EcoSal: The Concept

The Concept

This project is intended primarily to serve the needs of the E. coli/Salmonella research community as a comprehensive archive of the entire corpus of knowledge about the enteric bacterial cell. It is expected to be of value also to all cellular and microbial biologists and to be a resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate instruction.

To serve these multiple roles, EcoSal will supplement its ongoing archive of knowledge with a continuously updated review of contemporary research, interpretive essays on the meaning and significance of new research findings, and evaluation of new techniques and approaches to enteric bacterial research.

It is expected that hundreds of U.S. and international scholars will participate as author-curators of individual knowledge modules. Tasks will be assigned by a group of about 60 editors working under the authority of a Board of Executive Editors. Author-curators, editors, and executive editors will all serve for defined terms.

Annual subscriptions will be designed to assure that virtually all students and investigators have access to this resource.

Features of EcoSal

1. Comprehensive archiving of all research - not just selected examples - will be the goal. At the same time, the concept of using paradigms to illustrate emerging principles will be retained.

2. The basic unit of information will be the chapter/module, defined as a unit of information that can readily be covered by an individual author-curator. There may come to be as many as 500 to 1,000 modules.

3. Modules will be reviewed and updated on a schedule judged appropriate for each case. Author-curators will have a range of responsibilities assigned by editors. In some cases a new module will be created; in other cases the task will be to modify and update an existing module. Modification could include additional information, correction or reinterpretation of former material, or more extensive recasting of the subject on the basis of new information or insight.

4. Linkage to other websites will be extensive in order to encompass large datasets such as genetic maps, mutant information, and sequences. Linkages will also provide the opportunity for sophisticated presentation of structural and dynamic data and to tie the enteric bacterial knowledge base to that of other organisms.

5. The scope of EcoSal will include closely related organisms such as Klebsiella aerogenes and Shigella species. Besides an expanded treatment of infectious diseases caused by enteric bacteria, EcoSal will include the subjects of general ecology and evolution, as well as selected historical aspects of enteric bacterial research.

6. Integrative analysis of information will be stressed, with both the research investigator and the student in mind. The concept of "editions" does not apply to a continuing project of this nature. Therefore publication of hard copy books will take on new functions, including but not limited to (i) presentations of "concept" papers, (ii) publication of summaries of completed research subjects, and (iii) creation of educationally useful presentations of specific topics or areas.