Pimm thinks that
scientists were out of the first inhabitants of the word wide web, and most academic web pages were made by scientist-turned web geeks in the 1.0 era.
He shows some examples of good webpages. I added the Reffinetti lab as an example of a good one.
How's yours? Last updated in 2004? On a corporate template?
If you have an example of a really good one, send the link to Pimm.
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Maybe they're soooooo last millenium because most of us are concentrating on doing actual research instead of trying to come up with a pretty wrapper.
I actually setup and attempt to maintain this website, but unfortunately it falls far down the list on priorities.
It's http://www.adipocytebiology.org . The nofollow tag has broken the address.
Dieter Soll keeps his website updated: http://trna.chem.yale.edu/index.html
Strobel at Yale also has updated his: http://strobel.csb.yale.edu/
The Redfield Lab maintains a blog. I like how it enables labbies to keep up with what each is doing.
http://rrresearch.blogspot.com/
It's not about a pretty wrapper, it's about a functional lab page (to me, anyway; I haven't read Pimm's entry, maybe that's not what he means). Lab pages on OpenWetWare are essentially sub-wikis; see, for instance, the Silver Lab page on OWW. Jean-Claude Bradley uses a wiki for lab notes, and two blogs for lab discussion. Those strike me as the most functional approaches; static pages are never going to do much more than present a quick overview and links to publications. Using a wiki and/or blog makes the lab page a living thing, part of lab life.
Yes, the Bradley and Redfield labs are so way ahead, they are a category of their own. I hope more people follow their lead. Still, it's nice to see some semi-static webpages that are done well and are updated regularly as well.
I used to blog about our turtle research in my blog. But over time, my Supervisor requested that I stopped blogging about her projects, so I obliged.
But yea, I think it is very important to have an updated lab (or research-based) site. To me, it encourages discussions, and it is one of the easiest ways to create and promote awareness on a certain issue.