VIVO Notes is now open
Since March of last year when VIVO Notes began, I wrote and distributed VIVO Notes as a Word file to team members on the listserv. This was expeditious, but had some flaws. First, Word is an efficient writing tool, but not a particularly efficient distribution tool. Distribution, and curation would be much enhanced if VIVO Notes was on-line, and distributed via a link to the on-line location. Second, distribution just to the list is exclusionary. As an open project, VIVO Notes needs to be available without sign-on, or sign-up, to everyone interested in VIVO.
So this week, I am changing the format and distribution method of VIVO Notes in keeping with our principle of openness. Each VIVO Notes is a page in the SourceForge wiki. Distribution is a simple link to the URL. You can read VIVO Notes without Word. And you can read VIVO Notes without signing on. And anyone can read VIVO Notes without being signed up on our email lists.
I’ll still send a reminder email when a new edition of VIVO Notes appears, but anyone can set their own watch reminders and be notified directly by the Wiki.
VIVO URLs
The VIVO project has several important URLs. Please use these URLs in your communication about VIVO. Please do not use variants. Please use the URLs as shown on the page VIVO URLs
The VIVO Wiki at SourceForge
Our wiki at SourceForge will be a primary vehicle for engaging partners in the on-going work of VIVO. As VIVO gets bigger – more adoptions, more implementations, more development partners, more support partners – it is critically important that we build out our open wiki.
Anyone can read the wiki. No membership is required. No sign on is required.
To edit the Wiki, you’ll need a SourceForge username and password – you can sign up yourself. Then request to be added to the project by one of the site administrators – see the instructions in the VIVO SourceForge wiki.
Once you have an account and can edit, you will be able to add pages and improve pages. If you have content in Confluence that should be made available to the VIVO community, you can begin to move content via cut and paste. Media Wiki is easy to use, but just enough different from Confluence that the heavy Confluence users will likely need some patience as they adjust.
What pages should be moved? A too simple answer would be “all.” Our open community will be best served by having the record of our work. But there are many pages, so where do we start? A too simple answer is “move current things first.” That tends to be a good approach. Recently edited pages are an indication of value to the project. Think of the readers – what do they want to know?
Writing a Wiki page
Writing for a wiki is a little different than writing for paper. For starters, you write less. See Writing a Wiki Page.
Ideas for VIVO Notes?
Is there an idea that you would like to see developed in VIVO Notes? Do you have questions or concerns that might best be presented here? Please drop me a note.
