OpenWetWare:Presentations/iGEM 2006 Teach the teachers workshop

Randy Rettberg asked if we would be interested in giving a short presentation on OWW at the iGEM Teach the Teacher's workshop on May 6 at MIT. Essentially it would involve introducing OWW and describing how it is a useful resource to iGEM folks.

See the iGEM wiki for information on what iGEM is and the workshop.

Introduction to OpenWetWare

What is a wiki, why is it useful?

• enables anyone to contribute so leads to a much more dynamic webpage

Summary of OpenWetWare's beginnings

• Started in the Endy and Knight labs as a means of recording and sharing useful information.
• Permitted a new venue to communicate and collaborate with others about research ideas and projects.
• By forging links between iGEM and OpenWetWare, we hope to
  1. integrate iGEM participants more tightly with the research community
  2. create ongoing resources stemming from iGEM for the synthetic biology research community

How is OpenWetWare useful for iGEM teams?

• Stong synthetic biology presence on the site (it is the home of syntheticbiology.org).
• Q&A / Experimental troubleshooting
  • There is an active community of helpful researchers as well as existing resources on the site:
  • BioBricks
  • Useful facts
  • Tutorials
  • Protocols, Materials and Equipment

How is OpenWetWare useful for labs?

• We have about ~10 labs using OWW as their primary lab webpage. This enables the lab web page to remain very up-to-date and dynamic, as well as allows lab members to engage a larger community of potential collaborators than are normally available.

How to get started on OWW

• Getting started: a quick guide to using OpenWetWare.