Overview of Community Groups

4 minute read

Written by: The Coop Team - Fred Hutch Bioinformatics & Data Science Cooperative

To help stimulate interest in bioinformatics and data science while also encouraging learning and growth we here at the Coop have started a newsletter, manage slack channels, and publish a calendar of events. We’ve also established and actively support and encourage community groups. Community groups are loose associations of individuals in the community who come together regularly around a particular tool, language, skill etc. and meet either quarterly, monthly, or weekly depending on the groups needs. These meetings usually focus on best practices, new approaches, tools, information sharing, or demoing a new workflow or process that others in the community may find valuable. Current meeting schedules and locations are available on the Google calendar.

Current Community Groups

Interested in starting a community group focused on a topic not listed here? See below for instructions on how to request a new group.

  • Coop Community Meetings: The Coop hosts community meetings once a quarter to share information from the data science community at the Hutch. Join us to learn about projects and events happening in our community! When & where: Quarterly, usually A1-303 but check the calendar.

  • Data Visualization Group: The Data Viz group meets weekly to brainstorm visualization ideas and create figures using data released by TidyTuesday. All programming languages (and even non-coders!) are welcome. Learn more about what to expect here. When & where: every Wednesday from noon to 1 pm in the Coop Lab (M1-B406, Arnold). See the #data-viz channel/discussion within the Coop Communities Slack for more information.

  • Nextflow Group: Discusses issues related to the use of Nextflow (and other workflow managers like Cromwell) at Fred Hutch. The group welcomes Nextflow users of all levels of expertise as well as those just learning about the tool. See the #nextflow channel/discussion within the Coop Communities Slack for more information.

  • Python User Group: The Python User Group meets weekly to discuss programming, data analysis, and troubleshooting in python as well as dedicate one meeting a month to general software development; topics will be announced ahead of time. Bring your lunch, code, questions, and thoughts! Python coders of all levels of expertise are welcome. Contact the Coop (coophelp at fredhutch.org) for more information. Additionally, check out the #python-user-comm channel/discussion within the Coop Communities Slack for more information and our other training and community resources at Training, Community and Finding Help. When & where: every Friday from noon to 1 pm in the Coop Lab (M1-B406, Arnold).

  • R User Group: The R User Group meets weekly to discuss programming, data analysis, and troubleshooting in R. Bring your lunch, code, questions, and thoughts! R coders of all levels of expertise are welcome. Contact the Coop (coophelp at fredhutch.org) for more information. Additionally, check out the #r-user-comm channel/discussion within the Coop Communities Slack for more information and our other training and community resources at Training, Community and Finding Help. Note: If you do not have a laptop available to you we still want you to come!! You can email code privately ahead of each event to Amy Paguirigan (apaguiri at fredhutch.org). When & where: every Thursday from noon to 1 pm in the Coop Lab (M1-B406, Arnold).

  • Shiny Application Group: What: Shiny is an R package that allows creation of interactive web applications for visualizing data analysis. This group discusses creating and maintaining Shiny apps for research here at the Hutch. When & where: third Monday of the month from noon to 1 pm in the Coop Lab (M1-B406, Arnold)

  • Cromwell Workflow Manager Group: Meets every two weeks on Thursday from 11am-12pm in the Coop Lab (M1-B406, Arnold) to be a discussion and troubleshooting group for Cromwell users. For more information, see the #cromwell-wdl channel in the Coop Communities Slack, or contact Amy Paguirigan (apaguiri at fredhutch.org) for more information.

How to start a new community group

The Coop is also happy to support the formation of new community groups related to data science activities. We ask that you answer a few questions to guide your planning process:

  • What are the goals of your group?
  • Who is interested in participating?
  • Who will lead/facilitate the group?
  • How often do you want to meet? Some groups meet weekly, others bi-weekly, or monthly. It may help to look at some of the information about existing groups to get an idea of what has been working for our community so far. You can also post in the Coop Community Slack to gauge interest in the community. Once you are committed to the meeting details, contact coophelp at fredhutch with the following information:

Title (e.g., “Python coding group”)

Description (e.g., “Any Python users (beginner to advanced) are welcome to attend this session and to talk about programming and data analysis in Python. Bring your lunch, your code questions, and your thoughts! Contact this person for more information.”)

Open or closed? We prefer community groups to be open to everyone. If you request a group to be closed, we’ll add “[closed]” to the title.

Who is the point of contact? We’ll need someone to help answer questions about scheduling, etc.

Time and date of the first meeting and the continued schedule (so we can put a repeat on calendars)

We’ll use this information to:

  • Post to the Google and Outlook calendars
  • Announce the group in our monthly newsletter and on Slack
  • List the group on our webpage and the training page on the Fred Hutch Biomedical Data Science Wiki

Thanks for supporting the bioinformatics and data science community!

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