OpenWetWare

Dates

January — December 2006

Principal Investigator

Jason Kelly

Problem

We designed OpenWetWare to address two problems that we, as students entering the field of biology, have had to struggle with:

1. Information resources are often incomplete, difficult to search, and out of date. This problem is exemplified by the absence of experimental details that are typically only communicated as "lore" passed between members in individual research labs.
2. Collaboration is often difficult due to infrequent opportunities for communication, little knowledge about other researchers' ongoing work (prior to publication), and an absence of a common "intellectual space" to share ideas and hold informal discussions.

Goal

To promote collaboration and the sharing of information, know-how, and wisdom among researchers working in biology and biological engineering.

Overview

OpenWetWare is a collaborative environment designed to foster the sharing of expertise, information, and ideas among researchers in biological science and engineering. Inspired both by Wikipedia and MIT OpenCourseWare, OpenWetWare is a wiki where content related to research laboratories can be generated and disseminated quickly and efficiently by any individual.

We intend to expand the user community, develop tools to encourage contribution, and integrate content development with educational programs in the hope of creating a critical mass of users that will lead to a self-sustaining resource for the biological community.

Project Output

Publications

Press

""Online methods share insider tricks,"" Nature, Published online: 7 June 2006 View article

""Wikis:Lab Partnering,"" Science, January 6, 2006 View article

""Science in the web age: Joint efforts"" Nature, December 1, 2005 View article

Links

OpenWetWare

MIT undergraduate lab course integrated with OpenWetWare (where students can edit and discuss protocols, etc.)

Science 2.0

iCampus Application