Week 6
Before this meeting:
- Look up two other projects and comment on their issues with feedback on their Open Canvas and README
OLS progress assessment: Week 1 - Week 5
You have been working on the following assignments and tasks to understand and use Open Science concepts introduced in the last 2 cohort calls (if you haven't worked on them, please create a plan so that we can advance our projects without having too much workload later):
Table of contents
Cohort call
Call time:08 October 2020, 09:00 - 10:30 London time, see in your time zone
Hosts: Emmy, Malvika, Yo
Syllabus: OLS-2 Week-6
This week
During this week's cohort call, we will learn about:
- Project development plan
- Open Software
- Open Hardware
- Open Data
Roll call
please add
to be allocated to Written Discussion Breakout Room
or
for Spoken Discussion Breakout Room, or both if you are happy to be assigned to any breakout room. - we will explain this in the beginning of the call, so it's ok if you want to wait to add this later. More info
Examples:
- Yo Yehudi (they/them) / OLS / t: yoyehudi /

- Malvika Sharan (she/her) / OLS / t+gh: malvikasharan /

- Emmy Tsang / TU Delft, OLS-host / t: emmy_ft /

Name (pronouns - optional) / Project / social handles (twitter - t, GitHub - gh, etc.) / breakout room preference:
,
, both.
- Sophia Batchelor / Ethical Guide - The Turing Way / t: brainonsilicon /

- Renato Alves / EMBL - Bio-IT Community Manager - t: @renato_alvs gh: @unode

- Pradeep Eranti/Open platform for Indian Bioinformatics community
/ t: @pradeeperanti/

- Kate Simpson/ open energy retrofit protocol/ t:Dr_KateSimpson/ g: @KateSimpson,
,
, both!
- Markus Löning / sktime / He/him / gh: @mloning, t: @mloning_ /

- Laura Carter (she/her) / Ethical Guide - The Turing Way /
@LauraC_rter / 
- Arielle Bennett (she/her) / Cambridge Neuroscience / t: biotechchat /
, 
- Piv Gopalasingam (he/him) / European bioinformatics institute / t: cascade21 / cannot attend breakout (meeting clash)
- David Beavan / The Alan Turing Institute / @DavidBeavan / He, Him /

- Aleksandra Nenadic / The Software Sustainability Institute / t: aleks_nenadic / gh: anenadic
- Beatriz Serrano-Solano / Growing the Galaxy Community / gh: beatrizserrano / t: @Birthae /

- Bailey Harrington / Chronic Learning / gh: baileythegreen

- Kirstie Whitaker / Alan Turing Institute t: @kirstie_j gh: @KirstieJane / she/her/hers /

- Camila Rangel Smith / Alan Turing Institute / t: @CamilaRangelS/

- Karega Pauline/ The Hub Portal / gh:karegapauline /t: @KaregaP /

- Ismael Kherroubi Garcia / Ethical Guide - The Turing Way / t: @IsmaelKherGar; gh: @Ismael-KG /

- Jez Cope / Mentor / t/gh/gl: jezcope
- Georgia Aitkenhead / Alan Turing Institute / GeorgiaHCA /

- Sarah Gibson / Alan Turing Institute / gh: sgibson91 t: drsarahlgibson
- Emma Karoune- Emma Karoune/Open science in phytolith research/

- Teresa Laguna / Science for All / t:@teresa__laguna g:@tlaguna

- Peter van Heusden / RSSE Africa / t:@pvanheus g:@pvanheus

- Harriet Natabona / covid19 open science communication / gh: @natty2012 /

- Eva Herbst (she/her) / Finite Element Zurich / G: @evaherbst / Twitter: @EvaCHerbst

- Paula Andrea Martinez / Carpentries, UQRUG, RLadies Brisbane / @orchid00

- Paul Owoicho / Embedding Accessibility in the Turing Way Open Source Guide / g: @paulowoicho

- Hilyatuz Zahroh / APBioNetTalks /gh: @hzahroh t:@hilyatuz_zahroh/

Icebreaker question
What is your recent favorite tool or app or software?
- Sophia NOTION!! Once you get to know me, you'll learn how much I love, use, and rave about Notion. You can also view my template homepage here if you're wondering how I use it
- KateGithub! I never knew I could host such a great website from there! 😍
- Bailey The Atom text editor (from the people behind GitHub!). I recently converted after downloading it just to see how easy it would be for students to use (though I also still use vim on command line).
- Aleks Need to try atom, people say it is great
- Kirstie Whatsapp, honestly, its let me stay in touch with SO many people. My dad was in hospital for 8 days a couple of weeks ago and it was his (and our) absolue lifeline given that we couldn't go an visit him

