Stanford University is awarded a grant to enhance an existing biological knowledge resource known as Open WetWare that enables researchers to organize and disseminate protocols, interim and negative results, and contextual metadata generated during the execution of bench biology research. The system provides a groupware type of collaborative environment that is currently used by 1000 users in 60 labs. The specific tasks are to establish leadership and technical infrastructure under a sustainable model, develop additional tools for expanding the types and organization of knowledge that is managed by the system, and implement a Wiki-based framework for distributing and supporting the software. Establishment of OWW as a community resource will enable collaboration, promote better practices for data documentation and sharing, aid development of educational materials, and provide bench biologists with meta-level linkages to other biological knowledge resources.
