Help:Starting a lab wiki

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Revision as of 19:22, 1 January 2007 by Reshma P. Shetty (Talk | contribs)
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This is a help page for starting a lab wiki on OpenWetWare. It is a work in progress so apologies if not all information is available here.



Why should I put my lab on OpenWetWare?

To be filled in.

Why shouldn't I host a lab on OpenWetWare?

To be filled in.

Am I surrendering copyright to my lab materials?


What labs are hosted on OpenWetWare?

See the list of labs hosted on OpenWetWare.

How do I start?

Get an account


Learn the basics of wiki editing


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 your main lab page

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Click on the create this page link.
  4. Type something into your lab wiki main page. For example, "Welcome to our new lab wiki".
  5. Check your work by clicking the Image:ShowPreviewButton.jpg button.
  6. Save the changes by clicking Image:SavePageButton.jpg.

Next you can customize the rest of the content on your lab's wiki.

Set up a lab template

To be filled in.

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.

Create a lab webpage from your lab wiki

See OpenWetWare:Dewikify for instructions on how to automatically create a lab website from your lab wiki. For example, compare Synthetic Biology and or Knight and

Other common tasks

How do I upload my seminar slides?

PDFs, word docs, powerpoint files or keynote files can all be uploaded to OpenWetWare.

  1. Click on upload file link on the left side of the screen (under toolbox).
  2. Follow the directions from there to upload the file.
  3. 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: Image:Msb4100025.pdf

Here is a link to the corresponding PDF file itself: Media: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 to your students, you can do one of the following...

  1. 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).
  2. Link to the author's version. (Some journals allow authors to post preprints on their own website, so you can link to that version.)
  3. Post them in a password protected directory elsewhere and link to them from OpenWetWare.

How do I include references to published materials?


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).

  1. Go to the page whose edit you would like to undo.
  2. Click on the Image:Historytab.png tab at the top of the page.
  3. You'll now be viewing the revision history of the page.
  4. Click the circle next to the version of the page that you wish to revert back to.
  5. Click the Image:Compareselectedversionsbutton.png button.
  6. You will see the difference between the current version and the selected older version.
  7. Click the Image:Rollbacklink.png link on the current version column to rollback to the older version.

How do I format a picture?

Wikipedia has various examples for formatting pictures.

How do I edit a table?

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 students.

Help! My question isn't answered here.

Check out the help pages or else post your question at wiki questions forum.

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