Guidelines for Creating and Maintaining Engineering Notebooks

Overview

• Your laboratory notebook is your method of documenting all of your actions on the project. It will be treated like a professional notebook in an engineering company.

Why Maintain Detailed Engineering (Design) Notebooks?

• To support the validity of results reported to peers and sponsors.

• To use as evidence for establishing “conception” or first-to-invent and “reduction to practice”.

• To show completion of an invention before the dates of other “prior art” references.

Records Must Be Permanent, Complete, and Continuous.

• Use a bound notebook with numbered pages.

  • A bound notebook with numbered pages creates a presumption that the records have not been forged or altered by replacement, deletion, or insertion of pages.

  • Include an index and a glossary defining trade names, acronyms, codes, or engineering jargon at the front of the notebook.

• Entries should be made consecutively.

• No pages or spaces on pages should be skipped. If blank spaces are left on a page or pages are skipped, then a line should be drawn through them to demonstrate that the blank spaces are intentional.

• Use indelible black ink for entries.

  • Color coding data should be avoided.

  • Pencils must never be used.

• All entries should be completely legible. Print if necessary.

• Do not erase or use white-out correction fluid. If changes must be made (errors corrected, etc.), the erroneous information should be lined through, dated, and signed. Reasons for alteration should also be noted if they are not obvious.

How Much Detail?

• Records should err on the side of thoroughness and completeness. Engineering notebooks should contain enough information so that a technically sophisticated third party will be able to understand what was done without the assistance of the person who actually made the entries.

• Record

  • What was done (even seemingly trivial information and observations).

  • Why it was done (e.g., objectives and goals).

  • Who suggested it.

  • Who did it.

  • When it was done.

  • What were the results (both positive and negative results).

  • What conclusions were drawn (avoid words with legal meaning such as "obvious").

• All details of all designs, procedures, simulations and tests should be listed, signed, dated, and witnessed. This includes data and final results of experiments, protocols and design of experiments, calculations on which the results are based, manufacturer and model of equipment used, and key to any abbreviations used.

• Record all design and development efforts including ideas generated during brainstorming sessions.

• Record dates when an idea was formed and when work on the idea was started and completed.

• Record plans for future designs, simulations and tests.

• Test and simulation results obtained at a later date should be recorded on a separate page and cross-referenced to the page containing the earlier entry.

• Include extrinsic materials, such as raw data from recording instruments, drawings, photographs, charts, computer printouts, specification sheets, etc.

  • Permanently glue or tape these materials in the notebook, sign, and date.

  • The signature should cross both the attached material and the notebook page.

All Entries Must Be Signed, Dated, and Witnessed.

• Investigators should follow a consistent procedure of promptly and accurately recording details and results of experiments and tests. Waiting a day or longer before making an entry diminishes its value.

• The person making the entry should sign and date every entry, not just those considered to be important.

• If the research might result in an invention, at least one person who is a non-inventor, but who is familiar with the work being conducted, should “witness” and actually read and understand the records. Do not use a relative. Do not use someone who is not technically competent to understand the subject material.

  • A person who is unconnected from the invention should witness the records (do not use a team member working on the project as a witness). This prevents the problem of having a person who may later be deemed an inventor being disqualified as an impartial witness to the records.

  • The witness should sign and date every page reviewed on the date reviewed in the spaces provided at the bottom on the page.

  • Notebook entries should be witnessed promptly (e.g., weekly) rather than weeks or months later. The page is uncorroborated and of little value as a legal document to establish and date prior to the date the witness reads, signs, and dates the page.

  • The actual “reduction to practice” (showing that an invention or process works) should be witnessed by someone who can understand the function of the device or process or by someone who can independently repeat the work.

Use of Electronic Records.

• Legal acceptability is unclear, because:

  • Computerized records can be easily altered.

  • The existence and timing of alterations cannot necessarily be detected.

• Suggestions for authentication and reliability:

  • Print out hard copies of each record and subsequent revisions.

  • Glue or tape the printout permanently to a notebook or otherwise bind into a permanent volume, and have each signed, dated, and witnessed. Signatures should cover both the attached document and the notebook page.

  • Employ an electronic recording and storage system that cannot be altered (for example, CD-R). Sign and date the CD-R disk and have a witness do so as well.

  • Periodically archive electronically recorded information with a person or group designated by the university to retains permanent control over the electronically recorded data.

  • Hard copies should be retained by this institutionally assigned archivist who will be able to vouch for their integrity.