Assessing the Laboratory Notebook

The quality and content of your laboratory record reflect the level of engagement with which you approach the laboratory work, level of preparation, attention to detail, ability to work efficiently, and even the ability to follow relatively straightforward instructions. At each laboratory session you are asked to have a teaching assistant initial your notebookwhen you come in and just before you leave. Laboratory records, including the table of contents, must be kept current. Make sure that everything is up to date before presenting your notebook to a TA at the end of lab. Before initialing your notebook your teaching assistant will examine your record and may make a note or two. You are then to remove the duplicate copies, put name on the first page and your initials on each successive page, staple them, and turn them in.

Resources

Guidelines for keeping a laboratory record along with examples of table of contents and notebook pages are presented in the Resources section. In addition, a tutorial on keeping a notebook will be conducted on the first day of classes.

Expectations and performance criteria

At the beginning this course we do not expect you to know how to keep a detailed, legally valid laboratory notebook. In fact, what we expect may differ somewhat from what was expected in a previous laboratory course, not because we or they are wrong, but because requirements vary depending on discipline and nature of the laboratory work. We do expect you to pay close attention during the tutorial on setting up and maintaining a notebook. We also expect you to make use of the specific guidelines for keeping a laboratory notebook as outlined on the course web site. The following criteria will be applied toward assessing your notebook.

• Detailed content, as determined by spot checks for specific items; try to include all information that is necessary to make the procedures reproducible
• Table of contents up to date and in reasonable detail
• Name on front page, initials on remaining pages
• Attention to format, including recommended sections with headings, dates, and page numbering
• Care in keeping a legally valid notebook, including filling in blank spaces, voiding entries correctly, and writing legibly

Scoring and feedback

Following each laboratory session your teaching assistant will spot check your notes for form, style, and content, and produce a score. He/she will send you an e-mail correspondence with your score, cumulative score, and instructor's comments. Total points per week are variable. Cumulative scores will be based upon total number of points scored divided by the total possible number of points.

To use the feedback effectively you must learn from past experience. If there are form and/or style issues, you should be able to correct them right away. If you lose a lot of points on content, then please address how you take notes rather than focusing on what information should have been included last time. Are you being sufficiently specific? Are you trying to make notes so that another person could repeat the work using your notebook as a guide?

We do miss an item now and then. Comments on the notebook will be numbered so that if you appeal a score your teaching assistant can look up the item by number. You have one week from receipt of feedback to appeal a notebook score.

Notebook scores will not be curved. Your percentage will be multiplied by 15 points and that total will be added to your final course score.