OpenWetWare:Software/Projects/Lab Notebooks/Overview

Introduction

The most recent version of the OWW Lab Notebook will be deployed this week. The Lab Notebook is currently under active development. This version is based upon a model created by Austin Che. A number of people have been providing input to this effort. Prototype versions are already in use.

Design Model

The Lab Notebook design assumes that an individual researcher or student needs to track one or more discrete projects over a period of days, weeks, or months.

Representing Projects

Entering notes and findings for projects has been performed using two different models.

Entry by Project

In the first model, each project is represented as a single document. New entries for the project are made within the document. As each new project entry is added, a date label is included. An existing OWW extension, the Dynamic Page List (DPL), is used to create chronological reports across all of the projects.

Entry by Date

In a second model, the project and entry pages are reversed. In this model, entries are made in discreet entries for each calendar day. Within the daily entry pages, content for each project is entered in sections. Each section is labeled with the project name that findings or notes are to be entered. The DPL is used to create summary pages for each project. The project entries are linked to the summary page; clicking on the entries brings the user to the daily entries.

Initial Data Entry Model

Our initial focus is to complete work on the second model, where data is entered by date and displayed by project.

• BC 09:51, 10 January 2008 (CST): This is fine with me, primary organization by date is likely to be more familiar to new adopters. I think it is important however to develop this in a manner that will allow us to switch to a system whereby entries can be made equally easily by date or project. While most people are likely to have a preferred method of entering content, it's very useful to be able to add an entry identically regardless of whether you are on a "date page" or a "project page".

Project Pages

Each project will be viewable as a separate Mediawiki page. The Project page will be based upon a templated call to the DPL. The DPL uses a Mediawiki technique referred to as 'transcluding' to display portions of each Date Entry. Only the sections of a Date Page associated with each individual project will be displayed within each Project Page.

Calendar View

A calendar view will be located on the Lab Notebook front page. A user can access date entries independent of the Lab Notebook projects by clicking on the entry for a specific date. Individual entries are made for multiple projects within separate daily entry pages. The main page of the Lab Notebook is the jumping off-point for all activity. All daily pages are always accessible. Since this uses MediaWiki, all edits and revisions of the pages are always online.

• BC 09:58, 10 January 2008 (CST): A downstream issue to consider with the calendar view is how the list of dates on the front page will be generated. Will it automatically display the next one year, three years? Or will the user be responsible for controlling the date range displayed? Not important yet though I think but wanted to flag it.

Date Entry Pages

Individual date entry pages are created only when a specific date is selected. On the first day of the lab notebook's use, there will be no date entries.

Date Entry Format

The format of the individual date entries will be up to the Lab Notebook user. Each new page will use an optional "model" file to seed the format of the page. This is not a MediaWiki template. Instead, it is a named Mediawiki page containing a pre-populated format. This page can contain Mediawiki templates. It can contain MediaWiki text with as little as a single MediaWiki template.

• BC 09:58, 10 January 2008 (CST): Austin's code to automatically put "Yesterday | Today | Tomorrow" links at the top of all date pages could be included in this template.

Using the OWW Lab Notebook

This is a "use-case"-like model of how users will interact with their Lab Notebooks. Each currently implemented component will be differentiated from festures not yet implemented.

Lab Notebook in "My Preferences"

Enabling a User's Lab Notebook (not yet implemented) To enable the Lab Notebook, a new "My Preferences" tab will be added. Within the tab, there will be a control to enable or disable the lab Notebook. Enabling this option will create a new entry for "My Lab Notebook" on the :Personal Navigator" at the top right of each OWW page.

My Lab Notebook

My Lab Notebook: Link to permit OWW user to open the Lab Notebook (not yet implemented)==

The user will see the 'My Lab Notebook" link at the left-hand top of OWW page. When an OWW user chooses to enable the Lab Notebook, the link will be displayed as the last entry on the "personal navigator", just before the "log out" link.

Per a suggestion from one reviewer, this will not initially be enabled.

• Jason R. Kelly I think we should roll this out with a beta-test group (still on the main site) but not have this link pop up on everyones toolbar just yet.
• BC 10:00, 10 January 2008 (CST): Once we are ready to roll this out more widely, there should be a link to the users preferences put on their User page when their account is created.

Navigating to Lab Notebook Main page

Click on "My Lab Notebook" to go to the "Lab Notebook Main Page" (not yet implemented)== The "Lab Notebook Main Page" will be a designated page within the OWW user's personal namespace. As is the case with both the user's "My Talk" and "User Page", the "Lab Notebook Main Page" will be prefixed with the "User:[UserName]" tag. Each "Entry Page" and "Project Page" will be created within the same page-space. This allows all OWW User's Lab Notebooks to be managed in a consistent manner.

Creating New Projects

You can create multiple projects on the notebook's main page.

Lab Notebook Calendar

The calendar will allow you to see all of the dates for the month.

Selecting a New Date Entry

Click on a date to either create a new date entry or go to an existing one.

Creating New Date Entries

A simple template is used to identify the content in the entry page for each project.

Updating Projects

Saving the page will update each project with the entries just created.

Project View

On the main Lab Notebook page, the projects will all display all activity by date for that notebook.

Lab Notebook Search

We will be adding a search button that will only search the contents of the lab notebook rather than all OWW pages.

Lab Notebook Backup

We also are adding a single-button export to allow users to save a copy of the notebook outside of OWW if they move on.

WYSIWYG Support

The Lab Noebook will optionally allow full WYSIWYG editing using the FCKEDITOR extension.

==Users can customize the format the projects use as the creation template. For instance, for your class, you may want a specific way to view the content or to automatically link the entries to a category tag for your class.

==The same will hold for the daily entries. A format will allow the pages to be templated with specific information. Every new daily entry will always start out with the same content before the user edits it.

Private Wikis vs. OWW

There is no current requirement to be located in a Private Wiki. The Lab Notebook will be rooted in the User:[UserName] page range that the User's personal pages already use.

Toolbar

We can also customize the Toolbox the user has access to when working with the Lab Notebok. If you have specific documents, such as assignments, to post for the class, the custom toolbox will be present when they are using pages tagged as part of the Lab Notebook.

• Jason R. Kelly 18:09, 9 January 2008 (CST): What exactly is the 'toolbox'?

"Canned" Toolbars for Labs

We can set up the toolbar in a way that allows you to modify the contents of it but keep the students from changing it.

• Jason R. Kelly 18:06, 9 January 2008 (CST):I don't know what this means exactly, but in general I am against things that let one "superuser" group do things other lesser users can't do on the main site. This applies to students/teachers. Courses on OWW have been just as vandalism-free as the rest of the site (w/o lowering students' edit access). Students might even be more trustworthy than the avg community member, since they've got a grade hanging in the balance ;)