Welcome to Open Seeds Cohort 8

Niklas Morberg (CC BY-NC 2.0)

The Open Seeds 8 program

Purpose: Training for early stage researchers and young leaders interested in furthering their Open Science skills

Outcome: Ambassadors for Open Science practice, training and education across multiple countries and scientific communities.

Process: A 16-week mentoring & training program, based on the Mozilla Open Leader program, helping participants in becoming Open Science ambassadors by using three principles:

  1. Sharing essential knowledge required to create, lead, and sustain an Open Science project.
  2. Connecting members across different communities, backgrounds, and identities by creating space in this program for them to share their experiences and expertise.
  3. Empowering them to become effective Open Science ambassadors in their communities.

Goals and Learning Objectives

The vision of OLS program is to strengthen Open Science skills for early stage researchers and young leaders in science.

At the end of the program, our participants will be able to:

  • Describe and define the terms openness, open science, open leadership, community interactions, value exchanges, inclusivity, accessibility, open Science practices in developing resources and training
  • Learn how to apply those principles to open leadership and working open in their projects and communities . Learn how to collect, invite, and tell stories that demonstrate how and why openness benefits the communities they serve
  • Give original examples for the types of openness in science
  • Design
    • Illustrate the need for a project, its vision, and its goals
    • Embrace and communicate the benefits of Open Science and how to strategically apply different open practices to their work
    • Identify the public resources to share their data
    • Identify the different type of Open Access and associated journals
  • Build
    • Start any project with openness in mind from day one
    • Setup a project repository on GitHub using best practices for enabling collaboration
    • Choose and apply open licenses appropriately
  • Empower
    • Create and enforce a safe working environment
    • Promote the values of Open Science to empower others to lead and collaborate
    • Include a broad range of contributors in their work
    • Communicate their work and vision in a 2min demo of elevator pitch
  • Lead an open project in science

Timeline

  • June 1, 2023 : Call for Application opens

    See the guidelines and templates

  • June 9, 2023 (10:00 Universal Time): Application webinar( Talk + Q&A)

    Watch recordings from previous webinars on YouTube

  • June 28, 2023 (17:00 Universal Time): Application Clinic Call( Q&A)

    At this call, OLS team will be available to provide help if you have any question related to your application

  • July 11, midnight, UTC, 2023 : Call for applications closed

  • August 1, 2023 : Successful applicants announced

  • September 18, 2023: Start of the program

  • January 15, 2024: End of the program

Schedule

During the program,

  • Mentors and mentees meet every 2 weeks for a 30 minutes call
  • Mentees participate every ~2 weeks to 90-minutes cohort calls during which the program leaders introduce new topics and resources, facilitate break-out discussions, and invite expert from the field to give talks
  • Mentees can participate to skill-up, Q&A or coworking session in the weeks without cohort calls
  • Mentors take part to mentoring workshop and calls

OLS schedule overview. In the middle, the timeline represents the 16 weeks. On the top, boxes in green represent the 8 different cohort calls pointing to the corresponding weeks (even week numbers). Below the week timeline, blue boxes represent the mentor-mentee meetings pointing to the uneven number weeks. Below the blue boxes, are red boxes corresponding to 3 skill-up calls: "GitHub tutorial for beginners" (week 5), "Open Leadership: Academia, industry, and beyond" (week 9), "Self-care & social call" (week 1s)

Organizers will inform participants of the week schedule by email.

