A log book or diary to track all the steps taken for a project

A log book or diary to track all the steps taken for a project,

I became a member of Research Gate (http://www.researchgate.net/home.Home.html).
In the next posts I give some of the questions and answers formulated by me.

The first one is posted by Julia Law:

Diary of research steps as preface to writing up methodology
I would appreciate advice on methods used to write up a log book or diary to track all the steps I am taking for a few projects I am working on. I would like to develop a template to use for future projects also, so any suggestions as to what works and what doesn't would be appreciated. Thanks!

Your question is an interesting one. I have done some work on this problem.

But the way you formulate your question is a bit to general to answer in a satisfactory way. In particular, it is unclear in what field of research your projects are. Different disciplines have different methods to plan and specify research. For instance, in Medicine it is usual to formulate a protocol that is first thoroughly discussed by a local research committy before it is submitted to a medical ethical committy for assessment. There is also a diagramming method developed to specify a clinical trial (CONSORT statement), although I am doubtful about its usefulnes. However, most medical journals require such a statement for articles that describe intended research.

I have stressed the importance of properly documenting the steps taken in data analysis in our book (See Section 15.1 in Adèr, Mellenbergh and Hand, 2008). I also proposed a special diagramming method to represent methodological knowledge (See Appendix B of the same book). But in practice projects are quite varied and it is difficult to think up a general method to formally specify research procedures, let alone to develop a template that could be generally used. But maybe your own projects are quite similar and then the above may be useful.

Finally, for my own projects I always use a program called `Advanced Diary'. It is commercially available for a few dollars and makes it possibly to log each of your projects separately.

I hope this helps.

Herman Adèr

Adèr, H. J., Mellenbergh, G. J. and Hand, D. J. (2008). Advising on research methods: A consultant's companion. Johannes van Kessel: Huizen, The Netherlands.

The book has its own website: www.jvank.nl/ARMHome that links to Google Books so that you can inspect it online.