User:Macowell/igem07 Survey Results

From 2007.igem.org

Latest revision as of 16:43, 8 January 2008

igem07 survey results

Our startup would have been easier if the Registry and/or the iGEM organizers had:

Documentation

• told us more information about iGEM before the summer had started
• informations online one month earlier for students to regist
• Provided more of a template on how to get started
• Made the help section better (more thorough and easier for beginners).
• provided student teaching workshop more detail about the usages of biobricks
• Organized teaching material
• Given a workshop introduction to biobricks for students.
• tutorial videos earlier . (Maybe I was not aware)
• Sent the bricks sooner More introductory documentation on synthetic biology for the first-timers Parts that work
• put different structures of how teams have organized themselves in the past with multiple disciplines
• I think a database with protocols (and related problems encountered), organized by keywords, of all teams of every year will be wonderful.
• Provide more detail about the biobrick concept and put teacher's workshop data on Internet
• Send us more materials about iGEM, other than only presentations and websites. Such as a guide book. & Provide more information related to synthetic biology, so that we don't have to collect them all by ourselves.
• provide ways to fundraise and a guide to choosing project topics
• organized more workshops
• it would be nice if the registry provided some type of organized brochure or booklet that could be used as a "How to get started in the iGEM competition"
• Briefly describing how other successful team did from the very beginning.
• a workshop for everyone (including students and advisors) before the competition on how to enter parts, register, etc.
• A section where we can ask questions because I had to try to figure out how to edit and change things. I wasn't able to figure it out until a couple of weeks before the jamboree.
• Run us through a tutorial cloning before iGEM started.
• put different structures of how teams have organized themselves in the past with multiple disciplines
• Suggested reading material in synthetic biology or had a clearer explanation that was accessible. Also if there was a resource called "biology for engineers" or "modelling for biologists" so that there could be cross-talk between the disciplines, because this took a lot of energy at the start.
• A continuous source of funding, we spent a lot of time setting up our lab. Helping teams find funding is important.

Competition Rules & Guidelines

• decided the category of projects.
• Well, hard to say. I think overall seen, it should be better to have clearer rules for all of the teams. As to say it is not allowed or should be clearly indicated when projects are suggested by the professor advising the team.
• made clear, that there would be different tracks at the jamboree, then the decision what topic to choose would have been easier...
• Been clearer on what the judges were looking for from the different teams
• Explained clearly, before the competition started, the criteria by which entries would be judged, including the final project tracks.
• specifing the evaluation criterion
• Given more instructions about all the aspects of the competition.
• The perfect intromaterial in place, one set ofr engineers, one set for biologists. (I know that this is impossible)
• Set out clear goals for iGEM and had the websites ready earlier.
• Capped the number of projects which could be submitted, and set a starting date for first day any team can go to the lab to work on a project
• emphasized the end goal they had in mind. It was hard to coming up with an idea when we didn't know what the judges would be focusing on.
• Given clear cut guidelines on what or how the project should be. Maybe a few project ideas, but this depends on the creativity of the team. There should be less reading of articles not pertaining to the actual project at hand. What we need to learn should be what we need to use, although the extra journals and articles did broaden my knowledge.
• Grouped us into thematic groups on he beginning and not two weeks before the competition.
• defined the rules and judging criteria of the competition clearly.
• given us a project to work on

Parts

• verified the contents of all the wells
• better quality check of sent parts required...
• Had the parts by the middle/end of April.
• A repository of mammalian parts.
• Finished validating BioBricks prior to shipment.
• KEEPING THE ORGANIZATION OF THE DNA WELLS THE SAME FROM YEAR TO YEAR. This set us back three weeks.
• Spesified how to use the DNA plates sent to us. It took a while to find the correct manual from internet. Maybe send a leaflet next year?
• More illustrative information on the relevant applications of the biological parts as well as on standard measurement procedures and set-up.
• Sent the parts to us earlier
• Expected/required documentation of parts (by the community)
• sent the Parts-Powder much earlier.
• More detailed part information.

