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Redirect your lab site: Redirecting your lab website to wiki allows for the entire lab to be responsible for maintaining the lab website; any member of the lab can easily edit and improve the site. The navigation bar, such as the one on the Endy research page, is useful for traversing through webpages within the site and gives some continuity to the lab pages.
Organize internal lab functions: Use your wiki page for lab internal functions such as lab meetings, retreats, lab chores, ordering, etc. Every member in the lab can access and edit from anywhere. Communication of administrative matters is easy now!
Orient new lab members: Post information for new lab members. This is especially useful for large labs that have a steady influx of new people and visitors. Direct new members/visitors to a site to save time!
Why shouldn't I host a lab on OpenWetWare?
To be filled in.
Am I surrendering copyright to my lab materials?
No, you retain copyright to all materials you upload or write on OpenWetWare. You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like. However, you can never retract the Creative Commons Atrribution ShareAlike and GFDL licenses for the versions you placed here.
In particular, it is helpful if you put at least a couple lines about yourself on your user page.
Once you're comfortable with the basics of wiki's, continue with these directions.
Set up a lab template
Once you've registered for an OWW account, start by making your lab banner. Your lab banner will be used on every lab page to help identify it as belonging to your lab and to enable lab members to navigate through the lab wiki pages.
First, go to the lab template page (open this in a new browser window if you want to keep reading this text).
Click and copy all the wiki markup on that page.
In the search box on the lefthand side navigation bar, type Template:<Your PI's last name> (be sure and replace <Your PI's last name> with your PI's last name like Knight or Smolke.
You should see a page come up with a message saying "There is no page titled "Template:<Your PI's last name>". You can create this page." If you don't see this message then that means a page with that name already exists. You'll need to choose a different lab wiki name.
Click on the create this page link.
Paste the code from the LabName template onto this page.
Replace every instance of LabName with your PI's last name.
Finally, check your work by clicking the button.
Save the changes by clicking ... and you're off.
Next you'll probably want to replace the default image with your own.
Click on upload file link on the left side of the screen (under toolbox).
Follow the directions from there to upload the file. In general it is best if your lab image is wider than it is tall and if it is in PNG format but JPG also works.
After the picture has been uploaded, you will be taken to the Image page for your lab image.
Copy the page title (i.e. Image:<What you named your picture>.jpg).
Return to your lab template. You can do this quickly by typing Template:<Your PI's last name> in the search box on the left.
Click and replace Image:ATempPic.jpg with Image:<What you named your picture>.jpg
Check your work by clicking the button.
Save the changes by clicking .
Set up your main lab page
First, go to the generic lab wiki page (open this in a new browser window if you want to keep reading this text).
Click and copy all the wiki markup on that page.
In the search box on the lefthand side navigation bar, type <Your PI's last name> (be sure and replace <Your PI's last name> with the last name of the PI for your lab like Silver or Knight.
You should see a page come up with a message saying "There is no page titled "<Your PI's last name>". You can create this page." If you don't see this message then that means a page with that name already exists. You'll need to choose a different lab wiki name (and rename your lab template).
Click on the create this page link.
Paste the code from the LabName wiki homepage onto this page.
Replace every instance of {{Template:LabName}} with {{Template:<Your PI's last name>}}. This line is responsible for including the lab banner on the page.
Check your work by clicking the button.
Save the changes by clicking .
Next you can customize the rest of the content on your lab's wiki.
Click on your lab's homepage.
Between the line that starts <div ...> and the line </div>, feel free to put any information you want ... like a lab description, an announcements section or anything else that might be helpful there.
Set up your contact information page
Every new wiki page that you create for your lab should be named <Your PI's last name>:Name of the page.
So much in the same way you created your lab wiki main page, you can start a new page titled <Your PI's last name>:Contact to list the contact information for your lab. See Knight:Contact, Smolke:Contact and Endy:Contact for examples.
Once you've created your lab wiki and included some content, you can go ahead and list your lab on the OpenWetWare list of labs. Institutions are listed in alphabetical order and labs are listed under each institution, also in alphabetical order, by PI's last name. Labs that are just getting started and don't have much content are listed under Labs in Development.
Other common tasks
How do I upload my seminar slides?
PDFs, word docs, powerpoint files or keynote files can all be uploaded to OpenWetWare.
Click on upload file link on the left side of the screen (under toolbox).
Follow the directions from there to upload the file.
OpenWetWare doesn't explicitly support PDF, powerpoint or keynote filetypes. Therefore these files are treated as images and an image page is generated upon upload. To include a link directly to the PDF from your lab wiki, you'll have to use the Media: prefix in your link.
For instance, here is a link to the image page of a PDF that has been uploaded to OpenWetWare: File:Msb4100025.pdf
Note that if your files are in latex, you can actually post the latex source itself and autogenerate the corresponding PDF file via the wiki. Thus, you can collaboratively work via the wiki on latex docs! See OpenWetWare:Feature test/LatexDoc for a sample latex document.
How do I upload papers?
If you both own the copyright to the paper and are willing to license it under the terms listed at OpenWetWare:Copyrights, then follow the directions listed above under How do I upload my seminar slides?. Also, any paper published in an open access journal (like one of the PLoS journals) can be freely uploaded to OpenWetWare. Consult the particular journal's copyright policies for details.
Remember, all materials posted or uploaded to OpenWetWare are automatically licensed under the terms at OpenWetWare:Copyrights. Do not post or upload materials to which you do not hold the copyright (like some papers) or don't want licensed under these terms. If you do need to make papers to which you don't own the copyright (or don't have a license) available, you can do one of the following...
Link to the publisher's version (for instance, if your institution has a site license then at least people from your institution will still be able to access the paper).
Link to the author's version. (Some journals allow authors to post preprints on their own website, so you can link to that version.)
Post them in a password protected directory elsewhere and link to them from OpenWetWare.
How do I include references to published materials?
Referencing published books and papers is easy in OpenWetWare. See OpenWetWare:Biblio for instructions on how to automatically generate formatted citations from just the ISBN for books and the PMID for papers.
How can I check for the changes to my lab wiki?
If you've named all your pages as explained above (i.e. in the form <Your PI's last name>, then it is quite easy to check the recent changes to your lab wiki. Just go to Special:Recentchanges/Knight (except replace the Knight with the PI's last name).
Oh no ... someone made an incorrect edit on one of my lab pages. How do I undo it?
Occasionally, edits to pages in OpenWetWare are made which are incorrect or should not have been done. Fortunately, undoing edits is simple in a wiki. Here are some simple instructions on how to undo edits (also called reverting to a previous version of the page).
Go to the page whose edit you would like to undo.
Click on the tab at the top of the page.
You'll now be viewing the revision history of the page.
Click the circle next to the version of the page that you wish to revert back to.
Click the button.
You will see the difference between the current version and the selected older version.
Click the link on the current version column to rollback to the older version.
Again, Wikipedia has a pretty thorough page on editing tables.
How does the rest of my lab get OpenWetWare accounts?
Other lab members can go through the same process that you did to get an account. Fill out the form at OpenWetWare:How to join.
Alternatively, if you prefer to make lab accounts yourself, contant admin AT openwetware DOT org and request administrator privileges. Then you can follow the directions at Help:Adding new users to create OpenWetWare accounts for your labmates.
and copy all the wiki markup on that page.
button.
... and you're off.
tab at the top of the page.
button.
link on the current version column to rollback to the older version.
