Table 4 How the physicists, chemists and biologists who took part in the University of Southampton Focus Groups perform different work tasks with respect to whether they use paper or electronic systems
Category | Tasks | Biologists | Chemists | Physicists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Recording notes | Experiment notes | Paper—Lab Book | Paper—Lab Book Electronic—Data | Paper—Lab Book Electronic—Data |
Thinking about work notes | Paper—Lab Book | Paper—Lab Book Electronic—Google Tasks | Paper—Lab Book Electronic—Google Keep | |
Literature notes | Paper—Print papers/handwritten notes Electronic—reference manager | Paper—Print papers/handwritten notes Electronic—reference manager | Paper—Print papers/handwritten notes Electronic—reference manager | |
Organising notes | Paper—Lab Book by date/contents page | Paper—Lab Book by date/contents page Electronic—By codes (linking to Lab Book) and by sample/experiment | Paper—Lab Book by date/contents page Electronic—by codes (linking to Lab Book) and by category/experiment | |
Searching | Paper—flip back and search by date | Paper—flip back and search by date Electronic—sort by date/code, or keyword search | Paper—flip back and search by date Electronic—sort by date | |
Linking data | Paper and Electronic notes linked by date | Paper and Electronic notes linked by codes | Paper and Electronic notes linked by date | |
Writing reports | Electronic—Word/Powerpoint | Electronic—Word/LaTeX | Electronic—word/LaTeX | |
Performing calculations and scientific functionality | Paper—solve Electronic—check (Excel/GraphPad) | Paper—solve Electronic—Check (Wolfram Alpha) | Paper—solve Electronic—Check (Excel/XMGrace/Spartan/PyPlots/R/CSV) | |
Use of Technology in the Lab (accessibility) | Electronic—Phone pictures/recordings | Electronic—Phone/camera pictures, Emails, Blogs, USB | Electronic—Phone pictures/calendar, Emails | |
Archiving and backup | Paper—Mostly no backup (some photocopies) Electronic—Uni computers/shared drives/the cloud/hard drives | Paper—Mostly no backup (some use carbon pages) Electronic—Uni computers/shared drives/the cloud/hard drive | Paper—No backup Electronic—Uni computers/shared drives/the cloud/hard drives | |
Intellectual property | Electronic—Secure data kept on hard drive in locked draw | Electronic—No cloud software for industry sponsored students | Electronic—No cloud software for industry sponsored students | |
Collaboration | Paper—Lab Book | Paper—Lab Book Electronic—shared drive/group folders | Paper—Lab Book Electronic—shared drive/group folders | |