Obf

The websites and blog posts of the OBF go back a long way, with the first posts having been published all the way back in June 2001. Keeping them accessible and findable under stable links is not an easy feat, especially given that since 2001 we’ve changed the way we create and serve those pages more than once, most recently in March of this year. And while we have successfully managed to do so, we thought it would be nice to have some backup plans in place. [Read More]

Over the past few weeks, we have been working behind the scenes to migrate our website, resulting in the page that you currently have in front of you! Our pages are now generated by the Go-based, open source static site generator Hugo, and are stored on GitHub. All old URLs should continue working as before, but if you run into any missing pages or other issues, please let us know by submitting an issue or contacting us via the channels linked in the page footer. [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]

The Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) Event Fellowship program aims to promote diverse participation at events promoting open-source bioinformatics software development and open science practices in the biological research community. Winfred Gatua, Doctor of Philosophy, Bristol Medical School , was awarded an OBF Event Fellowship to organize a Hybrid Carpentries workshop at Laikipia University, Kenya. Hosting and facilitating a hybrid carpentries workshop in my home country is an excellent highlight for me. [Read More]

We’re sharing some important news with you regarding our mailing lists. From early on, we’ve maintained a self-hosted Mailman server for any OBF project that needs a mailing list, including our member roster list. After careful consideration, we have decided we need a solution that keeps track more reliably with current and emerging spam-fighting technologies and standards, and that simultaneously requires much less administration time and know-how. Specifically, we are planning to migrate the lists to paid hosting, possibly Mailchimp. [Read More]

The Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) Event Fellowship program aims to promote diverse participation at events promoting open-source bioinformatics software development and open science practices in the biological research community. Ruth Nanjala, a DPhil student in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Oxford, was awarded an OBF Event Fellowship to attend the International Congress of Human Genetics (ICHG) 2023 conference. Earlier in 2022, I received the Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) Event Fellowship for participating and promoting open science at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) 2022 conference in Los Angeles. [Read More]

On March 14, 2023, we held a webinar (hosted by ISCBacademy) about “Re-Thinking the Patient’s Role in a Learning Health System: Lessons from the Patient-Led Research Collaborative” presented by Hannah Wei, co-founder and technologist at the Patient-Led Research Collaborative. See the webinar announcement for a full description. BOSC organizing committee member Monica Munoz-Torres introduced Ms. Wei and fielded a lively Q&A session. The webinar recording is available on YouTube at https://youtu. [Read More]

Date, Time, and How to Join Date and time: 2022-10-21, 15:00 UTC (8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm UK) Agenda Board Officer Elections Chris Fields wishes to step down as Secretary, and Nomi Harris is standing for election to this role This will be an electronic ballot of the current board members Elections to the Board Iddo Friedberg, running for Board member at-large ( statement of interest) This will be an electronic ballot of the current board members Bylaw Changes We periodically review our bylaws Changes must formally approved by the Board at a public board meeting We plan minor changes to avoid gendered language, including subsuming the Secretary role (with historical gendered associations) into a Vice President role. [Read More]

The OBF Community Support Sponsorship scheme aims to sponsor small open-source-focused events like a scientific meeting, small conference, training workshop, hackathon, or time-limited series like monthly seminars. See details in this post. One application was funded under this program to prototype the workflow, with OBF offering financial support for a seminar series hosted by the Bioinformatics Hub Kenya. Congratulations to Michael Kofia Landi for leading this application and working collaboratively with the BHKi team – Pauline Karega, David Kiragu, Margaret Wanjiku and Festus Nyasimi – and OBF Board including Treasurer Heather Wiencko, to help establish a process for this new type of OBF funding. [Read More]