Subscribe to the OLS calendar

Week Call Date Topic Agenda
Week 00 (start. ) Mentor September 13, 2023 Mentor onboarding group 1  
  Mentor September 14, 2023 Mentor onboarding group 2  
  Mentor September 15, 2023 Mentor onboarding group 3  
Week 01 (start. September 18, 2023) Mentor-Mentee   1st mentor-mentee meeting  
Week 02 (start. September 25, 2023) Mentor September 26, 2023 (08:00 Universal Time) Mentor Skill Workshop by 360 Training - Group 1  
  Mentor September 28, 2023 (14:00 Universal Time) Mentor Skill Workshop by 360 Training - Group 2  
  Cohort September 26, 2023 (09:00 Universal Time) Welcome to Open Seeds & Tooling for Project Design  
Week 03 (start. October 02, 2023) Mentor-Mentee   2nd mentor-mentee meeting  
  Cohort October 04, 2023 (16:00 Universal Time) Welcome to Open Seeds & Tooling for Project Design  
Week 04 (start. October 09, 2023) Cohort October 11, 2023 (16:00 Universal Time) Tooling for Open Collaboration  
Week 05 (start. October 16, 2023) Mentor-Mentee   3rd mentor-mentee meeting  
  Skill-up October 17, 2023 (09:00 Universal Time) GitHub tutorial for beginners  
Week 06 (start. October 23, 2023) Cohort October 24, 2023 (09:00 Universal Time) Open Science Garden I  
Week 07 (start. October 30, 2023) Mentor-Mentee   4th mentor-mentee meeting  
  Q&A November 01, 2023 (17:00 Universal Time) Q&A call  
Week 08 (start. November 06, 2023) Cohort November 08, 2023 (17:00 Universal Time) Community Management Café I  
Week 09 (start. November 13, 2023) Mentor-Mentee   5th mentor-mentee meeting  
  Skill-up November 14, 2023 (10:00 Universal Time) Open Leadership in Practice  
Week 10 (start. November 20, 2023) Cohort November 21, 2023 (10:00 Universal Time) Open Science Garden II  
Week 11 (start. November 27, 2023) Mentor-Mentee   6th mentor-mentee meeting  
  Skill-up November 29, 2023 (17:00 Universal Time) Tooling for Collaboration: Open-source software in practice  
Week 12 (start. December 04, 2023) Cohort December 06, 2023 (17:00 Universal Time) Open Science Garden III  
  Skill-up December 08, 2023 (16:00 Universal Time) In-depth thematic session: documentation/metadata  
Week 13 (start. December 11, 2023) Mentor-Mentee   7th mentor-mentee meeting  
  Skill-up December 12, 2023 (10:00 Universal Time) Personal Management & Social call  
  Skill-up December 14, 2023 (16:00 Universal Time) Self-care & Social call  
Week 14 (start. December 18, 2023) Cohort December 19, 2023 (10:00 Universal Time) Community Management Café II  
  Skill-up December 20, 2023 (17:00 Universal Time) In-depth thematic session: inclusive meetings  
Week 15 (start. January 08, 2024) Mentor-Mentee   8th mentor-mentee meeting  
  Skill-up January 09, 2024 (09:00 Universal Time) Final presentation rehearsal - Group 1  
  Skill-up January 10, 2024 (14:00 Universal Time) Final presentation rehearsal - Group 2  
  Skill-up January 11, 2024 (17:00 Universal Time) Final presentation rehearsal - Group 3  
Week 16 (start. January 15, 2024) Cohort January 16, 2024 (09:00 Universal Time) Final presentations & Graduation! - Group 1  
  Cohort January 17, 2024 (14:00 Universal Time) Final presentations & Graduation! - Group 2  
  Cohort January 18, 2024 (17:00 Universal Time) Final presentations & Graduation! - Group 3  

Role Descriptions

Project leads (aka Mentees)

Participants join this program with a project that they either are already working on or want to develop during this program. More details about the role of a project lead (mentee) can be found here.

Mentors

Our project leads are supported in this program by our mentor-community who are paired based on the compatibility of expertise, interests and requirements of their projects. Our mentors are Open Science practitioners and champions with previous experiences in training and mentoring. They are currently working in different professions in data science, publishing, community building, software development, clinical studies, industries, scientific training and IT services.

Mentors advise and inspire

  • Connect: to people, programs, companies
  • Recommend: resources, readings, classes, experiences
  • Feedback: for the project leads to consider

Pool of mentors

We thank the 38 mentors this round.

The GitHub avatar of

Irene Vazano

Pronouns: She/her/hers
@ni_airo

Expertise:
Library science, Computer science

More about Irene

The GitHub avatar of

Arielle Bennett

Pronouns: she/her
@biotechchat

The Alan Turing Institute

Expertise:
Road mapping and strategy planning, Community consultation, Culture change, Code of conducts, Community goals, Drug discovery, Computational biology, Neuroscience.

