MyLabBook

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MyLabBook
Initial release April 15, 2020 (2020-04-15) (1.0)[1]
Operating system Cross-platform
Type Laboratory informatics software
Website MyLabBook.org

MyLabBook was previously a "free low-code" open-source electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) built on Drupal. Today it stands not as an open-source software but "an approach to building an open-source electronic lab notebook (ELN) or research platform that is SAFE (Sustainable, Affordable, Flexible, and relatively Easy to install, customize, and maintain)."[2]


Product history

Sometime around roughly 2009[3], University of Houston's William Kudrle (Biotechnology Program Manager) and Rupa Iyer (Biotechnology Program Director) created the website mylabbook.org as a public exploration of "modular and flexible open-source ELN based on Drupal."[4] They then described MyLab Book as such[5]:

MyLabBook is a community website for exploring how to build a good Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) using the open source content management system called Drupal. Our hypothesis is that by utilizing appropriate Drupal modules, an inexpensive and appropriate ELN can be built for many contexts. This exploration is being developed in conjunction with the University of Houston's biotechnology program.
 
Because Drupal is free and open source and nearly all of its modules are as well, Drupal provides an inexpensive path to building an ELN. It is also relatively easy to set up and is flexible through using appropriate modules from the thousands that are available on the Drupal website. You can also write your own custom modules fairly easily.

By roughly late 2010 to early 2011, the team announced it had built "a fairly capable ELN" based on Drupal for the university's biotechnology program[6], which was stated to have been first put into use in the fall of 2008.[7]

While module files were available for download at the time[8], it's not clear if an actual open-source project was open to the public. By 2016, the website had received a few facelifts, and the university's instance of the ELN was being considered for an upgrade to Drupal 8.[9]

At some point Kudrle began officially working on or supporting the ELN software through his business Awake Software, LLC, founded in 2013.[10][11] By the summer of 2020, the website was updated to note that a code repository for the MyLabBook ELN had been set up on GitHub (April 2020) and the code could be downloaded, installed, and modified.[12][13]

In October 2022, the developers announced that they would be moving away from a Drupal-based ELN approach with MyLabBook to one that uses WordPress and Oqtane.[14] As such, MyLabBook is no longer a developer-created and downloadable piece of open-source software but rather "an approach to building an open-source electronic lab notebook (ELN) or research platform that is SAFE (Sustainable, Affordable, Flexible, and relatively Easy to install, customize, and maintain)."[2]

Hardware/software requirements

The MyLabBook approach to an ELN is built on[15]:

  • WordPress
  • Directories Pro plugin
  • WP Remote and Duplicator plugins
  • All-in-One Security (AIOS) plugin

Wordpress runs on a LAMP stack, and as long as you meet the system requirements of WordPress and its installed plugins, you should be set.

Videos, screenshots, and other media

Entities using MyLabBook

  • University of Houston, Biotechnology Program

Further reading


External links

References

  1. "Initial commit". mylabbook - GitHub. 15 April 2020. https://github.com/mylabbook/mylabbook/commit/45d3afa5eeb61e9a35414d7e6e550466bcfbffb6#diff-b335630551682c19a781afebcf4d07bf978fb1f8ac04c6bf87428ed5106870f5. Retrieved 28 January 2021. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 "Overview of MyLabBook". University of Houston. https://www.mylabbook.org/overview-of-mylabbook/. Retrieved 26 May 2023. 
  3. Admin (26 October 2009). "Open source ELN alternatives". MyLabBook Blog. University of Houston. Archived from the original on 05 January 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110105104111/http://www.mylabbook.org/node/8. Retrieved 28 January 2021. 
  4. "About Us - MyLabBook ELN". University of Houston. Archived from the original on 05 January 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110105104024/http://www.mylabbook.org/node/13. Retrieved 28 Janaury 2021. 
  5. "MyLabBook ELN". University of Houston. Archived from the original on 06 June 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20100606164449/http://www.mylabbook.org:80/. Retrieved 28 January 2021. 
  6. "Background - MyLabBook ELN". University of Houston. Archived from the original on 05 January 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110105093543/http://www.mylabbook.org:80/node/2. Retrieved 28 January 2021. 
  7. Iyer, R.; Kudrle, W. (2012). "Implementation of an Electronic Lab Notebook to Integrate Research and Education in an Undergraduate Biotechnology Program". Technology Interface International Journal 12 (2): 5–12. http://tiij.org/issues/issues/spring2012/spring_summer_2012.htm. 
  8. "Downloads - MyLabBook ELN". University of Houston. Archived from the original on 05 January 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110105104050/http://www.mylabbook.org/node/20. Retrieved 28 January 2021. 
  9. Kudrle, W. (25 March 2016). "Upgrading with a forum". MyLabBook Blog. Archived from the original on 27 June 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20110105104050/http://www.mylabbook.org/node/20. Retrieved 28 January 2021. 
  10. "Taxable Entity Search". Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. https://mycpa.cpa.state.tx.us/coa/. Retrieved 28 January 2021. "Search for 'Awake Software' or Taxpayers ID# 32051447558" 
  11. "Awake Software". Awake Software, LLC. http://awakesoft.com/. Retrieved 28 January 2021. 
  12. "MyLabBook: The Uniquely Free & Flexible ELN". University of Houston. Archived from the original on 07 August 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200807160208/http://www.mylabbook.org/. Retrieved 28 January 2021. 
  13. Awake Software, LLC. "mylabbook / mylabbook". GitHub. https://github.com/mylabbook/mylabbook. Retrieved 28 January 2021. 
  14. "Drupal-ELN (Legacy MyLabBook)". GitHub. 11 October 2022. https://github.com/MyLabBook/drupal-eln. Retrieved 26 May 2023. 
  15. "An Introduction to Installation". University of Houston. https://www.mylabbook.org/knowledge-base/introduction/. Retrieved 26 May 2023.