In Part 1 and Part 2 I discussed the criteria we set for our system to be successful and the broad outlines of a strategy for organisation. In this part I will outline how we apply this strategy in practise. This will not deal with the technical implementation and software design for the Blog engine which will be discussed later.

In Part 1 I outlined our aims in building an ELN system and the criteria we hope to satisfy. In this post I will discuss the outline of the system that has been developed. The WebLog as an ELN system A blog is a natural system on which to build an ELN. It provides free text entry, automatic date recording, the ability to include images and other files, and a system for publishing and collecting comments and advice.

This is the starting point for a description of the development work being done in the School of Chemistry at the University of Southampton on a blog-based electronic laboratory notebook for biochemistry/molecular biology. Ultimately the aim is for this document to form the first draft of a paper describing the system.