Why do they recommend a paper record that can't be backed up and nobody can verify what it said when? Why not a digital file that can be backed up and with a published checksum that can be used to verify what the state was at a given point in time.
Many researchers often need to be able to note down arbitrary diagrams, not just text, in real time, which pretty much means low-latency tablet with stylus. This became feasible in just the last decade or so.
Many ELNs do implement published hashes for verification ("trusted timestamping").