Solution Overview
The final design of the Geneboree collaborative annotation system supports gene annotation and modification as well as discussion. Guests can see the same functionality as members; however, when they try to modify an annotation or submit a comment, they are directed through a log-in page, from where they can create a new account if necessary. Members are allowed to create a new version of any annotation, either by using a comparison tool to transfer annotations from related genes or by entering the gene information directly. Fellows have the additional ability to transfer all annotation information from one gene to another in one click. Members can also add comments to a discussion on the right sidebar of the gene details page, although only fellows can actually vote on the quality of the annotation. This ensures that the ranking information of an individual’s annotations can be used to provide a “track record” of the quality of the annotator's work and to control access to fellow-level functionality. The other primary benefits to being a fellow are the ability to add comments to multiple genes concurrently and to promote members to fellows. Lastly, all registered individuals will have two personalized pages, one self-configured for “Genes I’m Watching” and the other automatically generated for “Genes I’ve Annotated.”