Presentation by Dr Samantha Pearman-Kanza on "ELNs Don’t Make Data FAIR — but Your Implementation Can Bring the FAIRy Tale to Life" for Future Labs Live 2026 Abstract: Capturing the scientific record in a FAIR fashion is often an assumption of the benefits that Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs) can bring. However, no tool can conjure FAIRness from data that was poorly planned or inconsistently captured, and if all your ELN does is replicate poor paper-based practice in an electronic system, then your data might be digital, but it will remain staunchly unFAIR. FAIR begins at the creation and capture stage, and the capacity to produce re-useable data is heavily influenced by the way these digital tools are implemented and used. This presentation explains why FAIR cannot be retrospectively added to your ELN, and extols the importance of good data stewardship throughout the research lifecycle, and how well‑designed ELN implementations can guide researchers toward producing richer, more reusable, and genuinely FAIRer data.
Samantha Kanza (Wed,) studied this question.