BioGPS Plugin Registration Blitz

BioGPS is gearing up for a major redesign! We’ve already started consolidating our seldom-used mailing lists and will be putting more effort to keeping our users informed of the many changes that are coming to BioGPS. To celebrate the upcoming site overhaul, we’re having a Plugin Registration Blitz.

Here are the details:

• When: From Today (March 21st) until April 30th
• What: Win one of 20 BioGPS screen cleaning mascots
  
  

  hoppy helper mascot (left) and fasta fetcher mascot (right)

• Why: Because there are too many great resources for us to add as plugins on our own. We need your help.
  
  

  Resources like TISSUES make great plugins and allow for greater user customization

• How: Register a new, qualifying BioGPS plugin. Prizes will be awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis until all 20 mascots have been adopted to new homes. Please see details below on plugin qualification requirements

Plugin Qualification Requirements
To be eligible, your newly registered plugin must meet the following requirements:

• It must be a new resource. No variations on existing plugins/resources. Eg- new combinations of pubmed or various google, google scholar, etc. searches won’t count
• The resource must not require a login to use
• The resource must yield search-specific results (don’t just create a plugin linking a search engine)
• The resource should still be maintained (not like DAVID)
• The plugin must be publicly shared. Plugins created just for you or your friends won’t count.
• Please, no more generic search engines (yahoo, duckduckgo, vendor antibody/reagent search engines, etc. The results from these will generally already be covered by the google or biocompare plugins)

Ready to join the blitz and adopt a BioGPS mascot? Here’s a quick guide on how to get started:

1. Verify that a resource is not in the BioGPS plugin library already (don’t be lazy, do a search!).
2. Register the resource as a plugin–You DON’T have to be a developer of that resource to register it. If the resource’s developers want to take ownership of that resource they can contact us to do so.
3. If you can’t think of a resource to add as a plugin, but would still like to join, see the following tips

Don’t have a resource in mind, but want to enter? Here are some places to look for resources you may be able to convert into qualifying plugins:

1. Bioinformatics journals like:
   • Nucleic Acids Research Database issue
   • PlOS computational biology
2. Bioinformatics help sites like:
   • Biostars
   • SeqAnswers
3. Institutional Bioinformatics sites like:
   • https://www.hsls.pitt.edu/obrc/
4. Bioinformatic researchers personal sites like:
   • http://molbiol-tools.ca/
   • https://anil.cchmc.org/BioInfoRes.html
   • http://bioinformaticsweb.net/toollink.html

–edited 03/23/2016 to include “Why” details