- Arielle ToDoist! I use it to keep track of all my tasks, including long term projects and daily reminders +1
- Piv not recent but LifeRPG - since the pandemic started I've added tiny tasks to add structure to my day. small walks, listening to podcasts, etc.
- Laura Borrowbox for fiction books while the library has been closed

- David Headspace, for that feeling of chill when your daily commute is a walk from one room to another -
- Kirstie: I just signed up for the Turing's paid subscription. Interested to see where I can fit it in

- David: Some are good for walkies, easy to zone out (not fallen over yet)
- Camila: I also started using it with the Turing subscription, I love it. Having a session at the end of the working day helps me a lot to transition.
- Jez: I subscribed for a about a year and while I found it a bit samey after a while and unsubscribed it was definitely worth it, I learned a lot and I'll probably go back to it at some point
- Jez GNU Emacs text editor (+ spacemacs configuration) with org-mode for note-taking, planning & project management, knowledge management, document writing, … all in plain text
- Aleks OBS for recording videos, Clemetine for managing a music library
- Renato
for OBS!
- Renato GitPod - amazing tool for co-working on text/coding open source projects - Great integration with GitHub/Lab
- Sarah My new Google Nests - really enjoying controlling the "mood" of my music and having it follow me around my flat (spying microphones in my flat aside
but they do have hardwired mic off switches)
- Pauline Pomodoro focus app. Managed to focus and complete tasks despite the distractions :-)

- Emma - Git hub and making emojis in markdown!

- Paula Github
- Teresa HackMD! I find it massively useful for every project I work on, with or without coding.
- Paul VSCode! I feel it makes writing code so much easier. It also makes working with GitHub very easy as well.
- Peter VSCode! I like how it has "language engines" for Python and CWL that provide useful hints on variable and function name and formatting
🗣️ Welcome!
host: Malvika Sharan (4 mins) [⏰ 4]
Call recording reminder:
- Please note that this call will be recorded
- The video will be available on the YouTube channel in the next few days
- Turn on your webcam if you don't mind being in the video (or off if you do!)
Participation reminder:
Breakout room description
host: Yo Yehudi (3 mins) [⏰ 7]
We have a cohort name: "The Masked Cohort"

✏️ Open Science I: Using project management skills during development stage
Host: Emmy (3 min) [⏰ 10]
Open science has many aspects, so we'll be covering this over two separate cohort calls. This week, we're looking at different aspects that open science projects may have, across a few main areas:
- Iterative project management
- Open Source Software (reproducible, peer-reviewed code!)
- Open Source Hardware (affordable, maintainable equipment!)
- Open Data and sharing research outputs!
In the next cohort call (week 8), we'll cover open dissemination - open access, preprints, citizen science and open education.
🖥 Agile and iterative project management methods
Host: Emmy (10 minutes + 5 for questions) [⏰ 25]
Guest speaker: Renato Alves
-
Bioinformatics Community Manager - EMBL Bio-IT, Germany
-
Email: renato.alves@embl.de, twitter: @renato_alvs, github: @unode
-
Slides
-
Notes:
- Combination of different topics that help plan and strategise project management
- Agile software development: agilemanifesto.org
- stemmed from the need to respond to changes
- Waterfall: higher time/ risk trade off
- product requirement document
- software design
- implementation
- verification
- maintenance
- Iterative: Plan - collaborate - deliver
- Daily review allows to clean your backlogs and gain feedback regularly
- Using Agile for MY project
- Using GitHub project board
- Think of post it based small tasks
- different columns for different status/stages (todo, planned, ongoing, done)
- You can automate this process
- The automation can be managed from the ••• in the top right corner of a column, then going to ‘Manage Automation’.
- It has options to ‘Move issues here when…’ and then some things that can be checked for when you add a new issue, or when something is done related to it.
- breaking down of tasks: you can use issues in GitHub, writing issues in bullet points is recognised in the project board of GitHub
- Renato Try to keep a balance and the tasks manageable, too many tasks can feel overwhelming and become a serious problem. Milestones can help reducing this feeling. Closing tasks as abandoned is fine if it seems unlikely something will ever get done/completed.
-
Questions / comments
- Name / Question
- Sarah / I’m interested in the word “Collaborate” in the Agile diagram. Is collaboration intrinsic to Agile or can I agilely managed myself on my hobby project? :D
- Perhaps you are collaborating with past-Sarah and future-Sarah? - Laura SG: I think you are right there!
- Sarah Follow-up Q: are iterative work and small-chunk work two separate thing? Both agile?
- David I'm really interested in the psychology and motivation of 'assigning' people to tasks. Do people self-assign, get asked, or someone just assign another without discussion. I've seen it all, what works in the real world best for you(s)?
- Renato I maybe missed the main point of your question but answering here. If you have a contributor guide you should state this there. The success of the approach depends on the commitment of individuals. A compromise is to allow self assigning with occasional reviews on progress to avoid "someone else working on it but nothing happening" situations. If communication is fluid "ownership" of issues is, in my experience, rarely an issue.
- Kate/ How often do you tend to log on? Eg. everyday or once week?
- daily, weekly, monthly depending on the project
- Renato The approach I mentioned Getting Things Done (GTD) provides some thoughts and ideas on how to manage such list of task introducing different "phases" that you should do on a daily basis.
- Checkboxes! Use
- [] item 1
(and -[x] item 1
for the checked box)
- Arielle I think one of the most important concepts in Agile project methodology is the use of reflection sessions after specific periods of time or when tasks are completed/milestones hit. Building non-judgemental reflection in throughout is really important to project development!
- Emmy A friend of mine recently shared this idea of fractal boards