Registry Website

• User interface should be more logical. It was very difficult for me, to find out how to delete some part's information.
• Beter orginised parts description
• The part search function was more intuitive. Boolean operators don't seem to work.
• if the Registry informations had been better organized
• Better documentation on the parts (very lacking for most submitted parts!)
• Better documentation of parts
• LINKED REGISTERY PARTS TO THE WIKI OF THE TEAM THAT PRODUCED THEM. REQUIRED ONLY SINGLE LOGIN FOR REGISTERY AND WIKI.
• Online courses on the registry. [i.e. courses hosted on the registry website? or on how to use it?]
• Made the registry way more user friendly
• I think my only suggestion for the Registry is to work on making the registry website clearer.
• an intro to the registry tutorial about where the size of each part is how to use them, what different parts do( promoter, genes, etc). Maybe an example project.
• provided us with some pdf which title had to be: "Registry4Dummies" or something like this. It takes a little to understand the Registry but once the first step is done, it works great
• a clearer explanation of the capabilities of the parts and their derivatives - perhaps a lineage so understand the "evolution" and relationship of some of the parts.

Website, general

• A better webpage/wiki : it was hard to follow
• Made Wiki space for teams available earlier, and made the Registry and Wikis easier to navigate.
• Build a platform for different teams to communicate with each other.
• a better set up website
• Made a manual for the use of the registry. Made a bigger forum so all students can post their questions. Added an oficial review team so students can pose their questions. Involved the ambasadors more with the teams.
• In 2007, iGEM wiki was not as well organized & updated as in 2006.

Misc

• Recommended a few tips regarding how a team can be organized and managed. For example, it was not until quite a time after we started that we realized using Google Group is the most convenient way for team-wide communications, and it's very important to let everyone know clearly what's happening in the team. Also, team members should meet frequently to have academic discussions, and an easy way to do that is to assign a table at a campus restaurant – any member who has time can go there and have dinner and discussion.
• Promoted the resources available to us (eg GENEART synthesis) earlier.

If I could recommend one thing to next year's team about getting started, it would be:

• Start early (~100 comments), i.e.: "Choose a project more quickly - be more decisive, and get started in the lab faster."
• try to pick a realistic project
• read about current & last year's projects; consider collaborating
• make a timeline or roadmap of goals
• consider focusing on a "simple" or "unoriginal" foundational project, i.e. : "Choose a project that is really about Synthetic Biology. It's better to start with a simplier project that could really be useful for improvements in this field than with sometning else."
• get sponsors on board early [mac]
• get visa process started early [mac]
• Get the word out on campus more - maybe personally visit lectures and pass out fliers

Our team received our parts on time:

If I could recommend one thing to change about the parts themselves, it would be:

better part documentation / characterization

• Better Documentation
• Better documentation. DNA sequencing of received parts. Unambiguous information about restriction sites used in individual parts (new version of restriction sites that enables constructing of fusion proteins or old version). Information about vector in which part is provided.
• more comprehensive documentation in Registry, such as background references, cross-references to composites that use the part, reviews (problems reported), testing results, etc.
• Better descriptions on the registry.
• Better documentation...especially in terms of reporter: e.g. all parts claim to be utilizing wild-type GFP; this is not the case: GFP-mut3b is being employed - as we discovered the painful way...when trying to visualize the signal
• to make the descriptions more specific
• Better documentation online.
• Characterization and reliability data
• Always include kinetic parameters with each part description
• more characterization of the parts before they can enter into registry
• provide a standard or specification for those parts
• More detailed/accurate descriptions.
• more documentation, specially on characterization
• Have them be better documented.
• Better Characterization
• Better characterization data.
• More information about feedback on individual parts could be wonderful
• I think parts have to be better described: there are too many parts but a few of them have a good experience description
• more detailed should be assigned to the parts
• to make sure that the documentation on the registry is improved - there are quite a few parts that are not very well described, but might be interesting to use.
• btter specifications of the functions
• better descriptions and labelling, update all relevant information as soon as they become available
• They are very good. But sometimes the description should give more details.
• write more.
• Add more information about the dynamics of the parts to enable better analysis.
• More detailed data please!
• Don't have so many parts that don't work. Require extensive characterization for any kind of prize at the Jamboree
• Standardized descriptions where specific criteria must be met to enter a part ie: see Imperial's presentation

