A research-oriented laboratory information management system (shortly named dLAB) developed by Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) has been released recently, including Windows and Linux version(http://duckling.escience.cn), and providing a collaborative environment and a knowledge base platform for laboratories. dLAB is a specific laboratory information management system for research activities and can be used by most of academic laboratories. The main functionalities include web-based SMS, group calendar, project financial management, task management, knowledge base, discussion board, etc.

dLAB was developed based on Duckling software version 2.2, a collaboration environment for e-Science, which is supported by Chinese Academy of Sciences eleventh five-year special project on research informatization. Duckling, which stands for a Collaboration Environment Core Toolkit, developed by CNIC, is a software suite with a JSR 168 and JSR 286 compliant container for portlets, and virtual organization support. It helps to organize collaboration behavior and realize resource sharing and innovation. Some key features are involved including online editing, information content publishing, virtual organization supporting, team schedule and task tracing, unified communication, collaboration library, etc. Compared to the older version Duckling 2.1, the feature of automatic deployment of plug-ins and management provided in the new 2.2 version, which will make the plug-ins upgrading more easily.