An Implementation of Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELN) Using a Learning Management System Platform in an Undergraduate Experimental Engineering Course

Abstract

Experimental Engineering at Harvey Mudd College is a sophomore-level, semester-long course, involving multiple experiments covering a number of engineering disciplines. The primary purpose of the course is to teach basic instrumentation and measurement techniques; good lab notebook practice; technical report writing; analysis and presentation of data; the usage of experimental results for engineering design purposes; and the beginnings of professional practice. During the 2011-2012 academic year, we implemented a transition from paperbound laboratory notebooks (PLNs) to electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) in this course. ELNs are computer-based solutions for creating, storing, retrieving, and sharing electronic files. Such electronic records are now considered equivalent to paper-based records, when it comes to patent filing as well as other legal and technical issues. Advantages of ELNs include the ability to search electronically; electronic linkage and storage of potentially large data files (including newer types of electronic files, such as video); and increased accessibility and collaborative functions. A number of different software solutions are available, usually grouped by technical field and potential application of the work. Using the course management system (CMS) platform Sakai, and typical word processing and spreadsheet-based programs, students submitted all their lab work into an electronic drop box. Faculty and teaching assistants used the gradebook functions of Sakai to store and release grades. We have assessed laboratory notebooks from four previous semesters of the course, specifically examining the submission of raw data; schematics of test set-ups; equipment lists; and ability to compare experimental data to literary values on the same graphical plot. During two of these four semesters, students submitted their lab work as ELNs. For both PLNs and ELNs, a significant portion of students did not report raw data in tabular form, or reported raw data only sporadically. Although we assumed that students using PLNs would utilize them to sketch schematics, this was not always the case. Sketches were missing from ELNs as well, but some students used the electronic format to include photos from mobile phones. Equipment lists in both paper and electronic format generally tended to be incomplete. Neither format seemed to have an impact on whether students plotted literature values on the same plot as experimental data. We plan to use these assessment results to improve students’ performance on good laboratory notebook practice. On the instructor side, the grading process was made simpler by the use of the ELNs, due to the ability to access the students’ work via computer, as opposed to grading PLNs, where the graders physically remove the lab notebooks from the lab, thus making those notebooks unavailable to other graders and to the students themselves.