Difference between revisions of "Main Page/news"
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|<h2 style="font-size:105%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em; width:50%;">November 12, 2018:</h2> | |||
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[[File:Twemoji 1f195.svg|left|100px]] '''Several new useful pieces have been added to the wiki''' in 2018, with more in the works. First, be sure to check out the webinar series ''A Guide for Management: Successfully Applying Laboratory Systems to Your Organization's Work'' by laboratory automation and computing professional Joe Liscouski. The [[LII:A Guide for Management: Successfully Applying Laboratory Systems to Your Organization's Work|seven-part webinar]] takes viewers on a journey of laboratory technologies and how they may or may not apply to the work you do. And of course a whole quiver of [[:Category:LIMSwiki journal articles (added in 2018)|journal articles]] have been added in 2018, touching on topics such as big data in healthcare and managing information across a wide variety of scientific contexts. What's coming in 2019? Look forward to updates to several key guides posted here, including more equipment and vendor information for the [[LII:Past, Present, and Future of Cannabis Laboratory Testing and Regulation in the United States|''Past, Present, and Future of Cannabis Laboratory Testing and Regulation in the United States'']] guide, and updated citations and statistics in our other popular guides. Happy wiking! | |||
[[User:Shawndouglas|Shawn Douglas]] ([[User talk:Shawndouglas|talk]]) 14:49, 12 November 2018 (UTC) | |||
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|<h2 style="font-size:105%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em; width:50%;">December 4, 2017:</h2> | |||
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[[File:Continental Carbon Company (10429000336).jpg|left|130px]] '''Relatively new to the wiki but previously unannounced''' is what will eventually become part of a series on the various industries and settings a [[laboratory]] can be found: ''[[LII:The Laboratories of Our Lives: Labs, Labs Everywhere!|The Laboratories of Our Lives: Labs, Labs Everywhere!]]''. This guide may eventually change names and be integrated with more content. However, for now it acts as a solid introduction to the concept of how laboratories intersect our lives in ways we may not necessarily expect. The guide first sets a historical stage for the development of the laboratory, and it then offers a basic framework for looking at today's laboratories, whether by science, industry, or function. Then it provides a brief snapshot of 20 different sectors, listing lab examples, test types, equipment used, and how [[informatics]] may be applied in those laboratories, followed by a brief closing discussion. Hopefully the guide provides a more inspiring picture of how the laboratory intersects nearly every aspect of our lives. | |||
[[User:Shawndouglas|Shawn Douglas]] ([[User talk:Shawndouglas|talk]]) 17:02, 4 December 2017 (UTC) | |||
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|<h2 style="font-size:105%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em; width:50%;">April 11, 2017:</h2> | |||
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[[File:Tetrahydrocannabinol.svg|left|180px]] '''New to the wiki today is the guide''' ''[[LII:Past, Present, and Future of Cannabis Laboratory Testing and Regulation in the United States|Past, Present, and Future of Cannabis Laboratory Testing and Regulation in the United States]]''. This guide provides an in-depth discussion of the ever-changing status of [[laboratory]] testing and regulation of the ''cannabis'' plant in the United States. From the history, regulations, and standards to the chemical properties of cannabis and the laboratory methods used to define them, this Creative Commons-based work covers the social, political, and economic circumstances surrounding the controversial plant. It also looks at the equipment, software, and reporting of testing labs; provides future-looking trends and guidance both nationally and internationally; and offers a full directory of resources associated with cannabis testing and legislation. Enjoy! | |||
[[User:Shawndouglas|Shawn Douglas]] ([[User talk:Shawndouglas|talk]]) 02:00, 11 April 2017 (UTC) | |||
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|<h2 style="font-size:105%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em; width:50%;">January 3, 2017:</h2> | |||
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[[File:Lab book - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - DSC08822.JPG|left|180px]]<br />'''2016 had its share of ups and downs''' for many, and the same holds true for LIMSwiki. From a web attack to dealing with time constraints, it was all about resources, resources, resources. As the wiki has grown over the years, more time has been required for weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. maintenance tasks. Despite this, however, a few new projects sprung up on the wiki. Though not complete, we made significant headway on [[Government IT contractor|a directory]] (with external links) of U.S. government- and/or self-certified Small Business Administration (SBA) entities offering custom software development and general IT services under government contract. (The idea was those seeking laboratory and scientific informatics implementations could also investigate SBA providers for their service needs.) Developing and adding content for [[:Category:LIMSwiki books|book format]] was also a goal in 2016, including topics such as medical implants, chemistry, health and biomedical informatics, and web application security, among others. And of course we had smaller updates, such as adding LinkedIn URLs to vendor pages, to go along with long-term maintenance and content addition goals like expanding our [[:Category:LIMSwiki journal articles|open-access journal articles]] on a weekly basis. Finally, development of a huge education-related project took up a significant portion of the latter part of 2016; details will appear here in the news in the coming month or so. | |||
We hope in 2017 to continue adding useful content while striving to find balance with the increasing number of maintenance tasks. Happy wikiing, and Happy New Year! | |||
