Project Description

Below are the answers to frequently-asked questions about the Open Source ELN (OS-ELN):

What is it?

OS-ELN is an Electronic Lab Notebook which you can freely download and use.

Why did you do this?

Amphora developed the OS-ELN for a number of reasons:

we were continually getting enquiries from Academics wanting an ELN to use in classes. Unfortunately, our current business model does not allow us to reduce our price point to one that education users can afford. OS-ELN provides an excellent solution for such users, being simple to set up, free, and extensible.
our work with CENSML required some kind of reference implementation so that people could check standards conformance for themselves. OS-ELN is the ideal reference implementation, as it can be used for free, and the code easily inspected.

How does OS-ELN compare to commercial ELN's?

OS-ELN is deliberately simple; fully-fledged commercial ELN's are necessarily much more complex. As such, OS-ELN is a good teaching tool and a place for experimentation with ELN technology and concepts.

What are OS-ELN's limitations?

You would be very unwise to use OS-ELN to document work that may lead to a patent claim (or defend against a patent infringement action) or for work that may be regulated (by, for example, the FDA). You should either buy a commerical ELN or use paper.

What can the OS-ELN do?

Users can sign up for an ELN, within which they can record their experiments, and you can attach files as part of an experiment. With knowledge of Zope, you can can expand the system as you wish, for example to change the look & feel, to access relational databases, add other content to experiments, etc.

What are your aims/hopes for this project?

Quite simply, that people find it useful :-)

We would like to encourage others to contribute to the code; it is written as a standard Zope CMF implementation, so it shouldn't be too intimidating.

How can I get involved?

The first step in getting involved with the project is to join this site and the associated mailing lists.