The European Cytometry Network  (ECN) has been created with the aim to organise cytometrists from all over Europe, around a system that provides modern infrastructure to build up connections between professionals in Cytometry. By supporting novel connections for multidisciplinary scientific exchange, the ECN promotes new collaborations and initiatives that will lead to independently funded projects.
On the 28th and 29th of February 2008, a meeting was held in EMBL-Heidelberg with over 70 invited established cytometrists representing 16 different countries. The need for the creation of ECN was widely acknowledge by the participants. Through discussions on the overall goals of this network, the infrastructure required and possible issues that might arise, basic key points were established and a definition of what the ECN platform should satisfy was achieved. These key points include support for existing organisations, information and coordination and a framework for new initiatives:

1.    Supporting existing Societies, Groups and Affiliations in European cytometry
•    Providing new paths for communication
•    Promoting a multidisciplinary membership around different areas of interests
•    Accessing expertise
2.    Information on meetings and courses
•    A single place where members could access information on events available throughout Europe
•    Coordination of events in Europe
•    Promotion of joined meetings
3.    A framework for new initiatives
•    Create group - group interactions whose shared collaborative interests further the aim of their group
•    Stimulus for Pan-European activities

On analysis of the survey and comments made by the attendees from the February meeting in 2008, it was clear that language was one of the main issues for the lack of communication among cytometrists in Europe. This defines one of the goals of the ECN, to support as many different languages as possible. The English language is used as the ECN’s connecting language, however other languages are fully supported as in the case of National organisations or regional groups represented in the ECN.
 
Implementation
At the meeting we proposed the use of WEB 2.0 tools and in particular, social networking infrastructure as our main platform for the European Cytometry Network. There is a large amount of information about such networks and on how communication and connectivity are distributed by them (1,2).
The commercial open source platform Ning, was identified as the social network platform to host ECN because it has attributes that match our basic needs (3). Ning social networks can be rapidly set up and configured to a working version for beta testing. Ning also provides access to the network’s source code and allows flexibility in its customisation. The platform is constantly being developed with updates implemented in response to costumers’ feedback and needs.
Following the February 2008 meeting an alpha version was initialy setup and tested. The beta version of the European Cytometry Networking platform (www.eurocyt.net) was launched in May 2008, initially to attendees of the February 2008 meeting. In September 2008, the beta testing phase ended and the ECN was launched with over 200 members already in the network. Subsequently the membership has grown to 446 members with 29 interest groups (February 23rd, 2009), including seven national societies and regional groups. These numbers keep expanding on a daily bases with more members being invited and new groups emerging to cover a variety of interests.
In joining the ECN members have access to:
•    A customizable (appearance, privacy) personal profile with professional information as well as access to their own or other member’s resources (blogs, pictures, videos and other common WEB2.0 tools)
•    Advanced search of colleagues based on their professional profile (equipment, cytometric applications, interests, localization, etc)
•    Members can create and receive new resources on the ECN such as video, tutorials or databases
•    Members can create and embed Java applications
•    Initiate, follow and contribute to forum discussions
•    Create, administer or join interest groups with various degrees of privacy
•    Manage “latest activity” reports (e.g., filtering irrelevant communications)
•    Get local or network-wide information such as job advertisements, events and courses
•    Members can promote their interest to the community
The ECN has an events calendar that coordinates meeting announcements with members of the ECN. Currently we have over 12 events including events from local and national society meetings to educational courses.

Data from experiments, notes on applications or macros can be exchanged and it is possible to integrate databases for project work. This allows people to launch group-based projects such as the idea of an immunophenotyping databases and other cytometry data sets. Businesses are also encouraged to join and participate, thus allowing industrial feedback on technology platforms such as instrumentation or reagents.
The ECN structure enables us to develop and communicate personal areas of interest that could be potentially shared and discussed with our colleagues. We actively encourage a membership mixture of background and expertise in all areas of cytometry and promote new ideas into scientific research. The ECN provides the infrastructure in which these types of interactions easily take place.

References
1) http://www.orgnet.com/cases.html
2) http://hubpages.com/hub/Social-Networking-Online-Community-Sites
3) http://www.ning.com/

Press release

Plant Flow Cytometry Blog

EMBL&cetera newsletter

Notes
Registration into the ECN is by invitation only. If you want to join the ECN, you can contact us by email at the following addresses
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