For wiki liaisons

Why was this role created?

This role was created out of frustration from Lucy and Piyush. We noticed a disconnect between subteams, and during wiki development, only a few members could contribute to the wiki because frankly, many members did not know what was happening outside their subteam. This resulted in a wiki that was low effort, unclear, and did not meet the requirements that iGEM judges were looking for.

Wiki liaisons are expected to have a greater understanding of all subteam work, ensure team members (in their own subteam) are contributing to the internal wiki and help Lucy plan for a final competition wiki that aligns with what iGEM is looking for. Wiki liaisons will be a helping hand to the leads, and can offer new perspectives that leads may not notice. Being a wiki liaison will also give you an idea of what a lead's responsibilities are; if you are staying on the team this will help you decide if you want to be a lead. You will help ensure subteam transparency, knowledge transfer and concrete, small steps (with deliverables) towards our goal.

Our wiki liaisons are:

  • Wet lab: Diego, Burak
  • Dry lab: Riya
  • HP: Jessica

What is a wiki liaison?

Generally, a wiki liaison is a subteam member who is not a lead that is helps ensure the work of other subteams are well integrated into with their own subteam's work. This means the wiki liaison helps the wiki lead enforce standards like the internal wiki so that we can meet the three goals listed above. Additionally, wiki liaisons will make sure all information that could contribute to iGEM requirements are being documented, by being proactive in subteam meetings and notifying subteam members to document their findings. They will also have a greater hand in helping design, edit and complete the wiki for the iGEM Jamboree.

What are my tasks?

To have subteam transparency and integration, you will help the wiki lead ensure the entire team is putting their project related content onto the internal wiki, as related to your subteam. This means if you're in wet lab, you make sure all experimental designs and changes are being committed to the internal wiki on a daily/weekly basis, most likely to the wet lab notebook.

Secondly, after each subteam uploads content to the internal wiki, wiki liaisons are responsible for reading other team's content on the internal wiki. Generally, you are trying to form an overall sense of the goals, directions and motivations of the other subteams. This will help you for the third task.

Thirdly, after you have ensured your subteam is contributing to the internal wiki, and have an understanding of what other subteams are doing, you will be responsible for critically analyzing the work of other subteams. For instance, if you are the dry lab liaison, you will have read over the wet lab and HP pages. If the wet lab design pages are hard to understand or missing information, you will create a GitHub issue stating what is missing and why this information is important, and Lucy will alert the appropriate subteam members to add more information. If human practices has described a computational concept incorrectly, or you can enhance the educational material, similarly, make an issue and complete the previously listed steps. You can also make a PR with edits yourself. The point of all this work is to have all our subteams be cohesive and integrated. You are also encouraged to attend other subteam specific meetings, but only if you have the time! For all pages, make sure they are up to date. It's very easy for documentation to fall out of date. If you notice something is no longer correct, alert the appropriate subteam to make changes! Please also read through iGEM documentation before reviewing pages, so you know what you should be looking for.

Finally, when we are writing the wiki for the iGEM Jamboree, you will have a greater hand in helping the leads design the wiki. You may also help assign other subteam members to writing and reading content.

Reviewing wet lab writing

These criteria are nonnegotiable:

  1. Citations, in the bibliography.bib file
  2. Related to iGEM requirements
  3. Sources for information that isn't general knowledge (this is subjective, ask a lead if you need clarification)
  4. Diagrams for confusing concepts

Reviewing dry lab writing

These criteria are nonnegotiable:

  1. Citations, in the bibliography.bib file
  2. Related to iGEM requirements
  3. For anything code-based: a GitHub repo containing the code in question
  4. Diagrams for confusing concepts
  5. Sources for information that isn't general knowledge (this is subjective, ask a lead if you need clarification)

Reviewing human practices writing

  1. Citations, in the bibliography.bib file
  2. Related to iGEM requirements

Working with GitHub

You will be reviewing and approving PRs, making issues and sometimes making your own PRs. If you have any questions about this let Lucy now.

Who do I ask for help?

At anytime if you feel this role is overwhelming let the co-directors or Lucy know. We will probably have weekly asynchronous updates on Slack, with meetings if necessary.

If you have any questions that are not of a personal nature, send a message in #wiki-liaison, otherwise DM Lucy.

What is my role in developing the competition wiki?

Based on your subteam, you will help the leads decide how we should present our information, what graphics to make, and more. To be discussed later.