This week’s Nature podcast features Mitch Waldrop, from Scientific American, discussing OpenWetWare and the use of Web2.0 technologies in research. (The discussion starts just past halfway through the podcast.) You can also check out Mitch’s article in Scientific American on OpenWetWare and Science 2.0

OWW is pleased to announce a new addition to our system: ROD:Research on Demand. ROD enables the creation of research results that meet the demands of your publication and graduation schedules. By design, ROD is never 100% correct, and includes errors as subtle or as blatant as you would find in actual research results. With ROD you get the time, AND the reasons, to complete your work.

The variability of results from scientific experiments has traditionally been a major inhibitor of research progress and matriculation. Complex protocols, expensive materials, exotic equipment, trained staff, and meticulous attention to detail are typically needed to obtain quality results required for publications, clients, and various intellectual property (IP) protection agencies. Having access to all of these components at the right time and, getting desired outcomes, can be challenging at the best of times. When deadlines loom, getting consistent results may be impossible.

With OWW’s ROD, “good enough to stay in the game” results needed to address complex external dependencies are algorithmically constructed for you. In fact, ROD delivers flawed data so well, in some cases, you may never even need to finish your experiment. Should you choose to, ROD gives you extra leeway to create delays that even your toughest PI’s will agree to. Think of ROD as the “dog ate my homework” for scientists.

How Does ROD Work?

OWW’s ROD system seamlessly merges the vast array of publicly-available published information with software technology from some of the world’s most prestigious labs to produce a realistic, but subtly flawed, mash-up of any data set you need.

Example Techniques Supported

Here is a partial list of the techniques that can be included in your ROD results:X-Ray Crystallography: Resolution just low enough to produce inconclusive but “interesting” results 100% of the time.

PCR: Samples that appear to show the specific sequences required but are artfully flawed with substrates that, upon secondary analysis, will always come up negative.

Microscopy: High quality JPEG images that, on a second viewing, revert to the family travel photos you submit to us. Pet photos or opening frames from YouTube videos may also be substituted.

Using ROD, OWW guarantees you will have negative results for any findings you submit. We give you publication-quality assets that are be remarkably realistic but, under further scrutiny, will never pass peer review. However, the time you gain by using ROD assets will give you that decisive edge in pulling together the actual data.

What Users Are Saying About ROD

Here’s testimony from some of our beta testers:“If my thesis committee didn’t get off my case, I never would have finished my degree. ROD gave me the time to do it right. OK. Maybe not ‘right’, but at least, ‘better’. My committee was convinced what I had submitted was worth reviewing. When they saw the negative results but understood the plausible reason for it failing, my senior advisor actually took me out to dinner. Thanks OWW!”

“ROD got me my first-choice post-doc. The data set I submitted looked great. I got lucky; the data was never reviewed but if it were, they would have noted that the reason it was wrong was not my hypothesis but that it was the data for another experiment cited in one of my papers. The “honest mistake” angle made me feel confident that if anyone digs into my past, it can’t be used against me. This is great. I love Open Science!”

“The FDA bought every line of the report ROD submitted for me. Our review was so well accepted that the entire lab is using it for all of our new clinical trial applications.”

“I never thought I’d get out of my lab position. Thanks to ROD, I’m now managing a major facility. I don’t even need to redo my experiments. The quality of ROD info is THAT high. My start-up page is OpeWetWare now! Thanks, ROD!”

Availability

The system is still beta. ROD will be available for general use at some point in the near future….

John writes: Hi all just a quick note to say hello, I’ll be taking over from Jason Kelly as steering committee coordinator for the next 6 months. This could possibly be the busiest 6 months of my life as I’ll be moving to California for the summer too. The first meeting that I’ll chair will be on Thu April 10th at noon EST where I’ll be chairing a discussion focused on where OWW has been, where it is going and how to make sure that you feel able to contribute to its continued success. Please keep an eye out on the ‘discuss at openwetware dot org’ mailing list for details of how to call in and take part. We’re particularly reaching out to new members wanting to get involved in how the site is run and the direction that it is taking.

