Join the OBF community
The OBF welcomes anyone who is involved or plans to become involved in promoting open source open science or both in a biological field to join its community. There are many ways you can become part of our growing community, regardless of your career stage and experience with open source and open science.
Join our online spaces
The OBF community has a number of different online spaces that are open to everyone and can be used to network and discuss anything related to open bioinformatics. You can:
- Subscribe to our OBF newsletter (and if you have news to share, you can also suggest topics.
- You can join our community Slack, where you will find fellow open bioinformatics folks to chat with.
- We also have an open LinkedIn group, where one can get in touch with folks, find interesting job opportunities and more.
- We also have active presences on social media, on both BlueSky and Mastodon.
- Last but not least, our member projects like BioPython also have their own communication channels.
Come to our in-person and virtual events
We organize an annual conference, the Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC) and the associated Collaboration Fest. These events are a great way to meet others engaged in open source/science around biology. BOSC features talks, posters and panel discussions on the latest research in open bioinformatics, while Collaboration Fest offers the chance to work together with others on improving open bioinformatics tools, by coding but also writing documentation and other non-coding tasks.
Applying to become a voting member of OBF
You can also apply to become a voting member of the Open Bioinformatics Foundation, which allows voting on larger OBF issues, including changes to the OBF’s governing document, the bylaws. To be considered as a voting member, you must already be actively and demonstrably engaged in biology-related open science or open source in some form. Examples of such engagement could include contributing to existing open bioinformatics projects, publishing in the field, or attending open source bioinformatics conferences such as BOSC. The reason for this requirement is that we expect voting members to have a long-term engagement with both the field and the OBF itself. The OBF requires a quorum for voting, so we want OBF members to remain actively involved.
The best time and place to join is at the annual BOSC conference, because attendees are automatically deemed eligible based on the fact that they attended BOSC, but you can apply for membership at any time.
History and Bylaws
The OBF membership body was formally established at the 2005 Board of Directors meeting. As laid out in the OBF Bylaws, the Board of Directors elects new Directors when terms expire or new seats are added. The membership of the OBF can nominate candidates for these elections.
Voting members are invited to attend the annual public Board meetings, which are announced via the (low-traffic) OBF members mailing list, as well as on our blog and via our social media channels.
Participation
The Board established the membership body as the platform from which major future changes to the OBF’s mission, agenda, and scope will originate
- through active participation and discussion
- through providing the future leadership of the OBF.
If you are actively engaged in bioinformatics, have ideas and the energy to advocate them then we encourage you to apply to become a voting member, and perhaps to nominate yourself for future elections to the Board. The bylaws define terms for Directors as well as Officers. Elections are typically held yearly or when needed.