Dear all,
we have been experiencing the advantages (and sometimes drawbacks) of electronic documentations (ELN: Electronic lab notebooks) for 12 years now. In 2007, we started by acquiring an ELN from a Swedish Company, Contur, that was subsequently sold a couple of times and now runs under the umbrella of Dassault Systemes (Biovia).
This ELN was featured in a recent ELN article of Harvard University, but the authors obviously share our observation that the company is not very eager to communicate with its customers.
For a (large) number of reasons we would be very interested in switching to another product, but we have to observe a number of regulations and rules by our University and the Government.
A) data maintenance is not supposed to be outside of the European Union, preferably on-site (local University server).
B) An open source solutions would be preferred, given our dismay with experienced company policies to change/not change interfaces software tools for the ELN.
C) The product should not be too expensive.
I would be very happy to get feedback from C. elegans labs who have successfully implemented ELN software and would recommend their respective solutions (or let me know what to better avoid).
Thanks for your comments
I have been using ELabFTW, which is based on mysql. We use the database function extensively. The notebook function has not yet displaced paper in my lab.
ELabFTW meets all of your criteria. https://doc.elabftw.net
A) You can host it on any computer you want (local or cloud). I use it with Docker on a local machine.
B) It is open source
C) It’s free.
D) no lock-in
It does require some experience with the command line, but not too much. The developer is very supportive and responsive.
now I know this might sound radical, but how about trying an alternative approach and getting your lab to write accurate, legible lab notebooks?
I know, seems like a far-fetched idea, but amazingly that’s how we used to work. Complicated things like inventories of strains, orders etc. went into a computer database
(that everyone could read if they manged the distance over the lab floor to do so) and the special stuff: describing and recording what one was doing went into a lab book.
We used the cunning device of a date and page reference to cross-reference what we had done (I know, mind-blowing). Before the evolution of the two-fingered hand,
we actually used a waterproof pen to write in our lab notebooks.
So what are the advantages of ELNs?
compliance? I’d rather rely on knowing what my lab is doing and how it’s doing it rather than on whether all the compliance indicators are lighting up
data management? nah, we have been doing this effectively (when there’s a will to do so) for decades
order tracking? employ a technician
archiving? take a look at Fred Sanger’s notebooks
collaboration? we used a rather novel way of collaborating, we met up, talked with each other and showed our data
Just because we live in what is glibly called a digital age does not compel us to ditch some very human traits.
So, bottom line…save money and ditch your ELNs, rather rely on having a good team and effective lab communication /organisation.
It may not work because of your restrictions, but when I started my lab we implemented a blend of paper notebooks and using Benchling as an online ELN. (https://benchling.com)
It’s cloud-based, but you can download archives. It’s free to academics (and they state it will always be free to academics) and in addition to recording data, it’s got a great molecular biology tool suite that has automated primer design, plasmid visualization, sequence alignment (can align multiple sequences), and sgRNA identification. It’s also got sample tracking capabilities, though at the moment we use a communal gdrive for organizing reagents.
My lab really likes Benchling. I set open notebooks, so everyone can look at one another’s data and ensure rigor and reproducibility. If someone generates a useful protocol then people can just look at that person’s Benchling page to get the details.