This ELN checklist gives you feel for the basics, common add-ons, and the less obvious things that are actually critical in determining whether the ELN is right for you. If you are investigating ELNs for a department, school, college, faculty or an entire institution an additional set of factors need to be considered; these are set out at the bottom of the list. Download this ELN Checklist for your convenience.
Features and Tools
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Basic Features
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| Creating and sharing documents |
| Re-usable templates and document structures |
| Image annotation |
| Chemical structure drawing and editing |
| Internal messaging and communications |
| Versioning and revision history |
| Audit history and analysis |
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Add-ons
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| Signing and witnessing documents |
| Sketching or drawing tools |
| Sample management |
Practical Considerations
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Cost
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| License fee |
| Fee to create or manage groups |
| Data storage charges |
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Ease of set-up
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| Getting started guide/video help |
| Simple creation of groups and users |
| Customizable, sharable templates |
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File management
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| File and document import and export |
| File retention and management |
| Integration with Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and One Drive |
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Collaboration within the group or lab
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| Intuitive document sharing |
| Collaborative document editing |
| Multi-user commenting |
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Collaboration between groups or labs
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| PIs can establish collaboration groups with other labs |
| Support for multiple group collaboration |
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Lab Management
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| PIs can easily check on the work of each lab member |
| PIs can delegate administration to another group member |
| Easy to add and remove members from the group/lab |
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Ease of Export
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| Supported formats include PDF, HTML, XML |
| Users with export rights include Users, PIs and Administrators |
| Configurable export options: Multiple documents/types, Entire lab’s output, Entire ELN’s content |
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Support
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| Modern user communication platform (e.g. Intercom, Salesforce) |
| Quality, timely responses to user queries |
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Future-proofing
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| Convenient export options and formats |
| Compliant with funder requirements on data sharing and preservation |
| Integration of institutional research data management standards and infrastructure |
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Security
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| User data encryption: at rest or over a network |
| Logging of data posts and login sessions |
| Precautions taken against common attacks such as cross-site scripting, SQL injection, session hijacking, password-guessing and role escalation |
| Independent security accreditation |
Institutional deployments
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Suitability
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| Does a significant body of researchers at your institution need an ELN? |
| Does the ELN possess sufficiently wide capabilities to meet the needs of the majority of these researchers? |
| Has the ELN been specifically designed for use and deployment in academic research institutions? |
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Deployment
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| Single sign-on (SSO) integration |
| Support for services like Shibboleth or LDAP |
| Both cloud and on-premises options: How easy is it to move the ELN if your server environment changes? |
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Administrative controls
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| Robust system administration features |
| Multiple, configurable levels of admin |
| Intuitive dashboard for admins |
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Usability
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| User-friendly, intuitive interface |
| Support for pre-existing user workflows? |
| Straightforward in-app navigation |
| Robust online training material |
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IP Protection
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| Automatic versioning of documents with access to all revisions |
| Documents can be signed (locked for editing) and witnessed as complete |
| Searchable audit trail of user actions |
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Integration with file stores
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| Support for linking to multiple file stores |
| Configurable file store access interface |
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Collaboration
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| Support for collaboration within groups and/or labs |
| Support for inter-group/lab collaboration |
| Support for inter-departmental/school/institute collaboration |
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Integration with RDM Infrastructure
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| Data repository integration |
| Data archiving capability |
| Data synchronization: built in or via separate app? |
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Security
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| System administrators have the capability to promptly detect security breaches |
| Straightforward implementation of backup and disaster-recovery strategies |