More about Arielle

The GitHub avatar of

Bjørn Peare Bartholdy

Pronouns: he/him

Expertise:
Bioarchaeology; reproducibility; open data; open methods; research data management

More about Bjørn Peare

The GitHub avatar of

Bethan Iley

Pronouns: she/her
@bethaniley

Queen's University Belfast

Role in OLS: Resident Fellow

Expertise:
Gender identity; conspiracy theories; misinformation; neurodiversity; diversity, Equity, Inclusion; open scholarship

More about Bethan

The GitHub avatar of

Diana Pilvar

@DianaPilvar

Expertise:
Data management, Data stewardship

More about Diana

The GitHub avatar of

Diego Onna

Pronouns: He/Him
@DiegoOnna

Universidad De Buenos Aires

Expertise:
Chemistry of materials, Nanomaterials, Machine learning, Chemometrics, Photochemistry, Physical chemistry, Chemical education

More about Diego

The GitHub avatar of

Stephane Fadanka

Pronouns: He/Him
@https://twitter.com/StephaneFadanka

Mboalab

Expertise:
Community engagement; molecular biology; project management; open source contribution; git/github; 3d printing; hardware prototyping.

More about Stephane

The GitHub avatar of

Fotis Psomopoulos

Pronouns: he/him
@fopsom

Institute Of Applied Biosciences, Centre For Research And Technology Hellas

Expertise:
Bioinformatics, Machine learning, Training

More about Fotis

The GitHub avatar of

Gemma Turon

Pronouns: she/her
@TuronGemma

Ersilia Open Source Initiative

Expertise:
Biomedicine (infectious diseases), Research software in drug discovery, Python, Open source code development in Python, Machine learning

More about Gemma

The GitHub avatar of

Gladys Rotich

Pronouns: She/her
@jerono7_gladys

Expertise:
Bioinformatics

More about Gladys

The GitHub avatar of

Harini Lakshminarayanan

@hlaksh

University Of Zurich

Expertise:
Cancer biology, Open science, Community building, Liquid biopsy, Biomarker studies

More about Harini

The GitHub avatar of

Irene Ramos

Pronouns: she / her

National Commission For The Knowledge And Use Of Biodiversity (Conabio)

Role in OLS: NASA Cohort Coordinator (contract)

Expertise:
Fair, Open data, Data management, Agrobiodiversity, Sustainability, Transdisciplinary research

More about Irene

The GitHub avatar of

Elisee Jafsia

Pronouns: He/Him
@euclude

Mboalab

Expertise:
Data science

More about Elisee

The GitHub avatar of

Jesica Formoso

Pronouns: she/her
@jesiformoso

Expertise:
Cognitive psychology; developmental psychology; data modeling, Visualization; r; python; open science; reproducibility

More about Jesica

The GitHub avatar of

Joyce Kao

Pronouns: She/Her
@joyceykao

University Hospital Rwth Aachen

Expertise:
Open innovation, Digitalization

More about Joyce

The GitHub avatar of

Jose Luis Villca Villegas

Pronouns: Bolivia
@villca_villegas

Universidad Mayor De San Simon

Expertise:
Open science, Community; health sciences; open journal systems; clinical research; public health, Infectious diseases

More about Jose Luis

The GitHub avatar of

Pauline Karega

Pronouns: she/her
@KaregaP

Bioinformatics Hub Of Kenya Intitiative

Expertise:
Bioinformatics
The GitHub avatar of

Laura Carter

Pronouns: she/her
@LauraC_rter

University Of Essex

Expertise:
Human rights; gender; sexuality; critical data studies

More about Laura

The GitHub avatar of

Nina Trubanová

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Ucd

Expertise:
Plants, Hemp, Genetics, Variability
The GitHub avatar of

Mallory Freeberg

Pronouns: she/her
@MalloryFreeberg

Embl European Bioinformatics Institute

Expertise:
Metadata; fair principles; post-transcriptional gene regulation; ontologies; project management; data management; bioinformatics; galaxy; github; human genomics; sensitive data sharing

More about Mallory

The GitHub avatar of

Mariela Rajngewerc

Pronouns: She/her
@mariela_rajng

Expertise:
Machine learning, Ia, Bias, Fairness

More about Mariela

The GitHub avatar of

Alexander Martinez Mendez

@mxrtinez

Universidad Industrial De Santander / La-Conga Physics

Expertise:
Science reproducibility; open software; linux

More about Alexander

The GitHub avatar of

Nadine Spychala

Pronouns: she/her
@NadineSpychala

University Of Sussex

Expertise:
Open science, Reproducible science, Best practices in open & reproducible science, Computational studies, Fair research software, Neuroscience, Complexity science, Information theory, Machine learning, Datascience, Metascience, Psychology, Statistics, Vol