🖥 Open Source Software
Host: Emmy (10 minutes + 5 for questions) [⏰ 40]
Guest speaker: Aleks Nenadic
🖥 Open Data
Host: Yo (10 minutes + 5 for questions) [⏰ 85]
Guest speaker: Paula Andrea Martinez
What is open data?
-
Open Data is data that is made available for others to reproduce your work
-
Kate: Open data is data that is publicly available at the lowest bar. It doesn't have to have documented metadata (however it would be better!) so that people can effectively reuse it (which generally is the purpose of making the data open in the first place
)
-
Accessible to everybody
-
Sharing data in an open repository, in an ethical and accessible way.
-
Data that you can use for other purposes?
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Data freely available for anyone to use, under open licenses / copyleft
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David Data that we can share, build upon and point others towards, so we can have more trust in what's based upon it
-
Data that can be publicly, freely accessed, used, and reused
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Open data is available to everyone
-
Reusable - Much like code, Low WTF/minute - good metadata
-
Notes:
- Open data definition as per Open Data Handbook: Can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone
- This allows us to build upon other people's work and improve it
- Check out this step by step guide for opening you data: https://5stardata.info/en/
- Data Ethics: Goes across the data life cycle
- who is funding it
- What is your motivation
- Project design
- Data collection and sourcing
- Analysis
- Interpretation
- Communication and distribution
- Linking you data: Linked data > the reason that Open data exists - is to create knowledge
- for that you need a standard (vocabulary/ontology), see w3c guide
- FAIR Data Principles: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable
- There are many works that are invisible and FAIR can allow us to enhance the value of that work
- check FAIR guiding principles, Go-FAIR FORCE11, FAIR4RS (for research software) and Research Data Alliance
- Open Data is part of the road to Open Science
-
Questions / comments?
- Name / Question
- Muhammet Celik: "I understand, reusing and accessing the data but when the data is open to modify, does not it make it less reliable? I understand it can get improved but on the other hand it might just get ripped, no?"
- Open Data has a concept call data transformation: it means that with a license and a DOI you allow others to improve your work by citing your work (it's not being ripped :D)
- Emma Karoune: Where do you suggest putting links to old data to make your data 5 star? in a separate file of your repo or in a research paper/data paper?
- I recommend seperate file - but be aware of journal-specific guidelines. The most important thing is to make sure to link it somewhere visible!
- Yo: Bigger datasets should ideally go in an appropriate open repository
- also git-lfs and git-annex to manage large files in git
- Peter: "Data benefit sharing is a big worry for researchers in Africa where often we are the "sample collectors" and analysis happens elsewhere. How can benefit sharing be maintained with open data?"
- Attribution licences can help to make sure you still have benefits from data re-use
- Kate: If data is collected from homes (temperature/humidity/building performance) and was not originally planned to be made open, do you think opening it up anonymously, so the householders cannot be traced, it is okay, or unethical practice?
- This touches upon sensitive data. Use specific guideline and ethical framework/process (your institutions)
- anonymise or de-identify personal information data, also get consent from people before sharing their data
- This is the kind of thing we are hoping to discuss/address in the Turing Way Guide to Ethical Research! Please come get involved - Laura +1
👥 Breakout discussion: Iterative project management and design
Host: Yo (15 minutes) [⏰ 70]
Breakout room reminder: if you need assistance in your breakout room, please click the ' Ask for Help' button at the bottom of your screen
Instructions: Try to break down your first milestone into achievable chunks, and share what you found interesting and challenging.
👥 Break-out room
10 minutes, ~3-4 rooms: we will have some written discussion and some spoken discussion room:
-
First 5 minutes: Work silently on breaking up and taking notes below.
- It's okay to talk and bounce ideas off your group if needed in the 'Spoken discussion rooms'
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Last 5 minutes: Share with your group & get feedback.
- Written discussion room: Read through what others have written, +1 or comment where needed.
- Spoken discussion rooms: Take turn to share your ideas 1 minute each and capture the main insights in your notes
-
Room 1 - Written: (Pradeep, Muhammet, Hilyatuz)
- Muhammet The key goal in our project is making a tool that will simplify the metagenomic classification, these days metagenomics analysis has been a boom and a simple classification analysis requires users to use the command line which frustrates non-IT people. The biggest challenge in this is after we come up with the pipeline its gonna require some computational power which not everybody has it. Or not everybody uses the same OS. So we are thinking about how to represent the pipeline in a way so people do not need to worry about their computational power nor OS.
- Hilya The key goal to this project is to create an open source platform to stream bioinformatics talks, tutorials ans trainings. Among the key milestones are to finish the website development APBioNetTalks and then stream our first talk.
-
Room 2 - Spoken: (Harriet, Markus, Kate, Laura)
- Markus a key goal of our project is to better integrate other package developers and users into our project, I find it hard to break this down into milestones because I'm not sure how to best measure success
- identify success criteria
- identify ways how to approach other package developers (for example, raising issues, joint presentations)
- Laura: a key milestone opportunity for our project is the Turing Way BookDash in November: we want to use this as an opportunity to create lots of content and also identify barriers to contributing. So our more detailed plan looks a bit like:
- identify what we want BookDash participants to get done during the week
- break that down into discrete issues on github that are open and ready for +1
- make sure the contributor guides are up to date and provide information that we think will be needed
- …other prep things that we haven't thought of yet…
- Kate: 1. Review existing post occupany evaluation data via:Universities; Individual researchers; Web portals; Github. Create table and add web links: Add columns for data types, for tick boxes; Make the table easy to read; Format the data in Markdown (is this even possible??), or similar 😊. Share via Github: Add issue/section on website; Invite collaborators to add more; Continue to add to this over time
-
Room 3 - Written: Bailey
- Bailey Harrington: I am creating a website for my first main milestone. I am debating between Wordpress (which I actually started with) and GitHub Pages (which will allow me to do more of the things I want to do). Broken down parts of this include:
- figuring out how/whether I can use a modified verison of a GitHub pages theme (I need to check their licenses to see what type of modification is allowed)
- writing content for the static pages: About, Contact, Home, et cetera
- finding a way to allow people to submit contributions that does not require them to interact with the GitHub interface if they find that uncomfortable or unintuitive
-
Room 4 - Spoken: Georgia, Karega, Ismael, Arielle
- Georgia: I have a tricky milestone for my project which is working out the moderation process for online platform. The steps to do this are: running focus groups to gather different people's opinions, collating and analysing the focus groups, researching other moderation processes and creating a scaffold, co-designing a code of conduct to support moderators, choose and recruit moderators, and design a data-flow/communication process.
- Ismael I'm in a group (of 3) project and one of the biggest challenges is building a community. For this, we have agreed to share our discussions more widely and transparently. Which we have then whittled down to streaming our discussions on Twitch! (Yet to be done). So a milestone is to have one of our meetings over Twitch. And a simple task we all have is to open Twitch accounts! We are now using Asana to keep track of milestones and tasks.
- Arielle I use workback plans to set milestones and then breakdown the steps needed to reach milestones. One of my main projects at the moment is organising a workshop for mid-November
- Karega I'm woring on a backend database and a frontend platform. First time after having a call with my collaborators my vision became less clear, this was when we were supposed to develop a roadmap. So we have broken it down to two parts, bakend and frontend. Step one is just gathering all sorts of data we'll put in there. Made Notion account and have a slack channel where everyone can throw in their ideas.
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Room 5 - Written: (Eva, Paula, Paul)
- Eva: For us one of the biggest challenges was trying to figure out how to get contributors to add their workflows to our database. For this, we had several steps: 1) figure out a platform to share the resources (Github repo or github org?) 2) recruit potential collaborators 3) make a template and guide for submitting resources 4) make Slack channel to start building community
- Paul: I find that when breaking down milestones, it can be too easy to not break them down thoroughly. This leaves room for ambiguity, and you may end up not being as productive as you should.
- Paula: Set a deadline, set the schedule to go through the proposals, review the guidelines, add comments to each, do last review and send all the feedback back.
-
Room 6 - Spoken: Emma, Aleksandra, Camila & Teresa
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Emma problems of getting other to interact with gitbhub as can be seen as scary by researcher that are not used to it. Using issues and then breaking these down into smaller achievable tasksable to tick things off! having short-, medterm goals Using issues and then breaking these down into smaller achievable tasksable to tick things off! having short-, med- and long– and long– and long– and long-term goals Using issues and then breaking these down into smaller achievable tasksable to tick things off! having short-, medterm goals Using issues and then breaking these down into smaller achievable tasksable to tick things off! having short-, medterm goals
-
Camila Rangel Smith Breaking up a big milestone into smaller pieces is very useful to get progress on a project. It stops the process from being abstract.
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Teresa Because I have not started my roadmap yet, I was listening to the other "roommates". We were also talking about the usefulness we think github has on project management even for the projects whih do not involve coding. Nice talk by the way 
share-out (5 minutes)
🖥 Open Hardware
Host: Yo/Malvika (a video will be played by one of them, whoever can :D) (10 minutes) [⏰ 80]
Guest speaker: Julieta Arancio (video)
Email: jarancio@unsam.edu.ar, Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cassandreces
-
Slides / notes: https://youtu.be/BtUNjoTr5eg
-
Notes:
- Poeple who wants to make science needs tools to make science, but currently a lot of these tools are blackboxes - we may know the principles, but not the details of the processes, nor could we investigate them
- Scientists need to be able to adapt tools to solve their specific scientific questions; another example in the pandemic is ventilators - it would be very nice to be able to adapt it to specific needs (of patients, etc); finally - a lot of existing tools are produced/supplied by a few companies, this creates restrictions and barriers to acccess for many
- Open Science hardware tools: makes use of open-source software, designed by the community, making use of 3D printing - this means everyone from around the world can learn and build on the work of everyone else!
- A wide range of open science hardware: standard lab equipment, sensors to reagents- all developed following best open practices to allow people to easily contribute and reuse/remix the work
- Open science hardware is crucial for open science - hardware is integral to the collection of data, scientific analysis, etc - access and the ability to innovate in hardware determines who can do science and whose scientific questions are being answered.
- How to get involed:
- journal of open hardware
- the GOSH forum to collaborate and get feedback
-
Questions / comments? (will be shared with the speaker on Slack to be addressed after the call, in their time zone)
Silent Reflections and main takeaway (5 minutes) [⏰ 85]
- Name / comments or notes and '+1's
- Teresa I love this initative, great way to democratize Science +1 +1+10000
🗣️ Closing & Assignments
Malvika (⏰ 2 minutes)
- Assignments
- Prepare to share your project online through Git Pages, Google Site, Wordpress or other option.
- Create a project development plan for your project
- If you haven't yet already, please select and start adapting a code of conduct for your repository in a file called CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
After these assignments:
- Start creating a contribution guideline for your community: we will revisit this next week so no need to rush!
- You can transfer your tasks to a project management or kanban tools such as GitHub projects (short intro), Trello, Asana, Zenhub in GitHub
Next cohort call: October 22, 17:30 - 19:00 pm London time (see in your time zone)
Feedback
What worked?
What didn't work?
What would you change?
What surprised you?
Reference: Open leadership Framework, Mozilla Open Leaders 6 & 7, Open Life Science 1
License: CC BY 4.0, Open Life Science (OLS-2), 2020