[[User:Shawndouglas|Shawn Douglas]] ([[User talk:Shawndouglas|talk]]) 17:43, 3 January 2017 (UTC) | |||
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|<h2 style="font-size:105%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em; width:50%;">October 12, 2015:</h2> | |||
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[[File:LIMSforum Large.png|left|180px]]<br />'''The tangentially related [[LIMSforum]]''' — a leading forum on laboratory, medical, and scientific informatics — has moved again due to unfortunate changes by the host LinkedIn. Forum moderator John Jones [http://www.limsforum.com/forum/the-limsforum-group-is-moving-from-linkedin/ explained it this way]: | |||
"All, it is with regret that I must make the decision to leave Linkedin as the forum for our group. Linkedin has planned changes that will make this group unworkable. We believe strongly in open information and Linkedin is planning changes that would severely disrupt this. However, there is good news... I have planned for this day and knew that Linkedin would pull some sort of bone head idea like this, so I have been working on a complete new site that will let us all carry on our great discussions and a whole lot more. You will be able to login with your Linkedin account and continue as usual." | |||
The forum is now hosted at [http://www.limsforum.com/forum/ http://www.limsforum.com/forum/] and can still be used with your LinkedIn ID. | |||
[[User:Shawndouglas|Shawn Douglas]] ([[User talk:Shawndouglas|talk]]) 15:23, 12 October 2015 (UTC) | |||
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|<h2 style="font-size:105%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em; width:50%;">June 15, 2015:</h2> | |||
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[[File:Sourceforge logo.png|left|220px]]<br />'''I've been following the antics of open-source hosting site SourceForge''' for several years now, wanting to give them a chance to turn a sinking ship around with better, more community-friendly tactics. However, it's become clear to me within the last week that the people running the site have fully managed to drive the site off the cliff, never to return to respectability. The site has been packing crappy add-ons and bloatware with select popular software packages for quite some time, but lately the site owners have gone too far. While the need to monetize the site to pay for hosting seems reasonable, the owners of the site have gotten out of hand. (Actually, they don't even pay that much for hosting, if anything, depending on the generosity of others to [http://sourceforge.net/p/forge/documentation/Mirrors/ mirror the site].) | |||
Major projects have been leaving SourceForge in droves, but that hasn't stopped the SourceForge team from doing more harm: they resorted to [http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/sourceforge-locked-in-projects-of-fleeing-users-cashed-in-on-malvertising/ taking over abandoned accounts] and repackaging software with malware, etc. Calls for [http://www.itworld.com/article/2935377/open-source-tools/the-slow-death-of-sourceforge.html other projects to leave SourceForge] have gotten louder over the past few days, with the team of well-regarded text editor [https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/notepad-plus-plus-leaves-sf.html Notepad++ being the latest to leave] while encouraging others to do the same. | |||
We've been linking directly to SourceForge pages for most of our [[:Category:Open-source software|open-source software pages]], but that will now end. External links to SourceForge on open-source pages will be removed, though a text comment will remain if the project can ONLY be found on SourceForge. It will then be up to the user to decide to visit SourceForge and search for the project there. We do not wish for LIMSwiki users to fall prey to their unfriendly tactics, thus the changes. (Clarification: SourceForge-based citations used to document history will remain, per wiki policy. Only external stand-alone links are being removed.) | |||
[[User:Shawndouglas|Shawn Douglas]] ([[User talk:Shawndouglas|talk]]) 18:24, 15 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
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|<h2 style="font-size:105%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em; width:50%;">May 18, 2015:</h2> | |||
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[[File:Bratislava New Year Fireworks.jpg|left|180px]]<br />'''In early May this year''' we surpassed 1,000,000 page views of LIMSwiki's front page! Sure, that probably mixes in a fair amount of bot indexing and personal updating and reference of the front page, but we're still happy to see that number rise. | |||
I personally started working on the wiki on April 15, 2011, and just over four years later we're still getting plenty of eyes on the site. Admittedly, other projects have taken away some of my time from contributions; however, there's still a boatload of work to be done, from page additions to formatting updates. Like any good wiki, it's always a work in progress. We hope you've all gotten good use out of it and will continue to benefit from new additions as they arrive. | |||
[[User:Shawndouglas|Shawn Douglas]] ([[User talk:Shawndouglas|talk]]) 16:42, 18 May 2015 (UTC) | |||
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|<h2 style="font-size:105%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em; width:50%;">January 5, 2015:</h2> | |||
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[[File:Faraday-Daniell.PNG|left|180px]]'''Happy New Year, dear LIMSwiki users!''' Though every year — let alone every day — is a mixed helping of the good and bad, we hope 2014 brought a few reasons to smile. | |||
The wiki in 2014 was not so much about a few big additions but numerous small additions and changes, which is typical for this kind of publishing format. We continued maintenance, completed a few small projects like making a [[LIMSWiki:Glossary]] of the non-vendor content and adding information about the [[LII:The Practical Guide to the U.S. Physician Office Laboratory|U.S. physician office laboratory]]. At the end of the year, we also quietly began working on a much more ambitious project that will eventually change how we present vendor software and their publicly known features in a more intuitive way. (We'll give you all more details once we're ready to begin implementing the changes on vendor records.) | |||