More about Nadine

The GitHub avatar of

Nicky Nicolson

@nickynicolson

Digital Revolution

Expertise:
Biodiversity informatics, Automation, Continuous integration, Document processing

More about Nicky

The GitHub avatar of

Nicolás Palopoli

Pronouns: Él/He/Him
@npalopoli

Universidad Nacional De Quilmes & Conicet

Expertise:
Bioinformática, Ciencia abierta, Educación, Bioinformatics, Open science, Education

More about Nicolás

The GitHub avatar of

Laurah Ondari

@_nyasita

Expertise:
Bioinformatics
The GitHub avatar of

Patricia Loto

Pronouns: Ella/She
@patriloto

Expertise:
Project management; agile methodologies; data analysis; r; software engineering;data visualization

More about Patricia

The GitHub avatar of

Umar Farouk Ahmad

@phaarouknucleus

Expertise:
Ai, Clean energy, Environment

More about Umar Farouk

The GitHub avatar of

Pradeep Eranti

Pronouns: he/his
@pradeeperanti

The GitHub avatar of

Riva Quiroga

Pronouns: she/her/ella
@rivaquiroga

Expertise:
Community building; linguistics; digital humanities; reproducibility; programming pedagogy; open science

More about Riva

The GitHub avatar of

Saranjeet Kaur Bhogal

Pronouns: She/her
@qwertyquesting

RSE Asia Association and Research Software Alliance

Expertise:
Statistics, Community management

More about Saranjeet Kaur

The GitHub avatar of

Sara Villa

Pronouns: she/her
@VillaScience

King'S College London

Expertise:
Molecular biology, Genomics, Sequencing, Project management

More about Sara

The GitHub avatar of

Andres Sebastian Ayala Ruano

Pronouns: he/him
@sayalaruano

Maastricht University

Expertise:
Bioinformatics; cheminformatics; drug discovery; network science; machine learning; data science; open science

More about Andres Sebastian

The GitHub avatar of

Sara El-Gebali

Pronouns: She, her
@yalahowy

Scilifelab / FAIRPoints Project

Expertise:
Research data management, Open science, Fair principles, Inclusion & equity

More about Sara

The GitHub avatar of

Siobhan Mackenzie Hall

Pronouns: she/her
@smhall97

University Of Oxford, Oxford Neural Interfacing

Expertise:
Machine learning / computational neuroscience

More about Siobhan Mackenzie

The GitHub avatar of

Tajuddeen Gwadabe

Pronouns: he/his/him

Role in OLS: Programme Manager & Catalyst (contract)

Expertise:
Machine learning
The GitHub avatar of

Umut Pajaro Velasquez

Pronouns: They/Them
@umutpajaro

Expertise:
ai, Internet governance, Cultural studies, Communications, Gender studies
The GitHub avatar of

Verónica Xhardez

Pronouns: She/ella
@ xhardez

Arphai/Ciecti

Expertise:
Software libre; comunidades de práctica; coproducción de conocimiento; proyectos interdisciplinarios

More about Verónica

Mentoring training

Mentorship roles can sound like a big personal responsibility and can be overwhelming for new mentors. To support our mentors in this program, we will offer training, topic-based guided discussions and opportunity for social interaction over 4 calls during the mentorship round:

  • 2 training calls in the beginning of the cohort to get participants trained and prepared for their role as mentors
  • 1 catch-up call in the middle of the cohort to discuss new topics and challenges that might have occurred and address them
  • 1 call at the end to capture experiences of mentors and assess their interest in future cohorts
  • Social and co-working calls schedule will be agreed among the mentors as per their needs and interests

In the mentor training, our mentors will then gain mentoring skills (active listening, effective questioning, giving feedback), learn to celebrate successes and gain confidence on navigating challenges in mentoring.

A dedicated slack channel will facilitate open discussions among mentors to help them discuss their experiences, challenges and tips and tricks (contact the team if you are not yet on this channel).

Experts

Experts are invited to join cohort calls or individual mentorship calls to share their experience and expertise during the program.

We thank the 22 persons who registered to be experts in this round.

