2012 Web Discussion

• The following is the agenda of work posted under business for canSAS-2012 under the Web Portal topic. Please add comments here:
  • define scope, purpose, and goal of portal
  • list content type to which such a portal should give access.
  • Suggest method for hosting
    • ?more distributed or more centralized,
    • ?under auspices of a particular facility or SAS commission
    • ? .. or both etc)
  • Build a working straw landing page prototype
  • Build at least 2 or 3 subpages and/or designs on paper
  • plan for presentations
    • SAS 2012
    • SAS commission

There are a number of places on the www with information about small-angle scattering. A portal needs to provide links to relevant information and extra content. The working group needs to find a way to make information readily available in an attractive way for different categories of people that will include scientists curious about the technique but unfamiliar, potential users, experienced users, etc. Some current pages are:

IUCr SAS Commission

Software for small angle scattering

smallangles.net

World Directory of SANS Instruments

BioSAXS data analysis software (EMBL Hamburg)

Wikipedia Small-angle Scattering

SAS Toolbox from LBL - mostly software and on-line calculators

Manfred Kriechbaums's page on small-angle scattering

These pages are examples of what is already available. The challenge is to provide access and to integrate information.

   ARR:  A challenge is to find a means to keep the portal maintained and updated.  We will need some continuing
         commitment to this task. 
   SMK:  If you type 'small angle scattering' into Google - what I suspect most people would do in the first instance
         if looking for information on the topic - you get a Wikipedia article (which then subdivides into further
         articles on SANS & SAXS). Do we know who wrote these articles?
   ARR:  I agree that people will find readily the Wikipedia articles.  I suppose that the 'portal for the
         community' should aim to provide further information (some that is not considered suitable for Wikipedia 
         articles).  These topics might include links to software descriptions, lists of conferences, access 
         to mailing list archives, etc. 
   SMK:  Yes, I agree. I think I was thinking more in terms of 'a portal to the portal'!?
   SMK:  On a different point, I have been in contact with the IUCr Webmaster. IUCr Commissions, such as the
         CSAS, have two sets of pages on the IUCr servers: an "official" page at
         http://www.iucr.org/iucr/commissions/small-angle-scattering maintained directly by the IUCr Executive
         Secretary, and their own pages, http://www.iucr.org/resources/commissions/small-angle-scattering
         maintained directly by the Commission (which has effective autonomy over the content although technically
         is subject to scrutiny by the IUCr Executive Committee). Content for the latter is managed using the
         web-based package Squiz Matrix (http://manuals.matrix.squizsuite.net/). Authorship rights to the
         CSAS's pages are currently vested in the CSAS Chairman. However the IUCr is currently trialing co-existing,
         'lightweight', satellite websites (see, for example, http://blogs.iucr.net/) based on Wordpress. Content
         on these satellite sites could be promoted as "in association with the SAS Commission". The caveat is that
         this is a very new departure, as yet untested, and currently only informally backed-up. The IUCr also
         haven't yet made a long-term commitment to maintain these sites.