Mission
The missions of iSmart are include:
1. To use the Internet to enhance communication among Scientists, Engineers and Technologists working on smart materials.
2. To pave a way to evolve online all knowledge of Scientists, Engineers and Technologist working on smart materials.
Management
iSmart is hosted on a server at the Harbin Institute of Technology. Volunteers--scientists, engineers and technologists just like you working on smart materials--serve as architects and moderators. iSmart is free: uers are free to post, and readers are free to read.
Who are iSmartors?
You are. Anybody in the world can register for a free account and post anything of interest to smart materials. See a thread of discussion on community standards.
Read
You can read every post, download every paper, email a post to a friend, locate recent posts and browse user list. You can do all these without registering. You can be an Anonymous User.
Write
To write in iSmart, you need to be an Authenticated User by registering for a free account. You can post findings in your lab and observations of a working day, exhilarating or otherwise. You can post advertisements of conferences, jobs, and funding opportunities. You can upload preprints of your recent papers, a practice permitted by most journals. You can even post a preprint of a paper already published in a journal, so that your paper gets one more chance to find its readers. You can post your lecture notes and project reports. There are plenty of reasons for you to post original ideas on iSmart. You can also write comments on posts of fellow iSmartors. A thoughtful comment benefits everyone, especially the author of the comment. Really, you can post anything you see fit, so long as it may interest fellow iSmartors and you obey the copyright. Be creative. What you post is a decision of yours.
iSmart runs as a common, which belongs to no one in particular, but belongs to whoever uses it. There is time to relax in a common, there is time to build one. Both bring you enjoyment. The best way to help building iSmart is to think what is good for you. Let software and the collective behavior of all users take care of the community.
Register
Even if you do not write anything, by registering you make a statement: you encourage fellow iSmartors to explore a new mode of communication, a mode that is faster, opener and more interactive. And it is free for all writers and readers. A large, active user list will attract more and better posts.
Features
Features in iSmart are powerful yet simple to use. However, they are difficult to describe in words, just as it is difficult to describe how to ride a bicycle by an email. So, why not be brave and explore? Stop reading this post for now, and go straight to register.
Registering
Registering takes less than 1 minute. All you need is your name and your email address. (Your email address is invisible to other users. iSmart will never abuse your email address.)
iSmart is a multiblog. After you register, you will have your own blog. Within 2 minutes, you should have posted your first entry. Posting an entry in iSmart is similar to sending an email: all you need is a title and a body of text. The rest is optional.
You can create your profile, with your photo attached. You can even create your own home page in iSmart. When many users create their profiles, iSmart will look like a social network of smart materials. All items in the profile are optional.
You can upload images of smart materials or interesting phenomena. Once you do, the images join a pool of images that will appear randomly on the left side. It is a way to build a web of smart materials and to promote intriguing findings in your lab.
You can revise your posts as many times as you like, but please refrain from deleting any post. You will soon discover why you should post in iSmart, and how iSmart is managed.
Together, we can shape iSmart into a helpful and pleasant common for us all. Please register now.