The GitHub avatar of

Alex Chan

Pronouns: they/she
@alexwlchan

Wellcome Collection

The GitHub avatar of

Angelica Maineri

Pronouns: She/her
@AngelicaMaineri

Expertise:
Data management, Sociology, Datafication, Survey methodology, FAIR

More about Angelica

The GitHub avatar of

Carolina Giraldo Olmos

@cvgiraldo

Expertise:
Soil biophysics, Wildfires, Soil erosion modeling

More about Carolina

The GitHub avatar of

Diana Pilvar

@DianaPilvar

Expertise:
Data management, Data stewardship

More about Diana

The GitHub avatar of

Elisa Rodenburg

Pronouns: she/her
@Elisa_in_tweets

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Expertise:
Fair, Research data management, Open research, Research support, Qualitative research

More about Elisa

The GitHub avatar of

Esther Plomp

Pronouns: she/her/hers
@PhDToothFAIRy

Delft University Of Technology - Faculty Of Applied Sciences

Expertise:
Open protocols, Open data, Research data management, FAIR, Archaeology, Bioanthropology, Isotopes, Osteology

More about Esther

The GitHub avatar of

Gemma Turon

Pronouns: she/her
@TuronGemma

Ersilia Open Source Initiative

Expertise:
Biomedicine (infectious diseases), Research software in drug discovery, Python, Open source code development in Python, Machine learning

More about Gemma

The GitHub avatar of

Georgiana Dolocan

Pronouns: she/her

Expertise:
Open source; software development

More about Georgiana

The GitHub avatar of

Irene Ramos

Pronouns: she / her

National Commission For The Knowledge And Use Of Biodiversity (Conabio)

Role in OLS: NASA Cohort Coordinator (contract)

Expertise:
Fair, Open data, Data management, Agrobiodiversity, Sustainability, Transdisciplinary research

More about Irene

The GitHub avatar of

Elisee Jafsia

Pronouns: He/Him
@euclude

Mboalab

Expertise:
Data science

More about Elisee

The GitHub avatar of

Julien Colomb

Pronouns: he/his
@j_colomb

Hu Berlin

Expertise:
Neurobiology

More about Julien

The GitHub avatar of

Michael Landi

Pronouns: He/Him
@CofiaLandy

Swedish University Of Agricultural Sciences

Expertise:
Bioinformatics, Genome assembly, Epigenetics

More about Michael

The GitHub avatar of

Nina Trubanová

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Ucd

Expertise:
Plants, Hemp, Genetics, Variability
The GitHub avatar of

Milagro Urricariet

Pronouns: she/her

Expertise:
Ocean dynamics, Climate variability, Shelf seas

More about Milagro

The GitHub avatar of

Vanessa Fairhurst

Pronouns: she/her
@nessafairhurst

Expertise:
Community management

More about Vanessa

The GitHub avatar of

Nadine Spychala

Pronouns: she/her
@NadineSpychala

University Of Sussex

Expertise:
Open science, Reproducible science, Best practices in open & reproducible science, Computational studies, Fair research software, Neuroscience, Complexity science, Information theory, Machine learning, Datascience, Metascience, Psychology, Statistics, Vol

More about Nadine

The GitHub avatar of

Paz Míguez

Pronouns: she/her
@Paz_M

Expertise:
Political science, Education, Training, Qualitative research

More about Paz

The GitHub avatar of

Umar Farouk Ahmad

@phaarouknucleus

Expertise:
Ai, Clean energy, Environment

More about Umar Farouk

The GitHub avatar of

Giuseppe Profiti

Pronouns: he/him/his
@GProfiti

Biodec S.R.L

Expertise:
Teaching, Devops, Software development, Bioinformatics, Wiki*, Carpentries, Communities, Databases, Reproducible science

More about Giuseppe

The GitHub avatar of

Richard Dushime

Pronouns: He/Him
@RichardDushime

Expertise:
Community building, Open source, Open software developement
The GitHub avatar of

Sara Villa

Pronouns: she/her
@VillaScience

King'S College London

Expertise:
Molecular biology, Genomics, Sequencing, Project management

More about Sara

The GitHub avatar of

Seun Elijah Olufemi

@seunolufemi9

More about Seun Elijah

Experts sorted by their expertise areas

A dedicated slack channel will facilitate open discussions among experts and other participants in OLS-8 to help them expand their network while discussing relevant topics (contact the team if you are not yet on this channel).

Facilitators

Facilitators work closely with the OLS organisers to manage and run cohort calls. They lead efforts in preparing cohort call notes, co-hosting cohort calls and ensuring the sharing of call recordings and resources through OLS channelss

We thank the 15 persons who facilitated in this round.

The GitHub avatar of

Umar Farouk Ahmad

@phaarouknucleus

Expertise:
Ai, Clean energy, Environment

More about Umar Farouk

The GitHub avatar of

Deborah Udoh

Pronouns: She/her
@DeborahUdoh3

Role in OLS: Developer (contract)

Expertise:
Healthcare, Web development, Git, Github

More about Deborah

The GitHub avatar of

Seun Elijah Olufemi

@seunolufemi9

More about Seun Elijah

The GitHub avatar of

Emmanuel Adamolekun

Pronouns: He/His
@EAdamolekun

Helix Biogen Institute

Expertise:
Bioinformatics, Infectious diseases, Community engagement

More about Emmanuel

The GitHub avatar of

Gift Kenneth

Pronouns: She/Her
@gigi_kenneth

More about Gift

The GitHub avatar of

Pradeep Eranti

@pradeeperanti

Expertise:
Bioinformatics, Computational biology, Data science, Machine learning, Github, R, Reproducibility, Basic open science, Fair data principles, Open community development

More about Pradeep

The GitHub avatar of

Arielle Bennett

Pronouns: she/her
@biotechchat

The Alan Turing Institute

Expertise:
Road mapping and strategy planning, Community consultation, Culture change, Code of conducts, Community goals, Drug discovery, Computational biology, Neuroscience.

More about Arielle

The GitHub avatar of

Laura Ación

Pronouns: she/ella
@_lacion_

MetaDocencia

Expertise:
Ethics in artificial intelligence, Health data science, Responsible use of data, Latin america, Open education, Community building

More about Laura

The GitHub avatar of

David Kiragu Mwaura

Pronouns: he/him
@MwauraKiragu

Institute of Primate Research

The GitHub avatar of

Laurah Ondari

Pronouns: She/Her
@_nyasita

Bioinformatics Hub of Kenya initiative (BHKi)

Expertise:
Community development, Community management, Bioinformatics, Digital communications, Drug discovery, Neglected diseases, -omics analysis

More about Laurah

The GitHub avatar of

Nina Trubanová

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Ucd

Expertise:
Plants, Hemp, Genetics, Variability
The GitHub avatar of

Lessa Tchohou Fabrice

@FabriceLessa

Expertise:
"plant biotechnology";"bioinformatics", "agronomy"; "seed industries/seed technology"; "climate change"; "food security"; "sustainable urban farming"; "ngs data analysis".

More about Lessa Tchohou

The GitHub avatar of

Gladys Rotich

Pronouns: She/her
@jerono7_gladys

International Center For Insect Physiology And Ecology

Expertise:
Bioinformatics

More about Gladys

The GitHub avatar of

Michael Landi

Pronouns: He/Him
@CofiaLandy

Swedish University Of Agricultural Sciences

Expertise:
Bioinformatics, Genome assembly, Epigenetics

More about Michael

The GitHub avatar of

Jesica Formoso

Pronouns: she/her
@jesiformoso

Expertise:
Cognitive psychology; developmental psychology; data modeling, Visualization; r; python; open science; reproducibility

More about Jesica

Organizers

The GitHub avatar of

Bérénice Batut

Pronouns: she/her
@bebatut

University of Freiburg

Role in OLS: Director of Learning and Technology

Expertise:
Galaxy, Galaxy training, Citizen science, Bioinformatics, High-throughput sequencing, Metagenomics, Wordpress, Jekyll, GitHub/GitLab Pages, Designing and developing training material, Collaborating with Git & GitHub/GitLab, Git, GitHub, GitLab, Publishing web content

More about Bérénice

The GitHub avatar of

Emmy Tsang

Pronouns: she/her
@emmy_ft

Role in OLS: Director of Finance and Operations

Expertise:
Community strategies, Open research

More about Emmy

The GitHub avatar of

Malvika Sharan

Pronouns: she/her
@malvikasharan

The Alan Turing Institute

Role in OLS: Director of Partnerships and Strategy

Expertise:
Community building, Mentoring, Data Science best practices, Reproducibility, Inclusive and collaborative practices, Python, Version Control, Funding Proposals, Bioinformatics, Algorithm design

More about Malvika

The GitHub avatar of

Paz Bernaldo

Pronouns: she/her
@PazByC

Role in OLS: Community Researcher & Programme Coordinator (contract)

Expertise:
Qualitative research, Inequities, Inequalities in technology.

