Your Low Cost ELN

For many research labs and projects, WordPress provides an excellent option for an Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN)

Evaluate the features to see if a low-cost ELN with WordPress works for you

Evaluate the Features

The Value of a

S.A.F.E. Approach

A major advantage of a WordPress ELN is that it conforms to a S.A.F.E. approach of being Sustainable (i.e., long-lived), Affordable, Flexible, and Easy. The quotes below are from a recent Nature Protocols article (17, 179-189 (2022)). The headings are ours, but the quotes demonstrate the importance of these S.A.F.E. qualities.

Sustainable

In our analysis of 172 ELN products (96 active and 76 defunct), the average lifetime of an ELN was found to be 7 ± 4.4 years (median ± consistent median absolute deviation). The lifetimes break down as 6 ± 4.4 years (n = 25) and 7 ± 4.4 years (n = 147) for open-source and proprietary codebases, respectively.

Nature Protocols 17, 179-189 (2022) Considerations for implementing electronic laboratory notebooks in an academic research environment

Affordable

Although SaaS is a widely adopted licensing model (e.g., institutional subscriptions to Microsoft Office 365 or Google Workspace), SaaS ELNs may be prohibitively expensive for individual research groups because of per-user pricing, ever-growing file-storage costs and an indefinite subscription required to maintain access.
Nature Protocols 17, 179-189 (2022) Considerations for implementing electronic laboratory notebooks in an academic research environment

Flexible

Although many ELNs are specialist products targeting researchers in a specific domain (e.g., biochemistry or pharmacology), these may not be relevant or sufficiently flexible for most researchers. Although this limitation was recognized by the early creators of ELNs in the 1990s,it remains an issue that has been highlighted again in recent studies.
Nature Protocols 17, 179-189 (2022) Considerations for implementing electronic laboratory notebooks in an academic research environment

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Demo ELNs

We have built two low-cost Electronic Lab Notebooks using WordPress and a few of the premium plugins. These demos provide more capabilities than are available by using the free versions of the plugins. 

Using GeoDirectory

This low cost ELN uses the GeoDirectory plugin for collecting and displaying the ELN data. A social network and LMS is also included.

Open Demo

Using Directories Pro

This low cost ELN uses the Directories Pro plugin for collecting and displaying the ELN data. A social network and LMS is also included.

Open Demo