Electronic Research Notebook — LabArchives
Paperless research notebook and lab manual solution for Columbia's researchers.
Related Information
Also known as Lab Archives, ERN, and Electronic Lab Notebooks.
Columbia University provides an Electronic Research Notebook service for researchers, instructors, and students. Electronic Research Notebooks are designed to replace paper notebooks and lab manuals to support research staff productivity and efficiency, and securely protect lab research with automatic backups and comprehensive audit trails. Our Electronic Research Notebook solution is powered by LabArchives, a cloud-based solution that enables 24/7 collaboration and sharing of content, from any device with a web browser.
LabArchives is approved for PII, RHI, and PHI. It is registered in RSAM #5644. At this time, LabArchives may be used on all CU campuses.
Electronic research notebooks also support funding agencies’ Data Management Plan requirements, managing team progress remotely, and interconnecting all your lab data and image files to your observations and notes.
Columbia University has an enterprise license with LabArchives for both the Professional Edition and Classroom Edition of their electronic notebook solution.
Technical Features for both Professional and Classroom Editions:
- Works on all platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux)
- Includes free mobile app for tablets/phones (IOS/Android)
- No hardware or software to install, maintain or upgrade
- All data is stored with multiple redundancy
- Search and find documents and data easily
- Integrate uploaded with data produced by lab hardware and software
Classroom Edition: In addition to all of the features of the Professional Edition of the Electronic Research Notebook, the Classroom Edition enables you to:
- Easily manage and distribute all existing course materials to save time and reduce the logistical burden.
- Monitor each student's lab work in real-time, 24/7 and provide feedback from the teacher's account.
- Increase student completion rate for lab courses through early detection of inactivity and/or lack of understanding.
- Enhance the educational experience and improve the quality of student documentation, all while providing an ePortfolio at the conclusion of the lab course.
- Speed up the review, grading, and commenting processes and allows for real-time review of work.
How to Create Your Free Account:
- Visit www.labarchives.com, select Sign In, then select Columbia University from the participating institution drop-list.
- Use your Columbia University UNI and password as your login credentials.
- Your name and email address will auto-fill. **IMPORTANT** Make sure to update the email address to reflect the one that colleagues are most likely to use to share notebooks with you. For example, if you tend to use [email protected] instead of [email protected], then update the email address to reflect that so you are able to access shared materials easily.
There is no charge for this service. Columbia's Research Notebook Service is funded by CUIT and the Libraries, in partnership with the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research, and is provided at no cost to you.
Guide/FAQ
For more information, please refer to the Columbia's ERN Getting Started guide and FAQ.
LabArchives also has an extensive support site, knowledge base, YouTube channel, and provides front-line support to you as a researcher.
If you need to transfer a notebook from someone who has left the university and no longer has access to their LabArchives account, you can email [email protected] for assistance with the transfer. Please include:
- The UNI of the user that the notebook is owned by
- The notebook name
- An attestation from the notebook owner that they authorize the transfer of their notebook to another user
- The UNI of the user that the notebook should be transferred to.
NOTE: You cannot transfer a notebook to a non-Columbia account.