Your SAFE Research ELN - Built on WordPress

S ustainable … The stable WordPress Content Management System (CMS) runs over 40% of all web sites and is open source with a relatively simple code base. It should be around for a long time and only get better.

Affordable …The basic WordPress CMS will always be free and open source. Over 50,000 free and open source plugin extensions as well as numerous reasonably priced plugins provide additional sophisticated capabilities.

Flexible … Thousands of free and professional plugins provide features that often closely match the needs for a given research project.

Easy … WordPress is well-known for its easy installation process on the easy to set up LAMP stack. The multitude of plugin extensions are easy to install and custom plugins are relatively easy to develop. The vast ecosystem of documentation also makes solving most problems relatively easy.

The Importance of Easy Data Transfer

For an Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN), the data collected in an investigation is usually of primary importance. One aspect of not losing data is the ability to easily export and import the data in a useful format. Using the appropriate plugins with WordPress can make data export and import relatively easy, especially compared to many other commercial and open source ELN offerings.

The Uniqueness of Easily Cloning Your ELN

A unique feature of this approach is that for most research projects a WordPress based ELN can easily be cloned, providing a truly SAFE digital infrastructure for your valuable research endeavor. With appropriate plugins your ELN and all of your data can be moved to a different server, hosting service, website domain, and/or URL relatively quickly. Nothing will be lost and you can continue to work with your familiar environment and data as before. Only an open source ELN with an appropriate infrastructure can offer this capability. For the ELNs that we have looked at, the capabilities and the speed and ease of cloning with WordPress seem to be unique. More details are provided in Our Backup and Export Approach.

Our Goal is a Good and SAFE ELN for Every Lab!

Many researchers find it challenging to afford an ELN that fulfills their needs. Over the last decade, several research groups have based their ELN on WordPress. For many situations, this approach is more attractive than commercial ELNs.

The focus of this website is to provide researchers, educators, and lab managers with good documentation and community resources for building their own open source ELN or research software platform on WordPress.

We call this approach of using WordPress for an open source ELN or research software platform the MyLabBook approach.

You can read more in the Overview of MyLabBook

WordPress Provides Standard Features Similar to Other ELNs

Different Field Types

Use different field types for data, including integers, decimals, text, rich text, dates, times, URLs, emails, binary values, colors

File Uploads

Upload files of most any type - images, documents, spreadsheets, domain specific files like DNA sequences, chemical structures, etc.

Data Export and Import

Import and export of data in multiple formats depending on the plugin - CSV, Excel, XML, Binary. WordPress often provides more control, flexibility, and safety for YOUR DATA than most commercial ELN offerings.

WordPress Has Options That Are Unavailable in Many Commercial or Open Source ELNs

Maps and Geolocations

Plugins can provide robust geolocation and mapping capabilities. This is useful in many areas of research but not a common features of most ELNs, especially the integrated map displays.

Social Networking and LMS

WordPress plugins can provide robust social networking capabilities. Other plugins provide sophisticated Learning Management System (LMS) capabilities. These are excellent options for many group research and academic settings.

Public Website

It is easy to create a public website in addition to your ELN. This public site can provide information about your project, often a requirement for grants. You can also include forms for collecting data and conducting polls from the public.

Integrated Media

Other ELNs may allow upload of media files, but with WordPress you can customize the display of images, videos, audio, and animations according to your specific needs.

Track Web Statistics

In large classroom or group situations it may be helpful to track which features are being utilized. Several plugins allow robust tracking and analytics of usage from within the site as well as from external visitors.

Comments Built-In

In trusted settings, it can be helpful to allow feedback from other researchers. The built-in commenting ability of WordPress makes it easy to enable this capability.

Mobile Platform Friendly

When mobile capabilities are important there are numerous plugins for adding and improving mobile friendly features.

Supportive Community

Given the huge market share of WordPress, there is an extensive community of developers and site builders from whom you can gain tips and insights and find comaradiere.

Numerous Hosting Providers

Because of its popularity there is a vast array of hosting providers for WordPress. You can also build WordPress yourself on any virtual machine or server of your choice.