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Rethinking Laboratory Notebooks

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Proceedings of COOP 2010

Abstract

We take digitalization of laboratory work practice as a challenging design domain to explore. There are obvious drawbacks with the use of paper instead of ICT in the collaborative writing that takes place in laboratory notebooks; yet paper persist in being the most common solution. The ultimate aim with our study is to produce design relevant knowledge that can envisage an ICT solution that keeps as many advantages of paper as possible, but with the strength of electronic laboratory notebooks as well. Rather than assuming that users are technophobic and unable to appropriate state of the art software, we explore whether there are something inherent in current ICT infrastructure that invites resistance from the users. The method used is interviews, combined with a modified version of future workshops and the data are analyzed with activity theory. Our results concern issues of configurability, mobility, and the barrier between documentation and control, amongst other things.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the participating physicists for their willingness to contribute some of their time to this study. We thank Susanne Bødker and Olav Bertelsen for insightful comments on earlier drafts of the paper. Wendy Mackay and Aurélien Tabard are thanked for inspiring us to do the study in the first place. We thank Nikolaj Gandrup Borchorst, Marianne Dammand Iversen, and Ann Eg Mølhave for improving the written language of the paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Aabogade 34, 8200, Aarhus N, Denmark

    Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose & Pär-Ola Zander

  2. Laboratorie de Recherche en Informatique, Université Paris-Sud, Bâtiment 490, F-91405, Orsay, France

    Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose

Authors
  1. Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose
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  2. Pär-Ola Zander
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , ICD/Tech-CICO Fre CNRS 2848, Universite de Technologie de Troyes, rue Marie Curie 12, Troyes Cedex, 10010, France

    Myriam Lewkowicz

  2. IEP, rue Gaston de Saporta 25, Aix-en-Provence, 13625, France

    Parina Hassanaly

  3. , Information Systems and New Media, University of Siegen, Hölderlinstr. 3, Siegen, 57068, Germany

    Volker Wulf

  4. , Information Systems and New Media, University of Siegen, Hoelderlinstr. 3, siegen, 57068, Germany

    Markus Rohde

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Klokmose, C.N., Zander, PO. (2010). Rethinking Laboratory Notebooks. In: Lewkowicz, M., Hassanaly, P., Wulf, V., Rohde, M. (eds) Proceedings of COOP 2010. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-211-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-211-7_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-84996-210-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-84996-211-7

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