OpenWetWare:Community development/Community Update July 2008

Dear OpenWetWare Community member:

With so many new members joining our community we're looking for new ways of keeping everyone updated on OpenWetWare. This is the first of a series of occasional email news messages. We won't send them more than twice a month, and we certainly don't want to add more spam to your mailbox, so if you'd rather not receive these messages, please go to http://openwetware.org/wiki/Special:Preferences in the 'Misc' tab and check the "Disable broadcast email messages" checkbox to opt out.

Have you ever wondered who keeps OpenWetWare up and running? Well, Bill Flanagan, Senior Technical Developer and Lorrie LeJeune, Managing Director, are the permanent team behind the scenes. Bill is responsible for building and maintaining all technical features of OpenWetWare; Lorrie handles strategic development, communications, and administration. In addition, Ricardo Vidal, our OpenWetWare intern, manages user experience analyis and is also our Minister of Blogging. If you have any questions or suggestions about OpenWetWare feel free to contact us at (email deleted), (email deleted), and (email deleted).

New on OWW:

• The OpenWetWare Lab Notebook makes it easier to collect, organize and present research data. In addition to being easy to set up, the new OWW lab notebook allows you to create or view project entries by clicking on a calendar, toggle easily between projects and entries, and find content within your project using a special search tool. It also features customizable template pages specifically for your projects.

The Notebook is geared for both individual users and groups, such as labs and iGEM teams (www.igem.org). To keep up with the latest lab notebook developments, visit our OpenWetWare Lab notebook page: http://openwetware.org/wiki/Lab_Notebook. If you have questions about the lab notebook, please contact Ricardo Vidal (email deleted)

• OpenWetWare hosts a number of research-related and open science blogs (http://openwetware.org/wiki/Blogs). If you'd like to write about your work--especially the work you document on OpenWetWare-- go to http://openwetware.org/wiki/Special:Contact and tell us why you'd like to blog on OpenWetWare.

• Having a presence on OpenWetWare can help a lab gain exposure in some unexpected ways. The French, Keymer, and McKinney labs, all of whom maintain wikis on OpenWetWare, were mentioned recently in Virtual Networking for Microbiologists, a Nature Review about Web 2.0 applications and science. Check out the full review at http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v6/n6/full/nrmicro1922.html.

• Tell us what you think. We're always looking for ways to make the process of research easier. In the coming months, we'll be asking members of the community for their thoughts about the problems and opportunities that exist in research, and how OpenWetWare can help solve the problems and enhance the opportunities. http://openwetware.org/wiki/Special:Contact

If you have any feedback you'd like to share with us about making the research process better, or about OpenWetWare in general, feel free to drop a note to Bill, Lorrie or Ricardo, or try our new feedback box in the lower-left corner on the main page. To keep up with OpenWetWare discussions subscribe to: http://groups.google.com/group/openwetware-discuss.

Best regards,

Lorrie, Bill, and Ricardo The OpenWetWare Team

If you don't wish to continue to receive our periodic updates, please unsubscribe here: http://openwetware.org/wiki/Special:Preferences. Just log into your account and check off the 'Disable broadcast email messages' checkbox on the 'Misc' tab in your preferences pages. You can also send an email message to (email deleted) with the subject line, 'Unsubscribe'.