Electronic lab notebooks - or ELN for short - offer many advantages: they are networked, support the strategy for research data management, promote collaboration and ensure good scientific practice through complete documentation. ELNs also prevent data loss, ensure data security and support the FAIR Data Principles.

A survey from the NFDI4Microbiota consortium has shown that they have not yet become established despite their many advantages. The team is therefore committed to promoting their dissemination, including with a recent publication in the open access journal PLOS Computational Biology. In it, the authors list and explain ten simple rules for the introduction of ELNs. In a brief interview, Justine Vandendorpe - Data Stewart at ZB MED in the Data Science and Services team and an author on the publication - gives a short introduction to the importance of ELNs and how the article was created. She also mentions what she believes is the most important success factor to consider when implementing an ELN.

To the article: Ten simple rules for implementing electronic lab notebooks (ELNs)
To the interview with Justine Vandendorpe