OpenWetWare:Steering committee

Right now this is a volunteer-based committee, if you want to help out please sign your name in one of the goal areas. Currently the set of goals outlined are mapped from the iCampus application for OWW, so feel free to add or edit these but it seemed like a good starting point.

Goals

Software development

In order to facilitate user interactions with OpenWetWare, we would like to establish UROP positions to work on a variety of software tools:

1. Tools to simplify data entry into the wiki (e.g., direct conversion of Excel/Word/LaTeX documents into wiki markup language).
2. Tools to map wiki pages onto static websites. We have already begun to explore such possibilities ( see http://syntheticbiology.org ), and would be interested in making such tools easier to use and more widely available.
3. Tools to integrate permanent and evolving documents. For example, what is the best interface between MIT's DSpace ( http://dspace.mit.edu ) and OpenWetWare?

Ideally, we hope to coordinate with the MediaWiki open source community on tools that are likely to be of general use to the community (MediaWiki is the open source software that OpenWetWare is based on).

Contacts

• Principle contact:
• Other contributers:

Cultivation of user base

The success of OpenWetWare depends critically on cultivating and maintaining an active user base. We plan to dedicate funds to enable tutorials, conference visits, advertising, and other mechanisms for recruiting new users to OpenWetWare.

Contacts

• Principle contact:
• Other contributers:

Data management

In the long term, the success of OpenWetWare relies on the assumption that the number of users actively curating the information of OpenWetWare will scale with the amount of content generated. However, there has been little work to examine how collaborative tools can best be used to develop information resources, such as the OpenWetWare protocol collection. We believe the project would benefit dramatically from the active establishment of community standards for organizing content in OpenWetWare. We will establish a UROP position to evaluate and implement templates and other methods for organizing information in OpenWetWare.

Contacts

• Principle contact:
• Other contributers:

Integration with laboratory classes

To complement its mission to promote an open culture in biological science and engineering, OpenWetWare will be integrated into the curriculum of laboratory classes. As a pilot experiment, MIT's BE.109 Laboratory fundamentals of biological engineering will be relying heavily on OpenWetWare to disseminate course content and to serve as a shared space for students, TA's and instructors to communicate.

Contacts

• Principle contact: Natalie Kuldell
• Other contributors: Reshma Shetty

Specific Benchmarks for May 2006

Community Benchmarks

• 30 academic labs
• 750 users
• 3000 uniques visitors/day

(Each of these is ~3X the number currently on the site)

• Send representatives to 2 conferences (ASCB & ?)

Content Benchmarks

• Improve software tool to convert wiki->static webpage
• Design and implement protocol templates
• Integrate with BE.109
• 1400 content pages (2X current amount)

Timeline

The tasks of greatest initial importance lie in building the usage infrastructure of OpenWetWare; i.e., quantifying the current usage and developing the tools and guidelines that will be needed to continue its growth. This timeline is written with this initial output in mind. It is expected that many of the up-front analysis and development tasks will morph into more curative duties as the year progresses. Some tasks will be better suited to a time when more of the infrastructure is in place. For example, we might wait until the summer to begin merging OpenWetWare with fall class curricula.

Regular committments include monthly committee meetings.

12.2005:

• Advertise for two UROP positions: software development and usage statistics & analysis
• Compile initial observations of wiki usage, desired software improvements, and specific tasks for UROP positions
• Make initial advertising materials (business cards, advertising & lab invitation emails)

01.2006:

• Review findings of Usage/Data Management UROP
• Formulate usage guidelines and develop their implementation
• First recruitment/introductory tutorial luncheon

02.2006:

• Review protocol templates, conversion tools, links to static webpages
• Implement usable tools with current users
• Second recruitment/introductory tutorial luncheon

03.2006:

• Design set of advertising materials (posters, mailings, etc) and have printed
• Develop outreach strategy: identify relevant conferences & meetings, etc.
• Third recruitment/introductory tutorial luncheon
• Recruit at Bioengineering Department Retreat

04.2006

• Fourth recruitment/introductory tutorial luncheon

Summer.2006:

• Develop tutorials for integration with BE.109 and 7.02
• Hold large-scale 'brush-up' tutorial for all current users
• Usage/Data Management UROP develops strategy for integration with DSpace

Fall.2006:

• Develop institution-specific information hubs
• Fifth recruitment/introductory tutorial luncheon

Timeline 'enforcers'

• Principle contact:
• Other contributers:

Budget

A tentative budget, please revise.

• $6000 for a UROP dedicated to software tools development
• $6000 for a UROP dedicated to data management
• $2000 for advertising materials
  • OpenWetWare gathering in Boston
  • poster and business card printings
  • poster mailing
• $5000 for travel funds to conferences
  • conference registration
    • Which conferences?
      • ASCB
      • ICSB
      • SB2.0
      • others?
  • travel expense
• $2000 to hold Boston-area OpenWetWare tutorial sessions
  • travel to and from session
  • refreshments
• $1000 for OpenWetWare steering committee administrative costs