better part validation

• they should be checked and more definite and quantitative information on them should be added to the Registry
• that parts evalutation should be checked by iGEM office. There were many parts which are evaluated as "Work" in the Registry, but actually not working correctly.
• Try to sequence more of them.
• Be sure that the parts work...
• Better Quality Control
• They should work!
• Quality control.
• Screening the parts in the iGEM plates, for if it's the same as registered on the Biobrick Database.
• better quality controlll
• Validation prior to release for public use.
• To test which parts work and document them correctly. The registry is growing rapidly which is good but most parts are of poor quality. What are 10000 parts good for if they are not reliable?
• To make sure they are what they say they are.
• PLEASE, THAT WORK AS THEY SUPPOSE TO. SOME OF THE PARTS DID NOT WORK PROPERLY
• Better screening of parts before distribution. Some parts don't seem to be what they claim to be.
• Quality control
• Organisation into parts that have been shown to work and are well-documented and parts that have not.
• Have them better tested.
• I would appreciate if instead of quantity of parts, one would look more at the quality ( e.g. verify every sequence by sequencing before setting them as available...)
• not to use them because a lot of the parts as well as the biobrick plasmids are not correct, go figure.....
• To more strictly check the parts sent by teams. I suggest direct sequencing more reliable than just testing the length and resistance.
• Throw out parts that have never been tested and have not been verified by sequencing
• To make sure they work as they're described before they're sent to the teams. The false parts caused many troubles.
• We had problems getting the registry software sequences to match the actual sequences of our parts (especially at the mix-site when putting multiple parts together).
• make sure they work
• Include a better testing system- require systematic testing before submitting/ or clearly label on the website that the part has never been tested (or the status of research at the time of submission)
• to make sure that all parts are working and well-characterized.
• Parts marked as "NOT WORKING" by default
• To separate in a clear way parts that work from other that do not work.

Registry Interface

• make the comments more standardized or easier to enter so maybe we can get more data from users.
• Make the search engine easier to use by making a generic search feature (sometimes you just need a specific promoter attached to RBS+protein+terminator, and its difficult to use the current search engine to find)
• how they are accessed
• Make editing easier.
• I hope the Registry could have a more user-friendly interface.
• summarize the important information "at a glance" e.g. antibiotic marker, copy number, induction stimuli if applicable, size etc. (all in to a chart format)
• how the documentation is navigated; would be nice to have all the information on one form and then further detail elsewhere. Imperial's project had an awesome sheet set up.
• An easier way to find the sequence and maybe all the restriction sites shown too.
• Being more precise on where section the references should be in, and what the teams should have entered for each field. It gets quite ambiguous sometimes - maybe provide an example parts page where teams could see how the data entry should be done?
• creating a prerequiste for the part experience information to be completed properly
• putting experience info obligatory which team adds to registry
• Parts are okey, but search system could be better for us to find composite parts.
• Make the search engine easier to use by making a generic search feature (sometimes you just need a specific promoter attached to RBS+protein+terminator, and its difficult to use the current search engine to find)
• Make it easier to find twin parts
• Increase the number of cross-part comparisons.
• I would streamline the website. I find entering parts to be confusing if you have never done it before, and tedious even if you have. It's not going to be fun and exciting, granted, but a few automated steps would go a long way.
• The Wiki-interface of database is very unfriendly!
• I would change the way it is being put into the registry because it is sort of confusing.
• to clarify what parts are what types
• Imperial's data sheet looked very well detailed and I like how they organized & included induction data etc.
• Making them easier to enter into the registry. The interface is really annoying.

Misc

• have more plasmid choises
• insert new cutting sites to built functional fusion proteins
• to allow for more mammalian parts.
• Make them easier to get out of the plates. We only had good success with highly competent cells.
• Store them in something better.
• Some parts that can't be sent conviniently, such as cells, should be accessed by other easy ways if some teams need it.
• place them all in the same vector! or create a pool of vectors in which each part resides (will increase efficiency!
• Certain parts, especially the RBS and transcriptional terminator, should be provided in vectors of different selectable factors to make it easier to use them when doing cloning using only gels for diagnostics.
• Don't use "I" as coefficient: looks too much like 1
• Enlarge the library.
• TERMINATOR SHOULD EXIST AFTER THE BIOBRICK SITES IN THE VECTORS TO ALLOW EXPRESSION TO BE TESTED CLEANLY WITHOUT HAVING TO ADD THE TERMINATOR. ESP THOSE PARTS WITH PROMOTOR & RBS BETWEEN E & X SITES.
• Making sure that parts that are proprietary are not entered. It is too easy to put parts in that should not be put into the registry (i.e. are owned by a company or donated by a lab that does not want the part made open source). I think more effort needs to be placed on making sure the parts should be in the registry.