Developer's Corner
ELN and SAM Available on SourceForge.net ®
Interested in customizing ELN or SAM? Source code for both the ELN (Electronic Laboratory Notebook) and SAM (Scientific Annotation Middleware) are available on SourceForge.net
EMSL Electronic Laboratory Notebook
Electronic Laboratory Notebook version 4.0 in use in the ESML Virtual NMR Facility
Collaborators can share this dynamic Web version of a traditional paper laboratory notebook, organized by notebook and chapter. Each notebook page shows data and timestamped entries that include static information such as text and images as well as dynamic information ranging from animated GIF images and video clips to rotatable 3-D protein structures and X-Y graphs of spectra that support zoom and other capabilities.
The ELN consists primarily of the ELN Interactive Web Client and the ELN Server. The main client window displays a notebook's table of contents, a hierarchy of chapters, pages and notes, and a palette of editors that allows users to enter information in various formats. Clicking on a page entry opens a second window to display the page's contents. The ELN provides 7 default editors for entering text, sketches, captured screen images, and equations, and for uploading files from the local computer. The ELN also supports viewing of more than 18 data types, including those noted above.
Customize
Customize the Electronic Laboratory Notebook to meet your needs:
- Simple programming interfaces allow you to add editors and viewers to support your data types. Existing Java applets for scientific visualization can be integrated into the notebook in minutes.
- A configurable email notification capability can send alerts to team members whenever new entries are made.
Extending
Extend the capabilites of the ELN
- The ELN Editor API - Notebook editors are classes that allow input of new media/data types into the notebook. The purpose of separating the editors from the notebook client is to allow domain experts to be able to build new editors without requiring access to or knowledge of the notebook client or engine.
EMSL Toolkit for Collaboratory Development
The Toolkit for Collaboratory Development provides a comprehensive suite of capabilities for remote scientific collaboration that can be easily integrated with instruments and analysis tools, creating a customized Collaboratory environment tailored to the needs of specific communities. Combined with the Toolkit's secure remote control capabilities and remote laboratory cameras, this allows researchers to run entire experiments without traveling to a facility. The Toolkit's secure WWW-based Electronic Laboratory Notebook ensures that all of the data, notes, sketches, molecular structures under consideration, etc., are always available from any desktop.
Secure Collaborative Instrument Control
EMSL can provide on-demand, secure control of nearly any of the facilitiy's instruments that are under computer control using a combination of ssh encryption software and the VNC desktop sharing software.
In 1999, EMSL incorporated a publicly available cross-platform application-control-sharing tool called VNC, developed at the AT&T Laboratories Cambridge to provide a simple method that can be rapidly applied to almost any application. VNC is a cross-platform desktop sharing tool similar to Microsoft RemoteDesktop. VNC is combined with the secure shell (ssh) encryption protocol and SecurID to provide the authorization control and privacy essential for the safe control of expensive instruments or the sharing of sensitive data.