Community

The call for applications for the OBF Event Fellowship 2024, round 2, is now open. The deadline for this round is 1 August 2024. Applications should be submitted via this Google Form. We have provided a Word template to help you draft the application locally before filling out the form – make a copy of this template. The OBF Event Fellowship program aims to increase diverse participation at events that promote open-source bioinformatics and/or open science. [Read More]

The call for applications for the OBF Event Fellowship 2024, round 1, is now open. The deadline for this round is 1 April 2024. Applications should be submitted via this Google Form. We have provided a Word template to help you draft the application locally before filling out the form – make a copy of this template. The OBF Event Fellowship program aims to increase diverse participation at events that promote open-source bioinformatics and/or open science. [Read More]

We asked our community to nominate potential BOSC keynote speakers, and we were pleased with the great suggestions! In the next phase of our process, we’re giving you a chance to let us know if there is anything that makes any of the nominated individuals NOT appropriate as BOSC keynote speakers. Our invited speaker process and rubric gives examples of some possible reasons for exclusion. If you have concerns about any of the people on our list, please let us know (with as much specificity as you feel comfortable providing) via this anonymous form no later than Thursday 2024-01-25. [Read More]

We are seeking a diverse list of potential BOSC keynote speakers. We invite you, our community, to nominate people you think would be appropriate (and at least somewhat likely to accept the invitation – for example, it is extremely unlikely that we would get a ‘yes’ from a recent Nobel Laureate). Please submit your nominations here (as many as you like; you can fill out the form more than once to submit additional suggestions) by the end of the day on Wednesday 2024-01-17. [Read More]

All are invited to join us (via Zoom) at the OBF’s upcoming public Board meeting. Date, Time, and How to Join Date and time: 2023-12-19, 16:00 UTC (8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm UK) Agenda Approve October 2022 Public Board Meeting minutes Review and approve minor changes to bylaws Remove one instance of gendered language, replacing “her” with “their” Change title of “Secretary” of Board to “Vice President” (with duties unchanged) Elections to the Board Three Board members are up for re-election: Peter Cock (President), Heather Wiencko (Treasurer), and Hilmar Lapp (Member at Large) This will be an electronic ballot of the current board members After the meeting, the meeting minutes will be made available in the obf-docs GitHub repository as a pull request. [Read More]

As of November 21, 2023, the Open Bioinformatics Foundation and BOSC will no longer post on Twitter/X. Although in the past it was a useful social medium, it is no longer compatible with our values, as expressed in the OBF Code of Conduct: We are committed to creating a friendly and respectful place for learning, sharing and contributing. All participants in our events and communications are expected to show respect and courtesy to others. [Read More]

CollaborationFest, CoFest for short, is a collaborative work event that has been held each of the past 13 years as a satellite event of BOSC. At these free events, held right before or after BOSC, participants gather in small groups to exchange ideas and work together on projects including but not limited to hacking. Participants were encouraged to submit their project ideas in advance to facilitate collaboration. CoFest 2023 took place during the two days just before BOSC, which was part of ISMB/ECCB 2023 in Lyon and online. [Read More]

Sierra Moxon to speak about “LinkML: an open data modeling framework, grounded with ontologies” [If you missed the webinar, the video is here and the slides are here.] ISCBacademy is a series of free webinars sponsored by the International Society for Computational Biology. They are open to all, including those who are not ISCB members. ISCB members can access the webinars via the ISCB Nucleus platform: https://iscb.junolive.co/. Non-members need to register for Nucleus: https://iscb. [Read More]

The 24th annual Bioinformatics Open Source Conference, BOSC 2023, took place as part of ISMB/ECCB 2023 in Lyon, France, and online. ISMB/ECCB attracted a near-record number of attendees, with over 2100 in person and about 900 more online. Most of the BOSC organizing committee (missing: Jessica Maia and Chris Fields)A full room at BOSC 2023 The opening session of BOSC kicked off with a welcome from chair Nomi Harris. An overview of BOSC’s parent organization, the Open Bioinformatics Foundation, was presented by OBF Board member Bastian Greshake Tzovaras. [Read More]

Diversity, inclusion and accessibility (also known as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, DEI) are a major part of BOSC’s mission and core values, and we pursue these goals in multiple ways. BOSC 2022, for example, included a panel on Building and Sustaining Inclusive Open Science Communities, with panelists who not only were experts on the topic but also themselves belong to various groups that are typically underrepresented in our community. And with generous support from our sponsors, each year we provide free registration to 10-20 BOSC participants as part of the OBF Event Fellowship program), which aims to increase diverse participation at events related to open source bioinformatics and open science. [Read More]