2015 will likely bring other additions, including more articles on [[Informatics (academic field)|informatics]] topics, industries affected by [[laboratory informatics]], etc. Of course, we'll continue to diligently maintain existing content and update it to the best of our ability and resources. As always, if you want to contribute neutral, cited content, you can always [[Special:RequestAccount|request an account]]. | |||
Have a good 2015, and stick around. There's always more to come here. | |||
[[User:Shawndouglas|Shawn Douglas]] ([[User talk:Shawndouglas|talk]]) 12:53, 5 January 2015 (EST) | |||
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|<h2 style="font-size:105%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em; width:50%;">August 25, 2014:</h2> | |||
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[[File:Information overload1.jpg|left|220px]]'''Have you ever experienced information overload?''' Maybe you were like the person in this image at one point, baffled by too many choices and not enough organization. Yet as society continues its march towards further digitizing and storing content and data, finding exactly the information you want becomes increasingly daunting. Organizing and presenting large amounts of information well is now a desirable trait, whether it's a programmer developing a user interface and query tools for [[laboratory informatics]] software or a teacher creating an online course using a learning management program like [[Moodle]]. | |||
We've also tried to be cognizant of this problem when determining how to present information in this wiki. The front page has evolved to better and more appealingly organize data access into little "portals" or jumping-off points. But even that becomes increasingly daunting as wiki content continues to be added. This requires a more thoughtful approach using built-in and third-party tools for the wiki software. One recent attempt to organize information involves the use of [[MediaWiki]]'s category tags to better effect. I personally create 18 broad categories that all or most of our non-vendor wiki content falls under. The results of that effort can be found at the '''[[LIMSWiki:Glossary]]''' page. Some may find those categorizations too broad; however, articles can have more than one category. I want to use these 18 categories (with the potential for more later) to cover the entire non-vendor article base. Additional category tags can be applied to further granulate those categories, including crossover. For example, [[electronic data interchange]] may be categorized under the glossary category "Software and hardware terms" and [[hospital information system]] under "Software systems," yet both share the category tag "Health informatics." | |||
Another attempt to organize this wiki's content is via the MediaWiki [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Collection Collection] extension. This allows users to render wiki content into a digital book-like structure. We have a live example with the '''[[LIMSWiki:Publications|The Complete Guide to LIMS & Lab Informatics]]'''. The upside is a user can learn about a topic from a curated collection of wiki content. The downside is the content is static, meaning like traditional published documents a new copy must be made to contain updated content. However, we've included live links to the contained articles on the wiki page. | |||
As we continue our efforts to add more content, we're hoping tools like the glossary and Collection continue to make approaching the wiki's content less intimidating, alleviating the worries of information overload. We'll also continue to evaluate the front page and how it can be used to better make content easier to find. | |||
[[User:Shawndouglas|Shawn Douglas]] ([[User talk:Shawndouglas|talk]]) 12:53, 25 August 2014 (EDT) | |||
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|<h2 style="font-size:105%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em; width:50%;">April 30, 2014:</h2> | |||
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[[File:Medical Software Logo, by Harry Gouvas.JPG|left|180px]]'''I wanted to highlight some of the projects''' we've worked on over the past few years. I feel like as the wiki grows, some of the tools buried within it tend to get lost. First, I'd like to again mention the [[LIMSWiki:Resources|LIMSwiki informatics resource portal]]. This project was dedicated to collating as many useful online scientific and health informatics-related materials and research tools as possible. It includes links to books, magazines, journals, blogs, organizations, special-interest groups, government entities, academic programs, conferences, trade shows, research tools, job boards, and a whole lot more related to [[laboratory informatics|laboratory]], [[health informatics|health]], and other types of [[informatics (academic field)|informatics]]. I can't stress enough how extensive we've tried to make this collection of resources. | |||
We have other resources too that shouldn't go unnoticed: | |||
* The [[Laboratory, Scientific, and Health Informatics Buyer's Guide]]: a guide to buying informatics systems, with a list of vendors who have public pricing | |||
* [[LIMSWiki:LIMSforum and LIMS/LI forum posts]]: a collection of popular laboratory informatics discussions dating back to 2010 | |||
* The [[LIMS and laboratory informatics questionnaire]]: a request for information (RFI) document to help users in buying an informatics system | |||
* [[Limspec]]: a related but different tool for building a personalized collection of cataloging requirements and vendor questions | |||
[[User:Shawndouglas|Shawn Douglas]] ([[User talk:Shawndouglas|talk]]) 17:43, 30 April 2014 (EDT) | |||
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|<h2 style="font-size:105%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em; width:50%;">November 1, 2013:</h2> | |<h2 style="font-size:105%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em; width:50%;">November 1, 2013:</h2> | ||
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Revision as of 21:40, 11 February 2019
News archive
Welcome to the LIMSwiki news archive.
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