Abstract
Coopertition is “unqualified kindness and respect in the face of fierce competition.”
“If a tree falls in a forest…
Dean Ho, Ph.D. JALA Editor-in-Chief Northwestern University Evanston, IL
… and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Likewise, if scientific achievements are confined to the laboratory in which they took place, are they really achievements?
Research has to be communicated. Without communication, research is unfinished. As members of a scientific community, we owe it to our colleagues (and they to us) to share news and information about how we build better mousetraps. Sharing knowledge and experience is not about giving away secrets, it is about our responsibility to further common goals for the greater good.
At LabAutomation2011, the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS) hosted teams of high school students participating in the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (F.I.R.S.T.) program, an organization that exists to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders. Conference attendees talked with the students as they demonstrated their creative solutions to F.I.R.S.T. robotics team challenges. What stood out were the teams' commitments to “gracious professionalism” and “coopertition.”
Gracious professionalism and coopertition are hallmarks of F.I.R.S.T. According to www.USFirst.com, gracious professionalism is “a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community.” Coopertition is “unqualified kindness and respect in the face of fierce competition. Coopertition is founded on the concept and a philosophy that teams can and should help and cooperate with each other even as they compete.
These guiding principles do not end with high school. By sharing our success stories, we all can learn and grow together as scientific professionals. SLAS offers us many ways to share—conferences, symposia, virtual courses, short courses, LabAutopedia, SLAS.org, Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, and my favorites… the official SLAS journals, the Journal of Laboratory Automation (JALA) and the Journal of Biomolecular Screening (JBS).
Not unlike F.I.R.S.T.'s gracious professionalism and coopertition, the JALA Spirit of Mentorship has for years fostered and facilitated the publication of new ideas and innovation that may otherwise have gone unnoticed. If prospective authors had good stories to tell, JALA manuscript reviewers were committed to providing the constructive criticism needed to help them meet the standards required for publication.
As a result, JALA is now in its 16th year of successfully sharing knowledge and experience to further common goals for the greater good. Ours is a unique scientific specialty, and like the students of F.I.R.S.T., our strength has always been in our open exchange of information. If you have not done so lately, I encourage you to submit a manuscript to JALA detailing one of your recent scientific achievements. For more information, go to www.slas.org/publications/journals.cfm or e-mail
Sincerely,
