At a "Quantified Self and Science" meetup, Bob Evans talks about the issue of record keeping.

1. Record Keeping’s Role
• Needs of science vs quantified self =
Sharing
• Science - public process of knowledge
generation
• Quantified Self - Private process of
knowledge generation
Tuesday, August 7, 12

2. Record Keeping’s Value
• Aid in reproduce-ability, recall, & basic
conduct of research activities
• Documents Intellectual Property
• Defense against false allegations of research
misconduct
• Things written down seem authoritative
NIH Guidelines for Scientific Record Keeping in the Intramural Research Program at the NIH
Writing the Laboratory Notebook, Howard M. Kanare, American Chemical Society
Tuesday, August 7, 12

3. Problems with Record
Keeping
• Problems around Recording Data
• Sampling vs Complete Capture
• Time cost, opportunity cost
• Use tools that make it easier to sample, or
completely capture (Paco - shameless plug)
• Undocumented experimental process detail
• Leads to lack of reproduce-ability
• May lead to unnoticed experimental error
Tuesday, August 7, 12