Off-topic: ELNs

From: Seiji Sugiman-Marangos
Date: 16 January 2012 21:28


Hi, off-topic question regarding electronic laboratory notebooks. Our
lab is planning on moving from paper to digital record keeping and I
was wondering which of the available ELN platforms are being used by
the ccp4 community.

We are primarily a crystallography lab but we would also need some
versatility in the platform as some of our lab members are more focused
on biochemistry.

Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Seiji

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From: Sean Seaver

For an out of the box solution, you may want to take a look at Labguru ( http://www.labguru.com ).

If you are looking for a 'free' alternative would consider using google sites ( https://sites.google.com/ ) to roll your own solution.

I hope that helps.

Take Care,

Sean Seaver

P212121
http://store.p212121.com/

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From: Alexei Korennykh


My lab uses
http://biochemlabsolutions.com/ELN/ELN.html
Best,
Alexei.

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From: Francisco Hernandez-Guzman


Hi Seiji,

A nice web base solution is the iLabber from Contur. It has been a popular option for many academic labs around the globe.

http://www.contur.com/home/

Cheers,

Francisco

Sr. Product Manager
Accelrys, Inc.

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From: Chen Guttman

Hi Seiji,

I would recommend Labguru (www.labguru.com) which is cloud-based ELN and laboratory management solution. This tool encompass the management of experiment and projects, connects between experiments and individual samples, manages the different storage facilities down to the single tube and inter-connects the knowledge base of your labs (protocol, articles) to every experiment/project. There are both free accounts (for individual students in the lab) or paid accounts for whole lab solutions, which take use of labguru's sharing capabilities among users. The system comes with a fast and reliable human support.

Take care,

Chen

---
Chen Guttman

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From: Chris Morris


PiMS (Protein information Management System) is free for installation for academic use, and available at no extra charge to CCP4 licencees. There is also a hosted PiMS service provided by Instruct for all European academics.

Here is the description of PiMS, from http://pims.structuralbiology.eu/ :

"PiMS is a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) developed to support the unpredictable workflows of Molecular biology and Protein production labs of all sizes.

PiMS has features to support work on ORF Targets and Complexes, including primer design, cloning, expression and protein purification.

PiMS records data for Targets, Constructs, Samples and  Experiments.
Customized workflows are created with Protocols -configurable, reusable Experiment templates.

PiMS supports multi-site collaborations.

PiMS is accessed through a web browser, requiring no installation on the individual user's computers."

____________________________________________
Chris Morris



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From: Charles Allerston


We use ConturELN.  No complaints.

cheers

charlie

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From: Florian Brückner

Hi,

we use ConturELN. It is quite simple to use, but not very sophisticated. The disadvantage is, there is no client for mac osx, so you have to use a terminal server or run Windows on your mac.

Cheers

Florian

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From: Berry, Ian

I believe that there is a web version in the next release that will solve this Mac access problem.  We are also using Contur ELN across chemistry, biology and structural biology.

 

Cheers

Ian

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From: Seiji Sugiman-Marangos


Thanks for the responses so far everyone.

For those that have already replied, did you or your lab try out any other ELNs before deciding on the one that you are currently using? Any feedback on platforms that may not have integrated well into your lab environment? Why did you end up choosing the one that you did?

At the end of the week I'm planning on putting together a summary of this discussion.

Thanks!

Seiji

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From: Anastassis Perrakis

Hi -

Here at the NKI, we had formed a committee to look at ELN solution two years ago.

We had interviewed three vendors, and run two tests with twenty users.

A brief description of the outcome:

1. None of the twenty test-users was satisfied with any of the two solutions - and each was annoyed for a different reason.

2. If that would work at all, better be prepared to dedicate one person for technical support (unless security considerations

allow you to have cloud-based usage or remote hosting) and another person for scientific support (making templates for 

experiments - else in a year you would have 37 templates for how to run a gel filtration column). 

I would add, that for the whole thing to work at all you need an IT department that are really good and collaborative,

and especially for cloud-based solutions you need a fast network.

My personal conclusion - and not that of the NKI which continues to be dedicated to implementing an ELN solution may

I clarify - was that I have wasted enough time, and I quit from the committee before Christmas.

And, with no offense as well to my friends in the PiMS project, besides spending time and resources on that between 2004-2008,

I also do not think that this is a solution for small lab like mine - admittedly it works well for bigger and better organized labs.

Sorry for the negative vibes.

A.

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From: James Stroud


Would you mind elaborating on any of the reasons that resonated most with you?

Are these ELNs simply over-engineered? You mention the requirement to make experiment templates. This sounds cumbersome and a potential for duplicated effort.

Do ELNs generally require templates or other overhead in the form of end-user effort?

James

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From: Seiji Sugiman-Marangos


Thanks everyone for your responses.  I've tried to summarize the suggestions and feedback from this thread:

- This was a very small sample size, but overall ConturELN (http://www.contur.com) from Accelerys was the most popular option, followed by Labguru (http://www.labguru.com). Two others were mentioned, ELN from biochemlabsolutions.com and PiMS (http://pims.structuralbiology.eu). Google docs was also suggested as an option.


ConturELN

- It was mentioned that there is no client for MacOSX for ConturELN, but there it going to be a web version available very soon that will correct for this problem.

- Contur was stated to be simple to use, and not too sophisticated.

- Contur is primarily cloud based, so the data is not stored locally.  I believe there is a server option available, however it appears to be significantly more expensive.

- Cost for the cloud based platform is 10$/user/month.


Labguru

- from Chen Guttman " cloud-based ELN and laboratory management solution. This tool encompass the management of experiment and projects, connects between experiments and individual samples, manages the different storage facilities down to the single tube and inter-connects the knowledge base of your labs (protocol, articles) to every experiment/project"

- free accounts are available but lack the sharing capabilities offered by the lab platform, which costs 12$/user/month.



ELN from biochemlabsolutions.com

- data is stored on your own servers
- free license
- I tried this software in our lab and had two other test it as well and we all found it hard to use.  There are also some annoying bugs so we have already scratched it from our list of potential platforms.



PiMS

- from the website description: "PiMS has features to support work on ORF Targets and Complexes, including primer design, cloning, expression and protein purification.
Anastassis Perrakis sat on a committee two years ago to select an ELN for the NKI. Here is a link to his reponse in full as I believe it is worth reading for those considering a move to an ELN system:

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1201&L=ccp4bb&D=0&P=201318

Seiji