OpenWetWare:Presentations/iGEM 2007 Teach the teachers workshop

Introduction to OpenWetWare

What is a OWW, why is it useful?

• Started by students in the Endy and Knight labs as a means of recording and sharing useful biological information.
  • Addresses the problem of the lack of a searchable, accessible knowledgebase for experimental methods, as well as provides a new venue to communicate and collaborate with others about research ideas and projects.
• Now consists of ~100 labs from ~50 institutions.
• ~20,000 total pages, more than 200 protocols, 75 materials pages, and 50 equipment pages.

How is OpenWetWare useful for iGEM teams?

Useful information

• BioBricks
• Intro to BioBrick assembly by Chris Anderson
• Useful facts
• Protocols, Materials and Equipment

Active user base

• Many IGEM teams on the site last year and many already are on this year
• Strong synthetic biology presence on the site (it is the home of syntheticbiology.org).
• Ask for help

Custom extensions

• Automatic Pubmed citations via Biblio.
• Recent changes filtering. See iGEM on OWW recent changes.
• Easy adding of plots and chemistry diagrams

How is OpenWetWare useful for labs?

things that you do already offline but might be more effective on the wiki

• meeting organization (lab meetings (1,2), retreat planning (1,2), etc)
• ordering
• lab jobs (1, 2, 3)
• equipment pages
  • control experiments, etc.

things you may not do currently, but which are easy on a wiki

• long term storage of lab information (protocols, primers, restriction enzymes)
• up-to-date lab webpage and http://smolke.openwetware.org
  • remove the webmaster "bottleneck" - democratized contribution

unique opportunities on OpenWetWare

• publicize your work prior to publication
  • OWW will probably be the top google hit for your name
• collaborate
  • find out what people are doing right now across the world or just downstairs
• shared spaces
  • Shared protocols, materials, equipment, etc.
  • protocol example

How to get started on OWW

• Getting started: extensive help available on using OpenWetWare.