors has specifically gone for that strategy, as well. So, I continue to run into customers from each of these strategies. Considering that they have strong reasons for selecting the strategies that they do, I expect to continue to see this split between the two choices.
You might also find it informative to take a look at my blog – I’ve been creating and using ELN systems for almost twenty years now – and recently I’ve been posting on various ELN-related topics such as deployment issues (reasons why users resist using ELNs), notebook portability (very useful for academic labs), and reasons why ELNs will end up saving money rather than costing money – it’s at:
http://web.me.com/evildrbob/Site/My_ELN_Life/My_ELN_Life.html