SCATA Anaesthesia WIKIUser manual (pdf)Who runs this? The WIKI is hosted and maintained by SCATA - the Society for Computing and Technology on Anaesthesia. SCATA was founded in 1987, and as a society aims ... 'To promote research into the use of, and understanding of, the place of computing and technology in medicine, and anaesthesia and related specialties in particular, and science related thereto, and to disseminate the useful results of such research as widely as possible for the public good' Who is it for? For practising anaesthetists (anaesthesiologists). The information presented in this WIKI assumes the reader has a medical qualification and some postgraduate training in the field of anaesthesia and intensive care. The WIKI is not aimed at the lay public, who are already well served by Wikipedia and numerous other websites. Because of this, contributions and edits are also restricted to anaesthetists who contribute knowing that the target audience share the language and concepts that are used to described medical aspects of anaesthetic practice. We do however acknowledge that non-professional readers will browse this resource, and will encourage - where appropriate - the inclusion of links to appropriate external resources. Why another WIKI? Anaesthesia needs a WIKI with an international flavour, targeted at all grades of anaesthetist and not restricted by any curriculum. SCATA is well placed to design and host such a WIKI and a SCATA sub-committee will take on the task of populating the image library, systematically correcting any errors which creep in, and managing the development of the WIKI feature set. Why custom code when so many WIKI systems are available off-the-shelf? The SCATA WIKI features a system of shared paragraphs. This suits anaesthesia well - allowing a subject to be summarised in a short paragraph as part of one topic - then simultaneously feature as a full topic in its own right with multiple paragraphs. If this sounds confusing, then simply explore the WIKI for a while - it will all make sense. Other WIKIs do not work in this way. The WIKI is specifically designed to encourage non-computer-literate users to contribute by creating new topics or paragraphs, and by editing existing material. This involves simple text editing - no text markup is used. Links are maintained outside the main body of text. Uploaded graphics are automatically resized to a size suitable for the WIKI, and become available to all WIKI users. Many WIKIs are easy to browse and edit existing material, but are suddenly much less friendly when users try to contribute new material. Not this one! Summary of basic features. The top level of information is the Topic. When a Topic is created, it automatically gets a single, fixed, paragraph of the same name. This paragraph is intended for a succinct, textual summary of the topic. In addition, the Topic can have many additional paragraphs - these are either selected from pre-existing paragraphs (using the Paragraph Browser), or are created from scratch (a simple click). A paragraph is the editing unit. Paragraphs can be text-only, or can have a single graphic (to the left or right of the text). When you edit a paragraph, you are granted 20 minutes of exclusive access to the text, after which access is opened again to others and any unsaved changes may be lost. A similar access control applies to the Topic Builder, where the paragraph order is controlled, and individual paragraphs added to or removed from the topic. You must be signed-in to create or edit Topics or Paragraphs. The sign-in system is designed to allow us to confirm the identity of all registered users, and control abuse of the site. WIKI Technicalities Browser support: FF1+, IE6+, Chrome. Other modern browsers are probably OK. Javascript is required (the WIKI checks for Javascript automatically) WIKI PHP created and maintained for SCATA by Alan Hope (Jet5) |
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