ELGG is an Open Source social networking application that enables people to directly interact with each other using online methods such as blogging, private messaging and file sharing.

Due to the nature of the application, and the way that the application is designed, ELGG is fully customizable and can be expanded with new functionality by way of plugins.

AdastraWales has adapted the ELGG framework so that it becomes specifically suitable for the Peer Education sector to use as an internal communication tool within the mentoring community.

The following functionality is central to ELGG:

• Blogs - including support for comments and RSS feeds.
• Files and Photos - including the ability to store files and/or photo galleries, folder support and RSS feeds can be set up for these.
• Friends - including the ability for users to make contact with other users of the system.
• Profile - including basic info, personal info (defaulted to non-public), work info, and social info.

Resources such as files and photos can be setup in a secure manner, by way of Access Controls. This means that it is possible to upload documents and make them only accessible to certain users or groups of users. This applies equally to folders, which could contain a number of documents.

Due to its plugin design, the functionality of ELGG can be extended by a developer. There are numerous plugins that have been developed and are readily available that can be instantly integrated (or 'plugged in') to ELGG. Also, due to the fact that ELGG is Open Source software, new functionality can be written by developers who have knowledge and experience of PHP, which is the programming language that drives ELGG.

There are two types of accounts within ELGG: