TY - JOUR
AU - Armstrong, Lyle
AB - Introduction The seventh of February 2010 was an important day for the editorial team at Stem Cells since it marked the launch of the new Stem Cells Portal. This has been under development since June 2007, but it is only in recent months that the ethos behind the portal has been formalised, with the appointment of a new editorial team who hope to make this one of the premier online forums dealing with issues related to stem cell research. Mission and Focus Many readers of Stem Cells will already be familiar with the online version of the journal that contains almost everything that may be found in the hardcopy version, including articles published in Stem Cells Express, the latest news from the stem cell research field and important press releases. However, the reader may also have observed that some topics such as the Stem Cell Societies or events buttons on the online journal will transfer immediately to a new site of apparently similar appearance. This is the Stem Cells Portal. It was never our intention that this should be simply an overflow section of the main journal website built to contain its excess material; rather it should be an online space where anyone who has an interest in stem cell research can interact with others of the same interests to find information, air their views or have their questions answered. Naturally most of the Stem Cell Portal's content will be of immediate interest to persons directly involved in the progression or regulation of stem cell research but we don't want to make the site exclusive to anyone. All are welcome to enter the site whether they are scientists or simply persons with an interest in what is going on in the scientific world. What's on the Portal Now? When you click on the link (http://www.stemcellsportal.com/) to access the portal for the first time you will see it looks a lot like the online version of Stem Cells. The homepage contains latest news and editorials on key developments that have recently been published either by Stem Cells or by other journals, if the paper appears interesting and has a clear link to stem cell research topics. The “News and Press” button on the top toolbar contains very similar information but this will be less current than those articles on the homepage. The “Articles” button will highlight important papers published in Stem Cells Express but will also run a series focusing on the laboratories and research groups of key players in the stem cell field such as Jamie Thomson and Rudolf Jaenisch. There are several other featured labs currently on the portal and there will be even more of them soon. The “Community” button will have a number of functions. It is designed to function as social networking tool for stem cell scientists (the portal also has links to Facebook and Twitter, two buttons for which are in the top righthand corner of the homepage) but also much more. The “Forum” subsection will be a place to post comments and hold online discussions on whatever topics you like (although it's probably best to stick to stem cell related stuff!) but one of the principal aims of this is to create a number of discussion forums on areas such as pluripotent stem cells, adult stem cells, ethics, and others. It will also function like a journal club! Either the portal editorial team or any of our registered users will be able to post articles or papers they think are of particular interest and other users can then comment about the content of these – just like lab meeting wherever you work but without your supervisor saying you have to do it! Stem cell related blogs will also appear on the Community section. Users may feel free to submit blogs to the portal editorial team but in this case we reserve the right to decide which ones we want to include or edit the content of any we do add to the portal. The “Resources” button is for anyone who might have technical questions about stem cell related protocols or images of the morphology and marker staining of embryonic stem cells. These two are just examples of the growing list of useful information that is included in this section. The “Education” subsection of resources should prove particularly useful to students and researchers alike. The next button along the toolbar is “Events and Meeting Reports”. Essentially this is intended to provide listing of upcoming matters of interest in the stem cell research community. These could be conferences or other matters, such as the announcement of a clinical trial or some governmental matters that are likely to have a particular impact on stem cell research, but we will also include conference reports in this section. In the brief period we have been working on the Portal we have reported on two recent conferences (the recent Keystone meeting and the recent workshop on neural stem cells and photoreceptor degeneration) and the numbers of these reports will increase with time. How It Works It really couldn't be simpler. All we ask is that anyone interested in chatting to their stem cell peers, catching up with the latest news and publications or simply learning more about stem cells, register themselves in the “Register” section of the Stem Cell Portal “Community”. This will allow access to the discussion forums and allow comments to be posted in other areas of the site however, the more people that get involved the better. More post makes for greater diversity of interesting topics so register today for all the present and future benefits of the Stem Cell Portal. We look forward from hearing from you all soon! Author notes The Stem Cells Portal Editorial Team are; Lyle Armstrong, PhD. Editor, Stuart P. Atkinson, PhD. Content Editor, Carla B. Mellough, PhD. Content editor First published online in STEM CELLS EXPRESS March 16, 2010. Copyright © 2010 AlphaMed Press This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Launch of the New Stem Cells Portal
JO - Stem Cells
DO - 10.1002/stem.410
DA - 2010-04-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/launch-of-the-new-stem-cells-portal-mtQz0rEhEu
SP - 635
EP - 635
VL - 28
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -