Community

After much discussion, the BCC2020 organizing committee has decided to hold the meeting on Remo.co, which is similar to Zoom but offers a more conference-like experience, with “floors” and “tables” where you can mingle with other attendees. It has great small group and presentation support, including for posters and demos. It’s also more fun than most online conference platforms. Because Remo is not familiar to most BCC participants, we are holding two open houses, one in each hemisphere, the day before BCC training starts. [Read More]

We’re old hands at organizing in-person BOSC s (some of us were involved in planning the very first BOSC, in 2000), but this is the first time we’re attempting an online conference, and we want your help to make BCC2020 a rewarding experience for all. We know many of you have attended other virtual conferences recently, and we’re interested in hearing what worked well and what didn’t. In particular, we are trying to figure out how to make virtual posters work, and how to run Q&A (with audio, or just typed? [Read More]

on behalf of the OBF Board members We are delighted to announce that four awardees have been selected to receive the OBF travel fellowship for 2020 round 1, to support their participation in virtual events. The OBF travel fellowship is now offered 2 times a year to multiple awardees towards supporting their participation in scientific workshops, conference and training events. The selection of individuals is made based on their applications, which state how their participation in the chosen event helps them promote open science practices in bioinformatics and/or enhance representation of minority groups in their communities. [Read More]

We look forward to receiving lots of abstracts by the end of this week from people interested in presenting at the online Bioinformatics Community Conference (BCC2020), which combines the Galaxy Community Conference, and our own Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC). The BCC2020 abstract submission deadline is Friday 8 May 2020. Some of the recent round of the OBF Travel Fellowships will be supporting BCC2020 attendees with video conferencing costs (headsets, web-cameras, etc), full announcement coming soon. [Read More]

The Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) sponsors a Travel Fellowship program aimed at increasing diverse participation at events promoting Open Source bioinformatics software development and open science in the biological research community. Michael Thompson’s participation at the Galaxy Admin Training 2020 workshop in Barcelona was supported by this fellowship. Find more information here. I had the opportunity to visit the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (B.S.C) in Spain from 2nd - 6th March 2020 to participate in the Galaxy Admin Training 2020, organized by Galaxy Europe and in partnership with B. [Read More]

The Open Bioinformatics Foundation was shocked and saddened to learn that our colleague and collaborator James Taylor, a professor of biology and computer science at Johns Hopkins University, died on April 2, 2020. James was one of the creators and PIs of the Galaxy Project, which is among the most widely used platforms in open bioinformatics. The Galaxy community has created a tribute page for James. We have close ties to James and the Galaxy project via our flagship conference. [Read More]

The 2020 Bioinformatics Community Conference (BCC2020), which brings together the BOSC and Galaxy communities, will take place online–more info here. The online meeting will still be held July 18-21. Registration will open in a few weeks, and fees will be lower than for an in-person meeting. Abstract submission will open soon and will close April 30th. We will follow the usual submission and review processes. We are discussing how to arrange the schedule to allow for participation across the globe. [Read More]

We are currently accepting applications for the first application round for the OBF Travel Fellowship 2020. This fellowship aims to promote the conference/event participation of attendees who advocate and present their work related to open-source bioinformatics software development and open science in the biological research community. In 2019, a total of 9 applicants received OBF travel fellowships to attend various conferences across the globe to present their work, gain new skills and promote Open Science practices in their respective areas of life science. [Read More]

The Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) sponsors a Travel Fellowship program aimed at increasing diverse participation at events promoting Open Source bioinformatics software development and open science in the biological research community. Arunav Konwar’s participation at Global Community Biosummit (GCBS), 2019 was supported by this fellowship. Find more information here. I recently had the opportunity to attend the Global Community Biosummit (GCBS), which took place between October 11-13 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA, USA. [Read More]