Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
25.6 LABORATORY BLOGGING: FRAMEWORK FOR
SMALL - SCALE COLLABORATION
The laboratory notebook system developed at the University of Southampton
in Frey's group [191] has formed the basis for the primary laboratory record
for one of us (CN) for nearly fi ve years [192]. Over time this has been used in
a range of different ways and with different organization schemes [193], but
here we will focus on its role in supporting collaborations, particularly geo-
graphically distributed ones. The system is similar to most blog engines in
being organized into posts, usually presented in reverse chronological order,
an ability to comment, including people other than the post author, and the
generation of RSS feeds of posts. These main features, which are relevant to
the discussion of collaboration per se, are common to almost all blog engines.
Most of the other technical capacities of the system are not relevant to this
discussion, but one difference is important. Posts within the Lab Blog system
cannot be deleted by the user, consistent with best practice in retaining a
permanent record of the research process. Where changes are made to a post,
a full version history is maintained, effectively enabling a fi nal version of the
record to be presented by default but providing the complete detail of changes
or mistakes to be available if required.
25.6.1
One - to - One Collaborations
The most successful collaborative projects that have been supported by the
blog system have been largely one-to-one interactions. In the fi rst, the supervi-
sion of a student based at Southampton by CN was effectively supported by
the system after he had moved to a new site [194, 195]. The system enabled a
close interaction on a daily basis with the details of the experimental work.
The details of experimental protocols and results could be discussed in close
to real time despite the geographical distance. From a technical perspective
this was achieved through the monitoring of the RSS feed for the student's
blog in Google Reader. This functioned mainly as a notifi cation system as
Google Reader did not display many elements of the rendered post correctly,
due to the loss of formatting information in the XML of the RSS feed.
Commenting and communication would occur back on the blog system rather
than through any third-party service. This pattern has been more or less
repeated in subsequent collaborations, both those taking a completely open
approach and exposing the record freely on the web and cases where the
interaction has been through a closed, password-protected blog.
25.6.2
Failures
There have also been a number of attempts to utilize the system to support
collaborations that have failed. On the surface these have many characteristics
of the successful examples: geographical dispersion, an acceptance of the value
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