Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELNs) are used routinely to capture and preserve procedures, materials, samples, observations, data, and analysis reports. ELNs also retain the journal characteristics of traditional paper notebooks, thus enabling the capture of thoughts and deliberations. ELNs contain a wealth of data, information, and knowledge that is organised internally but is not necessarily readily accessible for external reuse.Dial-a-Molecule is a UK Grand Challenge Network that promotes research aimed at bringing about a step change in our ability to deliver molecules quickly and efficiently: How can we make molecules in days not years? To realise this vision, it will be essential to exploit the vast body of currently inaccessible chemical data and information held in ELNs, not only to make that data and information available but also to develop protocols for discovery, access and ultimately automatic processing.The data-information-knowledge-wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy is often represented as a pyramid, with data at the base. Identifying relationships places data �in formation� and patterns lead to �actionable information�, which we usually think of as knowledge.We report research that uses the knowledge layer as the entry point to the DIKW pyramid as embodied within ELNs. Core metadata identifying the material being made available and how it might be obtained is published as an elnItemManifest, which is an XML file. If the material is potentially useful, another team can use the contact information in the elnItemManifest to obtain fuller contextual information � data �in formation� - held within the ELN. To reuse the material, the other team would request the detail metadata that describes the data itself. The Dial-a-Molecule approach regards this detail as the third layer of a three-tier model that corresponds to the DIKW hierarchy. If the vision is realised, chemists will have acquired the wisdom to make molecules in days not years.

Extracting data, information, and knowledge from an ELN

247th National Meeting (2014)

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