ELN SLAS Electronic Laboratory Neighborhood

By Jeff Paslay, Ph.D.

The Top Five Behind-the-Scenes Benefits of SLAS Membership

Everybody knows SLAS presents an excellent conference and exhibition and publishes two outstanding scientific journals, but not everybody knows about the many other rich resources that are available to members 24/7/365. I’ve narrowed the list to what I consider to be the top five member benefits that sometimes fly under the radar. If you haven’t explored them, I encourage you to visit www.slas.org to take advantage of the information, ideas and answers they offer.

JALA Online and JBS Online

SLAS members have instant online access to nearly two decades of scientific research exclusively focused on laboratory science and technology topics. Both JALA Online and JBS Online can be accessed directly or from our journal homepage at SLAS.org.

In addition to being able to browse 17+ years of searchable scientific content in JALA and JBS, you can search abstracts from all journals published by SAGE Publications. You can save searches and sign up for RSS feeds and e-mails with custom search alerts, content alerts, citation tracking alerts and alerts to let you know when new manuscripts post ahead-of-print in the JALA and JBS OnlineFirst sections.

New this year, JALA Online now features a podcast series. Hosted by JALA Podcast Editor David Pechter, these short, informal conversations with authors offer listeners a chance to get to know more about the people behind the research that makes our scientific community great.

JALA Online and JBS Online play an integral role in the advancement of science, providing an essential way for researchers to navigate the ever-increasing volume of peer-reviewed screening and automation information and data. I encourage you to use them regularly to inform your work. Personally, I find it interesting to watch what’s trending in the “Most Read” and “Most Cited” lists located at the bottom right corners of all pages.

LabAutopedia

SLAS hosts the world’s biggest and best wiki focused exclusively on laboratory science and technology. LabAutopedia is the SLAS Knowledge Network, another one of the more valuable SLAS resources that should be visited regularly by members. This perpetual motion machine is fueled by volunteer contributors who build, collect and organize this growing catalog of definitions and terminology, standards, white papers, organizational listings and an abundance of other information that is never-out-of-date and continually evolving.

Among the most popular articles, the LabAutopedia List of Programming and Computer Science Terms tends to be a perennial favorite. To date, this section has welcomed 114,721 visitors. Other popular sections address Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT), and Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) Technology and its Application in Bioscience. The LabAutopedia Book List is also very popular and selected reviews by SLAS member and volunteer Andy Zaayenga are featured regularly in the SLAS Electronic Laboratory Neighborhood e-zine.

Another unique feature of LabAutopedia conveniently keeps community connections current by linking mentions of instrumentation and products to the appropriate company pages within The SLAS Market Place, the searchable product directory at ww.slas.org.

Learning Center

The Learning Center consolidates access to the SLAS menu of educational opportunities, resources, references and more. Use it to link to information about SLAS microplate standards, university programs, academic screening facilities, drug discovery and scientific reference websites and other useful links.

SLAS On-Demand

A wealth of information resides online for instant, on-demand access by members. Many high-value presentations, such as keynote speakers and posters from SLAS2013; SLAS webinars; other past conferences, global symposia and more remain alive and well at www.slas.org. If you missed them when they were presented live and in person or if you want to revisit what mattered most to you then, these time-tested resources are ready and waiting for you.

Career Connections

In addition to delivering first class education, SLAS maintains a vigorous Career Connections program to assist members in advancing their personal career goals. Likewise, employers can use it to connect with the new talent they need to move their organizations forward. SLAS Career Connections is one of just a few totally automated and interactive professional employment programs. In addition to its ongoing online component, SLAS comes to life at the SLAS Conference and Exhibition with one-on-one coaching sessions with professional career counselors, special events, workshops and more.

04/15/2013