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ELNs and the
ELN ov
slope of enlightenment
John Trigg assesses the
single vendor solution that addresses the and that the electronic record, the record
requirements of both disciplines, or whether to keeping system and the record-keeping process
market for ELNs, which is
choose the best of breed for each discipline. are all likely to undergo close scrutiny if the
at last beginning to mature
Interestingly, within the past two or record is presented as evidence in a courtroom.
three years, there seems to be another Electronic record keeping is becoming
emerging ELN domain – that of QA/QC the norm in business, government and
T
he origins of the Electronic Laboratory and the regulatory world. A few vendors public service. One of the outcomes of this
Notebook (ELN) market can be traced have concentrated specifically on this area, trend is that so much of our legacy will be
back to the late 1990s, when a mixture of grass with products that are strongly aligned to in the form of electronic records rather than
root efforts, plus a few commercial ventures, laboratory workflows, following the step- physical artefacts, that we therefore run the
kick-started the industry and gave it an by-step execution of SOPs or test methods. risk of masterminding a digital dark age if
identity and a sense of purpose. Ten years on, The products are more structured than we we do not address the problem of long-term
there are growing signs of maturity, more so in would expect from a ‘conventional’ ELN and preservation and accessibility. The use of
some areas than others, and the business-based in some respects appear to be functionally proprietary data formats, and its inevitable
concerns about the conversion from paper closer to a LIMS. It could be argued that vendor lock-in, does not auger well for
to ELNs have largely been accommodated. such products may be better labelled as long-term data preservation. However,
In a lot of respects, the question for those ‘Laboratory Execution Systems’ as they follow increasing pressure from government and
organisations that have yet to implement an a very prescriptive approach applicable to public service organisations has helped to
ELN is not so much ‘why’ as ‘when’. those communities engaged in routine and drive the evolution of international standards
regulatory based testing. for electronic documents, most notably PDF,
The evolving ELN market domains PDF/A and ODF. The laboratory has been
As with any software product, getting Major business concerns able to benefit from these initiatives as these
the technology and functionality right is Compared to the growing and extensive use standards are almost universally incorporated
paramount to success. For chemistry-based of computers and information technology for the storage of electronic documents.
ELNs, there is a growing sense of maturity in almost every other aspect of laboratory However, much needs to be done in order
about the available commercial products, work, the ELN has been a long time coming, to evolve good standards for laboratory data,
based on the well established, process-driven particularly when you consider that the as opposed to electronic documents. The
nature of experimental chemistry. Biology, generic function of the laboratory notebook proprietary nature of so much laboratory
however, has presented a bigger challenge is a relatively simple task to computerise. The data raises the question of how accessible it
to the ELN vendors. The more diverse and reason for the late arrival of the ELN in the will be in the future, and how easy is it, right
complex nature of biological processes and laboratory’s systems portfolio can largely be now, to make it available to other electronic
outcomes demands a requirement to capture attributed to some of the business concerns systems. Converting data from one format
not just the data, but also the complex associated with managing laboratory records in to another in order to make it accessible to
interrelationships between the data. This, electronic format. Of these, the admissibility different systems and applications is not a
coupled with a diverse portfolio of biology- of electronic records in patent or legal cases, desirable practice. How much simpler would
specific software tools, begs the question: Do the long-term preservation of electronic life be if standard laboratory data formats
biologists just need a generic ELN that will records, and the cost of the transition from could be developed and universally adopted?
integrate with their existing software tools, or a paper to electronic system, have all been The question of integration is paramount to
do they need a complete suite of functionality subject to debate, and strategies have emerged the future efficiency of laboratory information
that is embedded in the ELN? The dilemma to deal with these concerns. management, and the question of data
for the biologists is whether there is a In terms of legal admissibility, paper and standards is paramount to integration.
commercial ELN to address their specific electronic records are equivalent. However, The projected costs of an ELN
requirements. For those companies that need it is important to understand that the implementation are not trivial, but there
to support both chemists and biologists, the factors that impact upon the authenticity of is a growing acceptance that the time
26
question is whether it is possible to find a electronic records may be different to paper, savings and productivity benefits accrued
LIG09 pp26-27 ELN Overview.indd 26 9/12/08 17:12:47
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