Using Evernote as an audited electronic notebook for scientific pruposes

[Hyperphlex 1]

Hi all!

Does anyone have experience of using Evernote as an electronic notebook for scientific purposes? I haven't used an audited lab note system before, but I believe that the most important features are that they must be 1) trackable by at least the day (fulfilled by Evernote) and 2) that the history should NOT be editable by the user herself.

Does anyone know if 2) is fulfilled by Evernote? Or does anyone using a plug-in that is doing the trick?

Thanks a lot in advance!  

[gazumped 11,637]

Hi.  AFAIK Evernote is not the application you're looking for here.  Notes are freely editable by the user at any time and cannot be locked.  Created and Updated dates can be edited.  Sorry. 

[DTLow 5,736]

On 2017-09-11 at 3:41 AM, Hyperphlex said:

and 2) that the history should NOT be editable by the user herself.

What do you consider “history”

Evernote has a Note History feature that may be of some use, or you could copy the notes to a read only format (for example pdf)

[Hyperphlex 1]

On 13/09/2017 at 1:41 AM, gazumped said:

Hi.  AFAIK Evernote is not the application you're looking for here.  Notes are freely editable by the user at any time and cannot be locked.  Created and Updated dates can be edited.  Sorry. 

Thank you gazumped! That was valuable information. I know that there are many plug-ins available though, maybe any of these provide the feature of "locking" your history? 

[Hyperphlex 1]

Thank you DTLow! That is a good idea! However, for my needs, I think it is still going to be somewhat unreliable from an outsider's view (peer reviewing of your analysis process) and also, it would take me while to make an interface that repeatedly copied the history :(. I will continue look for software that has all these features, but I love Evernote so much that it hurts to have to migrate to another program. Lmk if you hear of any nice ones :).

[gazumped 11,637]

Hi again.  I'm aware of a field notes Android app called Tempus Locum which might be of interest,  but the very nature of a computer file means that if you have access to record data in the first place,  you could go back and change some of that data later - including the metadata (and dates) of notes and of saved files. 

If you're working with colleagues,  in an institution,  for an employer,  or with an eye on some kind of reward (financial or academic),  you could ask your peers/ boss/ colleagues what sort of software they would find acceptable.  Otherwise an internet search using keywords from your specific field of study might suggest some options.

@DTLow may be right though that Evernote's Note History feature takes and stores a snapshot of your data at a specific moment in time and you have no access to alter that snapshot.  So to 'prove' the state of a note at a given time,  you have only to set the content of the note back to that date and time and see what changes.  That would be accurate to the day,  but not to the minute - ie it's possible to determine the content on Wendesday last week,  but to to differentiate between Wednesday morning and afternoon.

See How to access and use note history for more

You could also set up an automatic backup process with scripting or using an external service like Backupery to keep your own local copies of notes.

Here's a longer (and rather old) discussion which might still be relevant...

Good luck,  and let us know what you decide to do!!