Help:Notebook

Some OpenWetWare (OWW) users like to maintain an online lab notebook on OWW. Here's a quick page describing how to do so easily.

Naming

Given that there are several lab notebooks on OWW and that every article in OWW must have a unique name, it helps to name your lab notebook such that it tells everyone else that it's yours. That way, others know to respect those pages (i.e. not edit them). It also prevents clashing of different lab notebooks which might have similar page names.

If you are starting your own personal lab notebook, name it according to your username. For instance, User:OWWusername/Notebook.

If a group of OWW users are sharing a lab notebook, name it according to your group. For instance, BEInG:Notebook.

If you are an iGEM team, name it according to your institution and the year. For instance, iGEM:MIT/2006/Notebook.

Starting a notebook

One easy way of starting a lab notebook is via the calendar extension in OWW. It will autogenerate links to all the days of a month.

Add the code below to your primary notebook page. Be sure and replace iGEM:MIT/2006/Notebook with your own notebook name. Also replace the date with the date relevant to when you want your lab notebook to start.

<calendar>
name=iGEM:MIT/2006/Notebook
date=2006/07/01
view=threemonths
format=%name/%year-%month-%day
weekstart=7
</calendar>

<calendar>
name=iGEM:MIT/2006/Notebook
date=2006/10/01
view=threemonths
format=%name/%year-%month-%day
weekstart=7
</calendar>

Using this approach has several advantages including

1. All the links will have the same naming convention. This reduces the likelihood of inconsistent naming and makes it easier to find other pages.
2. Navigating between notebook pages is easy. Each notebook page will include a backlink to the main notebook page and the main notebook page will link to everything.
3. You won't have to make all the links by hand, they are all autogenerated for you.

Examples

To see a real example of what such a notebook looks like, visit the 2006 MIT iGEM team's notebook.

With the help of templates, you can also easily add absolute and relative navigation links to all your notebook pages. Click on the January 1st page below to see an example. <calendar> name=Help:Notebook date=2007/01/01 view=threemonths format=%name/%year-%m-%d weekstart=7 </calendar>

Other approaches

This approach to maintaining a lab notebook may not work for you. You're free to use other approaches, but please follow name your notebook pages in such a way that they are easily identifiable as yours. It helps to make it obvious to everyone which pages they should and should not edit.

To see more of what the Calendar extension can do, visit the calendar template. For instance, you can display an entire year at a time if you wish.