| Free Column |
| Vote for a MaNEP discussion list ! by Corsin Battaglia, PhD student, UniNE* | ||
| Promoting the exchange of questions and answers at all levels within MaNEP is a crucial key to added value. One possible way would be the creation of a web-based discussion list. A solution warmly supported by PhD student Corsin Battaglia. Please let the editor know of your own opinion about creating this tool... or another.
Ever stumbled across an awesome question for which you do not find an answer in your group, but which could easily be answered by other MaNEP members ? At this point you are confronted with the following problems : first, you need to find the right person to answer your question. Second, since the choice naturally falls on group leaders, you might be hesitating to send your question, expecting that they have more important things to do than answering questions by PhD students all day long. From one to all Being a subscriber to several electronic discussion lists on the web, I do think we should set one up for MaNEP to encourage ongoing discussion and knowledge exchange among members. While traditional e-mail is ideal for one-to-one correspondence, discussion lists go one step |
further by allowing subscribers to send messages to all other subscribers, who may reply in a similar fashion. In practice, all you have to do is send message to the general e-mail address of the discussion list. The list server will then distribute your question to all subscribers. In order to avoid having to separate your private e-mails from the list e-mails, it is convenient to set up a filter, which directs e-mails from the discussion list automatically into a subfolder. If you know the answer to one of the questions, you simply hit the reply button which will send your answer back to the list server. Quick checks for great help Imagine, you arrive in your office in the morning, what is the first thing you do? You check your e-mails, right? The idea of the discussion list is that when members have two or three minutes left until their measurement is done or their computer code has completed its run, they quickly check what is happening on the discussion list and might find questions they can answer. Additionally, every user gets the benefit of learning something just by browsing through the daily questions. All questions and answers are accessible via an archive. |
Over time such an archive represents a valuable source of information available to all members. Another advantage of the discussion list is that you do not have to look for the experts. Postdocs and PhD students constitute a giant brain pool and are encouraged to contribute. No limits There is no limit to the topics discussed. From practical issues such as STM tip preparation techniques to theoretical issues on convergence problems in Monte Carlo simulation, the success of the list just relies on everyone. So… how about creating this tool very soon ? 
* * Corsin Battaglia is a PhD student in Prof. Philipp Aebi’s group at the University of Neuchâtel. He works on self-assembled low-dimensional nanostructures using STM and ARPES. |
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