Cheers,
John

If you happen to be a user of OpenWetWare (registered or not) and also own another website or blog, why not spread the word by adding one of these cool OWW banners and buttons to your site?

It’s easy. Go to the Support OWW page and copy the HTML code that appears below the banner of your choice. Then paste it in the HTML of your website or the sidebar template page of your blog.

If you need help setting up your banner, contact us. We’ll do our best to help you.

Lorrie LeJeune writes: Here’s a great example of the collaborative nature of OpenWetWare at work. Last week community member Torsten Waldminghaus discovered that many useful bioinformatics protocols from wikiomics are archived on OpenWetWare. He sorted through them and added a series of links to the “In Silico” list on the protocol overview page. Thanks, Torsten.

This is true for all users: If you see a way to better organize something on OWW, don’t hesitate to step up. Send a message to discuss at openwetware dot org and we’ll help you get started.

The Steering Committee has been spending a lot of time these days brainstorming how to create a sense of community amongst OpenWetWare users. With over 3500 users and growing, we are worried that OWW could turn into a web-hosting service where people host their lab home pages, and don’t really communicate with one another. There are lots of things we could be doing better to bring users together, but the first step requires your help - we need to put faces to all those 3500+ names.

## Putting Faces to Names ##

How can you get to know someone if all you know is their name? The first step is for everyone to fill in a little bit about themselves in their user pages. Everyone gets a user page with their OWW account, and it is located at

http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:Your_U._Name

(You can check out [mine](http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:Julius_B._Lucks) for an example.) The User page is just like any other page on OWW - you can edit it by clicking on the ‘edit’ tab on the top of the page, and type in something about yourself. You can put up a picture of yourself, tell us where you are located, what you are working on, and what you are interested in in the same way. Just a few lines about yourself will make other users feel like there are people behind those user names, and we hope it will spark more discussions. Your user page is also a great place to try out editing the wiki, and if you are a new user, we have even created a mini-tutorial that is part of your user page - visit it and try it out.

Of course, filling in your user page is just the first step, and we have to hold our end of the bargain by coming up with better ideas to foster the OWW community. However, we can’t do much until people feel more at ease communicating with one another - so fill in your page!

As always, please leave a comment with any suggestions you might have, or if you are really interested, [join the Steering Committee](http://openwetware.org/wiki/OpenWetWare:Steering_committee).

By Julius

The steering committee is always thinking of great ideas to help shape OpenWetWare. This includes thinking of new ways to grow and connect the OWW community, new technologies to use and develop to foster the community, and better ways to maintain and support what we already have. In fact, the OpenWetWare blogs came out of this process!

The problem is that we often have too many good ideas and not enough time. It’s also not clear that our ideas are always good. To that end, probably the best idea that we have had is to stop debating with ourselves and ask the community.

This is where you come in. You can help us immensley by taking just a few minutes to fill out the OpenWetWare user survey. Just click the survey link, and fill out the online form. The survey is completely anonymous, and asks questions about how you are finding your OWW experience. We’ll then compile all the data, let you know about it, and use it to drive our future SC meetings.

Once again, you can fiil out the survey by clicking here. And if you really get interested in shaping OWW, take a look at the SC wiki page, and please join the SC monthly conference call!

by Jason

Welcome to the OpenWetWare steering committee(SC) blog. In case you have no idea who we are… the SC is the volunteer leadership that keeps OWW running (& improving!). We have a monthly conference call to brainstorm improvements to the site and to get updates on the many community-driven initiatives growing on OWW.

We can always use more help/ideas, and all OWW members are encouraged to join the SC or to simply call in to a meeting and listen in. Recordings of previous meetings (and notes) can be found on the SC homepage. We’ll be using this blog as another channel to keep the community updated on new initiatives, technical features, and anything else of interest to the OWW community. so stay tuned!