Fully Electronic Notebook (ELN) System And Method

An ELN comprising:

• a document management module deployed on a computer network with a plurality of users, each user being required to log in to the computer network via an assigned password, the document management module having an input for receiving documents from authorized users via a signature verification protocol and processor for converting those documents from a user-editable format to a more secure format as part of the signature verification protocol, the document management module also having an input that communicates with a witness signature module to get the witness to sign the document converted to a more secure format;
• a user signature module initiated by saving information to the ELN, wherein the user signature module requires a user to log on using their network password when the user saves the information to the ELN, and wherein the user signature module verifies the identity of the user based upon user information stored in the network, the user signature module inserting the digital user signature in the document saved in a more secure format in the document management module;
• and
• a witness signature module having a processor and memory that identifies a witness for the document based on information about the author of the document and that communicates with the identified witness with an input from the document management module that the document saved in a more secure format requires a witness signature and, once received identifies a witness and sends an email notice to the witness that requires identity verification from the witness before opening and witnessing the document;
• wherein the witness signature module communicates with the document management module to insert a witness signature on the document saved in a more secure format after witness verification of the document.