OpenWetWare:Presentations/NCI-ICBP

=Problem= Much of the knowledge produced by biological research is passed down by oral tradition.

This makes it difficult for newcomers to enter the field.

=Solution: OpenWetWare=

=OpenWetWare's contributions=

=Labs on OpenWetWare=



=Integrating OpenWetWare into research=



=Examining Communication= Ethnomethodology: A sociological discipline which focuses on the ways in which people make sense of their world, display this understanding to others, and produce the mutually shared social order in which they live. (Wikipedia)

Discourse Analysis

=Dysfunctionality of Model Publishing= figure: Ty Thomson

=Systematization and Data Standards= <img src="http://www.fotosearch.com/thumb/ICL/ICL154/BIM_116.jpg"


 * Standards for models
 * MIRIAM - Minimum Information Requested in the Annotation of Biochemical Models
 * SBML - Systems Biology Markup Language


 * Communicating with computers, not people
 * Rigid, one-way "conversation"

=Literate Programming= Donald Knuth, 1981

Write programs primarily for humans, not computers

=YeastPheromoneModel.org= Ty Thomson, MIT



=YeastPheromoneModel.org=

=80-20 Rule / Pareto Principle=

=How do we communicate the final 20% ?=
 * Verbal, email, etc.
 * Wiki

Conversation is robust, and necessary anyway

=Agile Informatics effort= Wiki-based model documentation

with Brian Joughin, MIT/ICBP

To be integrated into OWW

Part of a larger workflow:

="Living" Models=

=OpenWetWare's success=


 * 2,800 contributors
 * 100 labs
 * 1.5 million pageviews per month
 * 275,000 sessions per month

http://openwetware.org