Biomedical Engineering Reference
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interactivity between participants. These systems allow for direct interactions
between multiple members and are extremely useful for immediate problem
solving and discussions. Of course, since these technologies are text based, it
can be slower to communicate problems than it would be using phone or video
conferencing. On the other hand, these systems are very light on resources and
quite effi cient on slow Internet connections. The use of IRC is particularly
prominent among open-source projects. For example, Bioclipse, OpenBabel
[87], and CDK developers use, respectively, the #bioclipse, #openbabel, and
#cdk channels on the FreeNode.net network [88]. While it is common to use
dedicated IRC clients (see Wikipedia [89]), these channels can also be accessed
via a Web interface at http://webchat.freenode.net/.
More recently, weblogs, or blogs, have become a useful mode of communi-
cation. This approach allows a degree of interactivity between the producer of
the blog and readers but is primarily a vehicle for an individual or group to
provide updates. Of course, by allowing multiple people to post on the blog,
it can be a useful way for a collaborative group to provide updates and infor-
mation on the project. Blogs are also useful from the consumer's point of view
since they are a pull technology. That is, the consumer (i.e., reader) will usually
read the blog via an RSS reader and thus, rather than receive updates from
the blog, will read new posts when desired.
One interesting aspect is that increasingly this communication is becoming
more open and no longer limited to one project as is often the case for mailing
lists. Many open source developers have started using blogs, where they discuss
algorithms, theories, and so on, Among those blogs are those of two of the
authors of this chapter [90, 91], but other blogs include the excellent one of
Gilleain Torrance [92] , Noel O ' Boyle [93] , and Tim VanderMeersch [94] .
Blog planets and aggregators play an important role here. Various chemin-
formatics projects have blog planets, where the blogs from developers and
users from the community around that project are aggregated. For example,
the Chemistry Development Kit and Bioclipse have planets at, respectively,
http://pele.farmbio.uu.se/planetcdk/ and planet.bioclipse.net. Aggregators also
aggregate blogs, but not necessarily around a specifi c developer or user com-
munity. One such website that aggregates cheminformatics blogs is Chemical
Blogspace (see Fig. 24.9 ).
A similar role is played by question-and-answer websites, a new type of
communication channel popularized by StackOverfl ow [95] . This communica-
tion concept is used, for example, by the Blue Obelisk eXchange at http://
blueobelisk.shapado.com/ (see Fig. 24.10), where people can ask questions on
how to use a particular cheminformatics library or how to solve a particular
problem. These sites essentially extend the concept of frequently asked ques-
tion (FAQ) sites, except that they are grown and maintained by a community
rather than by a single person. In addition, novel mechanisms such as merit
points and badges and the ability to up vote (or down vote) for answers
provide a “social incentive” to the users of such sites to engage in the com-
munity (as opposed to simply taking information, also called leeching).
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