LabArchives Support

Data in LabArchives are stored securely within Australia in a primary data centre with a back-up disaster recovery centre in a separate Australian location. Each customer's data is stored in its own database, isolated from other customer data - see the security and availability article for more information.

Every action in your LabArchives notebook generates a date and time stamp obtained from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that is unchangeable; this happens when you create, modify, or delete any entry in your notebook. It is not possible for users to permanently delete any data (though it can be hidden temporarily).

Although LabArchives is a secure option for storing data, it's still important to make sure that you're complying with the requirements for storage as outlined in the Research Materials and Primary Materials Policy as well as complying with any agreements you might have with third party collaborators about the location of shared data.

LabArchives will support a large number of file types, most of which you can upload as attachments. Some of these formats include:

• MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• GraphPad Prism
• PDF
• Image (e.g. .jpg, .png)
• Media (e.g. .mp3, .mp4)

You can also create links to internal and external content.

The folder and page structure in LabArchives makes it easy to create a folder system for organising your data; however, it's worth giving some consideration to how you want to structure your notebooks before you create them. See the flow chart for lab setup for ideas.

Tagging page entries will also help when you are searching for data and files later on.

LabArchives has a tool called Folder Monitor that allows you to work with files locally on your Windows or Mac computer and then sync the files back to your LabArchives notebooks when you're online again. Australian users will need to change the default server settings but there are instructions for doing so in the guides below:

• Folder monitor for Windows
• Folder Monitor for Mac

If you need to download a copy of your notebook you can either download your notebook to PDF (good for printing) or create an offline notebook as a HTML file that you can open and view in a web browser.

You can edit MS Office documents from within your notebooks using Microsoft Office Online. If you would prefer to use the Office desktop apps, you can download and install the Office plug-in for Windows or Mac and edit your files using the full versions of Word, Excel or PowerPoint.

There are four main roles:

• Notebook owner, who can add and edit content, add other users and transfer the ownership of their notebooks to another user
• Administrator, who can do the same as an owner except for transferring ownership of a notebook
• User, who has limited editing privileges
• Guest, who has view-only access to a notebook for 60 days

Find more information in the user roles and privileges guide.

You can download a copy of a notebook as a PDF or HTML file; however, you can't transfer ownership of a notebook to an external email address (the new owner has to be someone with an adelaide.edu.au address). The Research Data and Primary materials policy dictates that data remain within the UofA; however, if you believe you have a valid reason for taking your notebook with you then contact Research Technology Support.

Yes, a notebook page can be edited by more than one person at a time. Each entry on a page is tracked separately, so multiple people can work on different entries on the page simultaneously. However, a page entry (e.g. rich text, plain text, sketch or widget) is locked while being edited so only one person can work on an entry at any given time.

You can share notebook content by inviting other people to join your notebook via email. You can choose whether to give them edit access or just read-only, and also whether they have access at the whole notebook, folder, page or page entry level. You can also share content by mentioning a specific user in a comment.

We recommend the University's institutional repository Figshare as the best option for publishing and sharing data as it provides a citeable permanent address and DOI for your published data. In addition, data that you publish in Figshare will also appear in Research Data Australia and in your Researcher Profile via Aurora.

Media files can be added to any rich text entry on a notebook page, and you can also embed YouTube videos. However, you might prefer to add media files separately as attachments because that way you can add headings and tags that will make your files easier to find. It will also enable you to use the image annotator tool.

You can choose whether you just see notifications in your notebooks or whether you also receive email notifications. You can also choose to display or disable display of notebook content in your emails - see the notifications guide for more information.

You can use the search function in LabArchives to easily find content in your notebooks. LabArchives will search folders, pages and page entries and will also search inside compatible document types, including MS Office documents. You can also use the advanced search features, which include options such as searching by user, date, or chemical structure. Improve the searchability of your page entries by tagging them.

Notebooks and their content can be shared with any person via their email address. People outside of the University of Adelaide will need to use a LabArchives account associated with the invited email address; if there is no existing account associated with a person's email address they will be prompted to create a free account in the public LabArchives system. If you want to grant temporary/limited access to an external collaborator you can give them a guest role in your notebook, which will provide 60 days of read-only access.

There are several ways that you can monitor activities in your notebooks. You can use the activity feed, which provides an overview of all your notebooks and allows you to see all entries that have been created, modified or deleted, as well as user activities such as logins and comments. You can use a notebook's dashboard to view a summary of data, activities of notebook users and information on recent activities. Also, you can view revisions that have been made to a page or page entry within a notebook.

If you send files to inbox@au.labarchives.com using your LabArchives account email address, you can access the files in your inbox when you log into LabArchives. The text in the email becomes a description for the attached files, which can be added to any page where you have write access.

Be careful: the LabArchives inbox will detect any email signature text and images. Make sure you have deleted any extraneous text and images (such as the University logo) in the email before you send it.