Dahlquist:Wiki Checklist

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Your User Page

Set up your individual user page on this wiki (accessible via your username at the top of the page). Your user page should take the form of a résumé or, in academic circles, a curriculum vitae. Dr. Dahlquist has such pages, both within this wiki (user page) and online in general. You may use those as starting points. As students, your information may be different from ours. OpenWetware automatically fills in your user page with automated content that may not apply to you. You will need to delete any unneeded information from the automated content and add the following:

1. Name
2. Contact Information
   • E-mail address (I recommend that you use the "E-mail me through OpenWetware" link for this so that you don't make your real e-mail address public, and thus subject to spam.)
   • LMU snail mail address
3. Education
   • Major
   • Expected graduation year
   • Upper division courses in biology, chemistry, math, and computer science that you have taken (including those in which you are enrolled this semester)
4. Career interests and goals (if you know)
   • Description of any independent research projects in which you have been involved, including:
     • Title of project
     • Mentor's name
     • List of presentations and/or publications resulting from the project
5. Work experience
   • Position/title
   • Employer
   • Dates
   • Responsibilities
6. Personal interests/hobbies
7. What is your favorite aspect of biology and why?
8. What is your favorite aspect of mathematics and why?
9. Feel free to customize your page in any way you wish, bearing in mind that this site is public and that you should present a professional face to the world.

Practice your Wiki Skills

The previous sections listed the content that you need to provide on the wiki. In formatting your pages, demonstrate all of the following skills. Find a way to make integrate them naturally into the content (e.g., do not say “Here is an image.” and put just any image on the page).

1. Every time you edit a page (whether it is a content page or discussion page), enter a meaningful description of your change in the Summary field at the bottom of the editor. This allows other users to easily see (say via the Special:RecentChanges or history pages) what has happened to the page since they last visited it.
2. Create a new Wiki page: [[new page title]] — When you include a non-existent link in a page (say, your user page), the software can tell that this page doesn't exist and colors it red instead of blue/purple. When you click on the red link, you are then given the option to edit (and thus create) the page.
   • We suggest you practice this by creating your Week 2 journal entry page. The name for the page should be in the format "username Week 2" (i.e., that is the text you put between the square brackets when you link to this page).
3. Link to a page within our Wiki: [[page title|optional visible label]]
   • Go to the People and link your name to your own user page.
4. Link to an external Web page: http://address or [http://address visible label]
   • The second form of the link is preferred because it looks neater on the page.
5. Use headings: === title === (number of equals signs indicates heading level)
   • By convention, start your largest heading with two equals signs. The single equals sign is for the title of the page and is automatically created when you create the page.
6. Create a bulleted list: *
   • Note that you can create sub-bullets underneath by using multiple asterisks, e.g., **, ***, etc.
7. Create a numbered list: #
   1. Note that you can create numbered sub-lists by using multiple number signs, e.g., ##, ###, etc.
   2. You can also mix bullets and numbers, e.g., *#, #*, or even #*#, etc.
   3. Do not skip lines between your bulleted or numbered lists, or the wiki will not interpret your syntax correctly.
8. "Comment out" your Wiki code: <!-- commented-out Wiki text --> When you "comment out" your wiki code, the code will be visible on the Edit page, but will not be visible on the wiki page itself. "Commenting" is a common practice in coding that is used to explain the meaning of the code for someone else reading it. In this situation, commenting can be used to keep a rough draft of a wiki page invisible until you are ready for it to be seen.
9. Upload an image file: Click Upload file then follow the instructions.
   • Use the image on your page: [[Image:exact-name-of-image-file]]
   • REMEMBER: DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION! We suggest you include an image of yourself that would be suitable for a professional resume.
10. Upload another type of file (such as .pdf): Click Upload file then follow the instructions.
    • Link to the file you uploaded on your Wiki page: [[Media:exact-name-of-uploaded-file|visible label]]
    • REMEMBER: DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION! We suggest that you include something professional, such as the Word or PDF version of your paper resume, a scientific paper you have written, etc.
11. Assign one or more categories to your page: [[Category:category name]] This creates an automatic "table of contents" for the wiki. When you click on a category link at the bottom of a page, a new page opens giving you a list of all wiki pages that have been assigned that category.
    • Throughout the course, you will use the category [[Category:BIOL98-04/S15]] for all of the pages you create.
12. Use the discussion page to make a comment. Wiki etiquette requires that you sign your comments with your "signature": ~~~~ (4 tildes in a row). These tildes get converted automatically, for example, into: Kam D. Dahlquist 15:47, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
    • You can fulfill this by posting your comment on Dr. Dahlquist's and Dr. Fitzpatrick's user talk pages.
13. Create a template for yourself and use it on your user page. A template is a block of wiki text that you want to use over and over again on various pages. Instead of having to either re-type that content or even copy-and-paste it multiple times, you can simply put the content on a special Template page. You then use code to invoke the template on any other page in which you want that text to appear. There are two steps to creating a Template.
    • Create your template page like you would create any other new wiki page, but using the prefix Template: as part of the page name. For example, your template should be called [[Template:username]].
    • Click on the link and put content on this page that you will want to use over and over again. At the minimum, you should use it to create a set of navigation links that you will use in each week's journal entry. Each week as part of your journal assignment, you will be asked to create a link to your user page, the assignment page, your journal entry page, and the shared journal page, as well as add the category "BIOL368/F14" to your page. If you put these links on your template and then invoke the template on your journal page, this will automatically be taken care of for you. You may also wish to include any other links that you would find useful.
    • Once you have added and saved the content to your Template page, you need to use your template on your user page. To do so, invoke the template by using the following syntax: {{Template:username}} in the place you wish the content of the template page to appear. This will "expand" the template to its full contents on the actual page.

Electronic Lab Notebook

For all of the computer work that you do for research, you will keep an electronic laboratory notebook that records all the manipulations you perform on the data, the results you get, and the interpretations of the data. You should name this page with your username and the phrase Electronic Lab Notebook. You can keep one long page, organized by the date that you did the work. It is preferable to copy and paste protocols to this page, and then modify them with the specifics of what you did. The idea behind any lab notebook is that you or someone else can reproduce what you did using only the information contained in your notebook.