micro*scope is conceived as a communal web site. The underlying star*software is designed for contributions through the internet, for commentary, and for collaborations. Collaborations can take place on many levels.

Commenting
Most components of the micro*scope environment are associated with commentary boxes. Comments are vetted for appropriateness and then made visible without editing.

Contributing
micro*scope is an aggregation environment that combines (currently) images, a classification scheme (CU*STAR - itself drawing names from the uBio nameBank environment) , descriptions (using data in a database called Biopedia), outlinks, as well as locally assembled assets - currently dominated by images. All of these are designed as communal environments, and will have web-based interfaces through which individuals can contribute, comment, and - with appropriate authority - add, edit and delete.
-------You can create collections within micro*scope. To be able to do this, you will need to register and ask for contributor status. We will then make contact to find out more about your objectives and to provide training. You can then create one or more collections. This will need an image that is up to 500 X 500 pixels, and some text. You will then be able to add 'assets' mostly images. These should comply with our conventions - guidelines for image preparation.

Your own star*site
The underlying software is available for users to build their own web environments. The sites can be developed for any kind of organism. If you are interested in establishing stand-alone star*sites, or putting together a collection of those sites as a star*net, please make contact. Our central environment will be informed of new content added to remote sites, and each star*site will have the option of including content from other such sites.

Connections from your sites to micro*scope
micro*scope uses outlinks to draw attention to complementary data at remote sites. 'Blind outlinks' run searches at remote sites for the organism currently being visited and report if any other information about the organism is found. 'Content certified' links connect to pre-indexed sites and are only visible when content is visible. The formation of these links requires a little dialog between the web-masters. If you would like us to link to you, please let us know. We can also provide code that will allow your site to link to content within microscope.

Some of our collaborators