Recording Your Research (Lab Books, Research Diaries and Electronic Information)

1. Recording Your Research (Lab Books, Research Diaries and Electronic Information) Dr Richy Hetherington, Dr Catherine Exley and Dr Dan Swan

2. Outline • General Guidance • Recording Lab Work • Research Diaries – Recording research outside of the lab environment • Electronic recording • Sharing information – What you should share and how to share it

3. Why do you need to keep records? • For Your Progress Panel and Viva • For Your Supervisory Team • For Anyone Who Continues Your Work • For Academic Integrity • For Intellectual Property • For Your Sponsors • Most of all for you: Writing your thesis and your publications will be easier the better your records are

4. Which Standards?

5. University Lab Books All should be • Hard bound • Have continuous numbered pages • Have a table of contents • Entries should be made permanently in Pen • No correcting fluid or tipex should be used • A single line should be put through any errors

6. When to record • Record as you go • If you can’t do it as soon as you can • It is easy to forget

7. New Methods Always describe thoroughly a new procedure For example “Solution B was made by adding 500µl of water to 1.02mg of substance B, in 1.5ml microfuge tube, the solution was vortexed for 30 minutes to ensure Substance B was dissolved. Would be better than “A 2mg/ml of Solution B was made from substance B”

8. Established Methods Once methods are established it is fine to refer back to them Eg. “Samples B1-B16 were tested using method A (see 14th June 2007 RH/B1/ p14)” Obviously note any deviations, intentional or otherwise

9. Recording Deviation E.g. (accident) “Samples B1-B16 were tested using method A (see 14th June 2007 RH/B1/p14). Deviating from the method Samples B13-B16 were centrifuged twice at 14.2g for 5 minutes in stage 2, all other samples were centrifuged once as per method A.” Or E.g. (design) “Samples B1-B16 were tested using method A (see 14th June 2007 RH/B1/ p14). Deviating from the method all samples were centrifuged at 14.2g for 10 minutes at stage 2, to ensure a compact pellet formed.

10. Equipment, Reagents and Samples Equipment used list Reagents used list

11. Recording the results Make note of anything anecdotal or unusual. “The cells appeared to be more irregular in shape, than in previous experiments” “The interview room was very warm; some of the subjects seemed slightly unconformable”

12. Seemingly unimportant things may become important later Eg “Centrifuging for 10 minutes at stage 2 had no perceivable effect on the compactness of the pellet. When repeating increasing the rotor speed to produce 15g may help compact the pellet” …later… “Excessive centrifuging of samples B1-16 reduced enzyme activity, solids in stage 2 must be collected by filtering”

13. Results from machines • Annotate Well • Reference page • Number the reverse • Stick in with sticky tape

14. Intellectual Property (IP) Issues • Lab books must be signed off (at least fortnightly) • All experiments will need to be reproducible • Lab book will become a legal document if a patent is applied for

15. Faculty Lab books • Should be available through your institute • If not from Faculty Research Office 3rd Floor Leech Building