Information and Dissemination Working Group

The Portal

The portal project started in 2012 from work done at canSAS-2012. It aims to create a single jump off point for accessing any SAS related information. Mostly it hopes to uncover and organize existing resources but also to create content when deemed necessary.

The portal address is: http://smallangle.org

Members

• Paul Butler (NIST, chair)
• U-Ser Jeng (NSRRC)
• Steve King (ISIS)
• Jitendra Mata (ACNS)
• Adrian Rennie (Uppsala University)
• Orion Shih (NSRRC)
• Anna Sokolova (ACNS)
• Masaaki Sugiyama (Kyoto University)
• Katie Weigandt (NIST)

Past Members

• Wim Bouwman (Delft U)
• Adam Engberg (Uppsala U)
• Henrich Frielinghaus (Jülich)
• Maja Hellsing (RISE, co-chair)
• Andrew Jackson (ESS)
• Sebastian Jaksch (Jülich)
• Duncan McGillivray (University of Auckland)
• Matthias Schwartzkopf (DESY)
• Harald Schneider (ESS)

News/Status

July 2026 After being dormant for several years, the Working group is reviving with the updating of the portal and the creation of new canSAS mailing lists.

Dec 20, 2023: Finally the transition to a new site is close. All the services have been updated to the latest version of Drupal on a secure server (https:) and the the layout is now fairly well separated from the content as intended for a content management system.

The basic skeleton of the new site that contains all the elements (but not all the content) of the old site with some ideas for possible layouts is now live at https://new.smallangles.org. Please feel free to take a look and make suggestions. The hope is to convene the working group in 2024 to finalize the transition to the live site and start working on future ideas.

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Here is a wiki page to discuss ideas for additions/improvements to the web portal

• 2013 discussion

Previous Discussion

• canSAS-2012 discussion
• Ralf Schweins has agreed to take up the world directory of SANS instruments project. This is available at:

http://www.ill.eu/instruments-support/instruments-groups/groups/lss/more/world-directory-of-sans-instruments/

August 2012 update

The bibliography and vacancy list from the Diamond/ISIS SAS software site (http://www.small-angle.ac.uk) has been transferred to the portal.

July 2012 update

A new portal is created at canSAS-2012.

September 2009 update

At the facilities representatives discussion group, and pursued further at the canSAS discussions at the 2009 SAS meeting in Oxford, Paul Butler agreed to find some funds to get a student to start the process of putting up the first draft of a portal. The first action was to choose an appropriate domain name that would be easy to remember as THE SAS site. smallangle.org was suggested, the availability verified and the domain purchased. It was agreed that the front page should be a landing page that then allowed easy navigation to whatever SAS information was being sought. After a small brainstorming session, it was agreed that the next step was to implement those first ideas and then pass by the facilities representatives group for a first cut at polishing before advertising to the SAS mailing list and to all SAS beamline scientists possible. Some of the ideas for the first go include:

• listing of available SAS analysis software with links
• listing of resources for learning SAS techniques/SAS bibliography
• access to the SAS mailing list archive
• instructions on how to join the sas mailing list and a link to the joining page
• upcoming meetings of interest to the SAS community (a web form allowing people to upload information on their meeting was suggested)
• link to the world directory of small-angle neutron scattering facilities
  • this has recently been updated. Facilities are encouraged to send updates to Ralf Schweins
  • No equivalent SAXS directory seems to exist. Pete Jemian is planning on addressing that, perhaps under the IUCR aegis
• information about canSAS, its efforts and links to working group pages
• link to web site of SAS commission of IUCR