Portal:The Science Behind Parkinson's/For Researchers

A role for professional researchers in this Parkinson's Science Wikiversity learning project Lay people who are keen to find out as much as they can about progress in Parkinson's research clearly depend on the work of the scientific community. This wiki has been started by enthusiastic lay people but would benefit immeasurably from the participation of researchers active in the field. You can see what has already been put together on current Parkinson's research progress Already a lot of work has been put into ferreting out information from the specialist research literature and explaining highlights of the progress made in recent years. Most of this is in Section 1 - Progress and Prospects in Parkinson's Research where it is organised under topics to help the reader find what they are interested in. If you browse through it you will find that it is supported throughout by references to original papers and reviews. Section 1 includes the Magazine Section whose purpose is to hold articles which highlight and comment on recent significant research progress. There is also Section 2 - An Introduction to Parkinson's Science which, as the title implies, is aimed at helping people new to Parkinson's to learn about some of the basic concepts of the science underlying the condition. Why do we want professional researchers on board? Because this wiki aims to be a serious and reliable resource and its mainly lay contributors are not specialists. A good proportion of actual and potential contributors have a professional background in science and related disciplines and are keen that proper rigour is applied to the material in this wiki. Thus it is essential that it passes the scrutiny of specialists who can spot errors and inadequacies. Because this wiki is a work of interpretation which aims to explain scientific matters in straightforward language. Again, we want to get it right and not to oversimplify or distort and your advice would be invaluable. Because we think that there are advantages for the researcher too which justify the spending of a little time helping out with this project: It is an additional way of getting your work and its significance known. It can put you in touch with people affected by Parkinson's for whose benefit you are ultimately working and a valuable dialogue could be engendered. It can help encourage the growth of an informed community of non-specialists interested in Parkinson's research who can understand the complexities of your work and can support it in many ways, especially by presenting a thoughtful patient's angle. Ways in which you can help Could you look at the material presented so far and say what you think of it? Every page has a 'Talk' page. Log in and click on the 'Discussion' tab at the top left to leave a comment. Leave a comment on the 'User_Talk' page of one of the authors. You can identify the authors by looking at the history of the page development by clicking on the 'View History' tab at the top right of each page. Leave a comment on the project development page. Could you make some improvements straight away? As with all wikiversity projects, anyone can make changes and add material. Please create an account and log in first. If while you browse you spot an error or something that could be explained better, why not just log in and change it there and then. People who know what they are talking about who make small changes can improve the quality no end. Maybe you notice that the information on a page is not fully up to date. Could you add a sentence or two to rectify that? Could you spare the time for a more creative partnership? Interested? Read on ...

We are looking to build up a community of contributors to this wiki project because we want to create a globally accessible resource for people who, however reluctantly, have joined the Parkinson's Club. Section 1: Progress and Prospects in Parkinson's Research is the 'guts' of the wiki. It is where we want to summarise where Parkinson's research has led so far. It is hard work for a lay person to search through the scientific literature pulling out all the most appropriate relevant references. But researchers like yourself have these at your fingertips because they are a vital component of every one of your published papers. Could you write something on your field of work under an appropriate topic in Section 1? It could be a paragraph, a few hundred words or a more substantial article. Or maybe you could add a paragraph or two to an existing page to update it or to cover an important aspect not already mentioned. Or maybe you could write a discussion piece for the Magazine section which deals with a significant new development or a point of current scientific debate. Could you help with a topic in Section 2, the Introduction to Parkinson's Science? This section is far from complete and would benefit from material from people who are very familiar with the areas that we want to cover and who could do this quite rapidly - even lifting it from existing articles they have written if is not constrained by copyright. Putting in links to relevant pages already accessible on the internet would also be very helpful. (If you are reluctant to plunge in and edit it yourself, what with the snares of the wiki markup language, someone else could enter the material for you from your drafted text.) Could you assist a lay person produce material or enhance an existing page? Would you be happy for a lay contributor to contact you to ask for help and advice on some material they are writing? Would you be able to provide the occasional diagram or image for inclusion? (This would have to be under an appropriate Creative Commons license - see bottom of page.) You are invited to join us! What can we achieve together? You can register your interest on the 'Talk' page.

Things you can do Contributing to the Science Behind Parkinson's learning project Anyone may contribute material to this learning project. Please create a Wikiversity account first. Go here for Specific Things You Can Do. Please go to the Project Development subpage to work with us on how the project should develop. Please access the project's discussion page to comment on the concepts behind this project.

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Improve your technical writing skills and techniques here.

Occasionally you may want to upload an image or a file. An uploaded file must not be subject to copyright. Help with uploading files is given here. A text file has to be in .pdf format and is actually stored in the Image section of wikiversity.

A useful glossary of terms relating to Parkinson's is the We Move one: http://www.wemove.org/glossary/

Note that contributors are expected to provide references to back up what they say.

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Quick Links: --- Section 1: Progress and Prospects in Parkinson's Research --- Magazine Section --- Section 2: Introduction to Parkinson's Science < Back to the main page of The Science Behind Parkinson's

This page is in draft form and under development