Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs)

For planning, conducting and analyzing research experiments, electronic laboratory notebooks are becoming more and more common, thus contributing to the digitization of research.

Laboratory notebooks play an important role in the planning, conducting and analysis of (natural) scientific experiments. Lab books are traditionally analogue and paper-based, an approach that is no longer up-to-date, as research data is primarily available in digital form. The solution are electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs). These offer significant advantages. They can be linked directly to laboratory devices, analysis software or storage systems, making results more reproducible and research more efficient.

There is now a whole range of ELNs adapted to the various needs of different scientific disciplines. Two of them are Chemotion ELN and Kadi4Mat, both developed at KIT. More information on these two ELNs can be found at the section "Services & Tools".

For assistance on selcting and implementing an ELN, please refer to the ELN Guide and the ELN Finder.

Further information can be found in our training materials on electronic lab notebooks.