GalaxyScientists

[2015 Galaxy Community Conference (GCC2015)](http://gcc2015.tsl.ac.uk/)
[GCC2015 is done](http://gcc2015.tsl.ac.uk/). *[GCC2018 is coming](https://gccbosc2018.sched.com).*

GCC2015 BoFs!

This page describes the GalaxyScientistsBirds of a Feather Meetup held at GCC2015. Don't worry if you don't know what this group is .. the BoF is intended to define and create it!

When:: Tuesday, 7 July, 12:30 (Lunch)

Where:: Franklin Room, JICCC

Contact:: JenniferJackson & see BoF wiki


## Description

Meetup of Galaxy Scientists and Analysts that will discuss strategies for communicating the "Voice of the Scientist" as a formal, decided, recognised, action orientated feedback group into Galaxy development priorities. Produce a group description, meeting plan, goals, non-goals, and overall purpose to present to the Galaxy Team for consideration to create the group as a new community-based feedback resource from the analysis and end-user perspective.

Audience

Galaxy Scientists interested in getting organised and contributing as to how Galaxy evolves. A dedicated group of team & community members that will provide a "scientific voice" to augment, guide, and offer feedback into Galaxy development efforts.

In addition, if you joined in on this year's Data Wrangling Hackathon (or wanted to but were unable), YOU want to BE HERE.

When and Where

The time and location for this BoF is Tuesday, July 7th, over lunch at 12:30pm in the Franklin Room, JICCC

Who is Participating

If you are interested, please add your name below.

  • jen@galaxyproject.org, Jennifer Hillman-Jackson
  • kreddy4@jhmi.edu, Karen Reddy
  • Mo Heydarian
  • Dan Blankenberg
  • Michael Sauria
  • Gergely Izrael (izi)
  • Christian Rausch
  • Christian Schudoma
  • Hans-Rudolf Hotz,
  • Frederik Coppens
  • Rob Davidson
  • Helena Rasche
  • Maria Doyle
  • Peter van Heusden
  • Daniel Blankenberg
  • Meng Li
  • Bjoern Gruening
  • Ajayi Olabode
  • Annette McGrath
  • Dave Bouvier
  • Tim Griffin
  • Pratik Jagtap
  • Jennifer Hillman-Jackson
  • James Taylor

Questions?

Send them to Jennifer Hillman-Jackson, Karen Ready or Mo Heydarian.

Focus

Form the group! Please reserve discussion topics to those that directly concern the core targets.

Heads up GalaxyAdmins, please join us! A primary target goal is to complement the input your community group provides to Galaxy. We'd love your help in determining optimal organizational strategies.

Ideas

Add these before the BoF to aid in focusing our discussion. We'll create a https://wiki.galaxyproject.org/GalaxyScientists group wiki during and migrate Ideas and Resolutions content there.

  • Create the community group "GalaxyScientists" ??
  • Publish a group wiki: https://wiki.galaxyproject.org/GalaxyScientists
  • Who?
  • Why?
  • Feedback route(s)?
  • New moderated Twitter account @galaxyscientists?? Open to all core group members?
  • Start organizing the group logistics. Meetings, communications, and such.
  • Waaaay more .. what do you THINK?

Resolutions / Discussion

Purpose: Discuss whether a Galaxy end-user group would be useful to the rest of the community and if so, kick start the group.

Decision: Yes

Two tenets for the Galaxy Scientists Community

The Galaxy Scientists Community represents Galaxy end-users and gives them a voice to interact with the core team. However, **the activities of the Galaxy Scientists Community shall not interfere with core team activities, priorities, and current user support, or feedback loops. **

The Galaxy Scientists may or may not include support, training, faq projects (bundling of existing resources, creating new ones, all in a centralized location), but should not interfere with Galaxy Training Network.

Action Items:

  1. Establish formal name Galaxy Scientists
  2. Leadership roles
    First term (duration of term was not defined, likely to be about 1 year) representatives
    • Maria Doyle, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia
    • Frederik Coppens, VIB Gent, Belgium
  3. Recognition by GalaxyProject.org
  4. Email list or forum for discussion of end-user topics. NOT “how to”, but rather defining strategies and/or suggestions to improve the end-user experience
  5. Electronic communications: google drive docs, alternates
  6. Meetings: method, format, frequency
    1. meetings could be held via Google hangouts or equivalent video conferences
    2. meetings at GCC
    3. potential meetings of local subgroups

Long Term Goals

To start with, a set of initial long term goals was defined. These goals may be extended, adapted, or dropped after Galaxy Scientists has been going for a certain time.

  1. Collection of usage metrics Initially based on pre-existing user groups across various institutions, the collection process is expected to capture data about how Galaxy is used by the wider end-user community in order to give the Galaxy Scientists a voice backed up by community needs and not by individual preferences.
  2. End-User Feedback Establish a prioritized list of the likes, challenges, wish-list items, analysis needs, or gaps of the end-user community.
  3. Communication and Collaboration Members offer support and/or work directly with tool developers on projects (e.g. the IUC).
    Examples:
    1. define and share how important a tool/feature is to the user-community to aid in prioritization
    2. test/review a tool/function so that is is presented optimally in the UI based on how end-users work within Galaxy
    3. pairing scientists and software engineers on new development so that both can leverage their area(s) of expertise
  4. Community Creating a place where end-users can discuss how they are using Galaxy with other data scientists outside of Q\&A forums (or maybe within existing forums, but in a different space - Biostars has a forum area that may be appropriate, or a google group could be a better choice - nothing has been decided, yet)