Results of a Three-Year Survey on the Implementation of Research Data Management and the Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) Chemotion in an Advanced Inorganic Lab Course

As ongoing digitalization accelerates the execution of experiments and the documentation and storage of the corresponding data substantially, appropriate research data management (RDM) is a necessity to enable sustainable research at all. Consequently, a rethinking is currently taking place in academia. This process becomes visible by the utilization of electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) for documentation, the publication of research data in repositories, or the publishers’ requirement for authors to provide a data availability statement. Despite the growing awareness of RDM in academia, the integration of the topic into curricula of chemistry studies is, if at all, in its infancy. As an initial example of incorporating RDM into curricula, an ELN was implemented in an advanced inorganic lab course for upper-division undergraduate students three years ago supported by learning materials on RDM in general. A survey among the students helped, firstly, tracking the implementation of the ELN and the integration of RDM and, secondly, improving teaching materials and concepts. The three-year follow-up shows a growing awareness of RDM and higher acceptance towards ELNs among the students. The survey results highlight the needs for and the progress in teaching RDM in an early stage of chemistry studies already. Moreover, the possibility to integrate the topic here as a hands-on experience is a facile method for its fast integration into teaching without changing complete curricula.