More about Paz

The GitHub avatar of

Yo Yehudi

Pronouns: they/them
@yoyehudi

Role in OLS: Executive Director, Business and Development Lead

Expertise:
Software development, Community building, Mentoring

More about Yo

Collaborators

This cohort is a joined effort between OLS and 3 international organisations and communities:

Resources

The resources available to the OLS-8 cohort members will facilitate their communication, training, mentoring and learning process during their participation in the program.

Calls

Cohort calls

The full cohort meetings take place every 2 weeks (unless mentioned otherwise) and last for 90 minutes.

During these calls:

  • Organisers/hosts will introduce new topic of the week
  • Speakers will present their work related to the topic of the week
  • Participants will be given group discussion exercises
  • An open Q&A will be run and notes will be co-developed
  • Exercises will be given for the week to be completed before the mentee-mentor meeting

The calls will be hosted online using the Zoom web-conferencing option. A link for the calls will be shared for each meeting separately.

Look up the shared notes for each call linked to the schedule in this website. You will also be updated via email each week by the organisers with additional details to aid your participation.

If you can’t make it to a call:

The call will be recorded and available on the OLS YouTube channel after the call.

If you can not attend most calls during the program due to the time zone incompatibility or other personal obligation, please let the organisers know. If you are unable to communicate with your mentor regularly or do not engage in the program as planned, we may need to evaluate if you are able to finish the program.

Mentor-mentee calls

The Mentor-mentee calls take place every 2 weeks (unless mentioned otherwise) and last for 30 minutes.

During these calls:

  • Mentors help their mentees evaluate their understanding of the new topics
  • Mentees will complete their task assigned at the cohort calls using new skills learned that week
  • Mentors and mentee will review progress together where mentees provide constructive feedback
  • Mentors will connect mentees with other experts and get consulted on their project when needed

Coordinate with your mentor how you manage the notes and assignments for your 1:1 calls.

The online communication options can be agreed upon by the mentor-mentee pairs. A few options to explore are the following:

  • Zoom: 40 mins limit for each call
  • Google hangout: Free for members with google account
  • Skype: Free, download the app
  • Whereby.com: Free option, valid upto 4 participants
  • Jitsi: Free, open source web-based call is possible
  • Whatsapp or other phone-based calls: Only if both mentor and mentee are comfortable with exchanging numbers

If a mentor has to miss a mentee-mentor meeting, please discuss it with your mentee and reschedule your call. If you are unable to make it to any slot together, please find other ways (asynchronous documentation) to interact with your mentee.

If a mentor has to step back from the program for any reason, please communicate with the organisers to identify an alternative for their mentees.

Skill-up calls

In some weeks during which there is not cohort call, we will offer some optional skill-up calls.

The calls will be hosted online using the Zoom web-conferencing option. A link for the calls will be shared for each meeting separately.

Look up the shared notes for each call linked to the schedule in this website. You will also be updated via email each week by the organisers with additional details to aid your participation.

Q&A calls

The Q&A sessions take place in weeks during which there is not cohort call. These calls are optional but highly valuable for enhancing your understanding of the materials discussed in OLS-4 with the help of other participants.

The calls will be hosted online using the Zoom web-conferencing option. A link for the calls will be shared for each meeting separately.

Mentor calls

4 mentor calls will take place during the program.

The calls will be hosted online using the Zoom web-conferencing option. A link for the calls will be shared for each meeting separately.

Speaker Guide

We have a short guide for invited speakers.

Communication channels

Communication within the cohort members

OLS-8 Slack Channel

A dedicated Slack channel has been setup to facilitate real-time as well as asynchronous communication among the all members of the OLS-8 cohort. A personal invitation link will be shared with the participants via an email.

OLS-8 private Google group

Organizers inform participants of the week schedule by email. An archive of all emails can be found on the private OLS-8 Google group.

An invitation is sent to all participants (mentees, mentors, etc) at the beginning of the program. If it is not the case, please contact the team

Communication with members not in the cohort

Twitter

General updates from the program such as new posts, collaborations and relevant retweets will be shared via our official Twitter channel.

Gitter

We have a public Gitter channel that can be used by members of the public contact the OLS team and community.

OLS Google group

Updates regarding new calls for applications, announcements, and final project presentations are posted on the OLS public Google group

Community Participation Guidelines

This project, as part of the Open Life Science community, is committed to providing a welcoming, friendly, and harassment-free environment for everyone to learn and grow by contributing. As a result, we require participants to follow our code of conduct, which may be found in the policies repository.