Replies

• 1

  Heather Etchevers

  07 September 2008 | 13:44

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  Thanks – but the examples abound at Protocol Online and the Science Advisory Board forums, just to name a couple of sites.

• 2

  Maxine Clarke

  08 September 2008 | 07:33

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  Thanks, Heather, this is the kind of information that will be very useful for the meeting (for which this forum was set up).

• 3

  Poltronieri Palmiro

  08 September 2008 | 10:15

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  Thanks, the example is well centered,
  it reminded me of my starting experience abroad (not to mention computer skills)
  here are two recent sites I found interesting:
  http://molecularbiology.forums.biotechniques.com/forums/
  http://www.biocompare.com/forums/ViewTopics.aspx
  I know these are sites sponsored by private or competitor sites, and the second is a place where questions may happen to remain unanswered, but in general this reality shows how lab problems and protocol sites meet on the web.
  My favourite journal remains TiBS, that hosted a page on these protocol tips, as well as a humour page.

• 4

  Allan Sudlow

  12 September 2008 | 09:41

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  Useful to see these sites. I was aware of some, but not the Science Advisory Board.

  Does anyone out there know how many sites are using wikis as a way of collaborating on protocol development either in an open forum or across a lab/institute?

  If anyone is involved in this activity, what are the pros and cons?

  I was interested to read about the approach to attribution that wikigenes is promoting.

• 5

  David Kavanagh

  12 September 2008 | 10:46

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  I like the idea of a wiki for protocol development. I am not aware of any at the moment, openwetware is a “open lab notebook” that employs wikis for certain aspects of the site. I suppose two obvious problems with the wiki model

  1) Protocols change and develop and unless the wiki community is big enough these changes may not be captured effectively.

  2) Time constraints are always going to be a problem with Web2.0 and science be it social networking, wikis or blogs. People are trying to balance bench time with planning/desk research time. I think these time constraints mean that a lot of scientists are reluctant to engage with web2.0, which as it exists today commands a lot of time.

• 6

  Maxine Clarke

  12 September 2008 | 16:02

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  Protcols Network (free: part of Nature Protocols) is another protocol sharing website.

  Here’s another example of science net-working (as opposed to not-working).
  Cameron Neylon is talking at science in 21st century (see elsewhere in this forum for more details of the meeting.) Jen Dodd has liveblogged his talk at FriendFeed, and his slideshow is here. Slide 17 is an example of crowdsourcing research help (on FriendFeed), in which Cameron asked for help in building a model of a calcium-gated potassium channel. “Authorship on papers a given – can’t offer any money.” He’s got the help, but no papers yet.

• 7

  Maxine Clarke

  12 September 2008 | 16:04

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  OK, I can really spell protocols. And here is Protocols Network (see right hand side of page).

• 8

  Ricardo Vidal

  13 September 2008 | 00:51

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  David Kavanagh,
  I’d like to make a small correction regarding OpenWetWare. It is far more than just an open online lab notebook. It is wiki-based project that encompasses a large number of groups, labs, classes, protocols, materials and other topics related to the life sciences.

  Maxine, glad you can spell protocols (lol!) Thanks for mentioning the Protocols Network. I was unaware of it. Looks interesting.

• 9

  David Kavanagh

  16 September 2008 | 20:22

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  Hi Ricardo,

  Sure i realise that openwetware is more than just an “open lab notebook” but i was refering to it in the context of community protocol development.

  I have a question for you guys, what do you think of Biocompare? Do you rate it as a service?