New electronic notebook system for chemists

The E-Workbook for Chemists software, developed by the software company ID Business Solutions, allows researchers to capture, analyse, search and report their experimental data as well as share it with colleagues. This one, central place to record data reduces the burden of a paper notebook and paper trail.

The system can also be used to draw reaction schemes, chemical structures and calculate reaction rates, simplifying day-to-day work. It captures knowledge and stores it securely, and research can be linked with and searched using any chemistry data source (including reagents, reaction or web source). This is envisioned to be the Chemistry lab of the future.

As well as using this system to streamline their recording of data, the Department of Chemistry will take a key role in research and development to further enhance the system. Until now the focus for the system has been on pharmaceutical data, this collaboration will allow the Department to play a lead part in developing the system for a broad range of chemistry applications.

The system will initially roll out to a group of early adopters over the next academic year with a full implementation to other interested users in the Michaelmas term, 2010.

Numerous collaborations are envisaged across the Department and eventually throughout the University between the informatics groups and others to expand the range of the Virtual Laboratory notebook to many new areas, potentially making research more effective and faster.

The Chemistry Department has established a leading role in chemical information systems development, creating tools to handle complex semantic data as well as tools to extract knowledge and new developments. This expertise will be incorporated into this initiative to further extend the ability of chemists from all areas of the discipline to get the most from their experimental data. Professors Robert Glen and Steven Ley are leading this project.