BOSC 2015

Overview

The Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC) is run as a two-day meeting before the annual ISMB conference. It is sponsored by the Open Bioinformatics Foundation (O|B|F), a non-profit group dedicated to promoting the practice and philosophy of Open Source software development and Open Science within the biological research community.

Open Source software has flourished in the bioinformatics community for well over a decade. When the first BOSC was held in 2000, there were already many popular open source bioinformatics packages, and the number and range of these projects has increased dramatically since then. BOSC covers the wide range of open source bioinformatics software being developed, and encompasses the growing movement of Open Science, with its focus on transparency, reproducibility, and data provenance. We welcome submissions relating to all aspects of bioinformatics and open science software, including new computational methods, reusable software components, visualization, interoperability, and other approaches that help to advance research in the biomolecular sciences. Two full days of talks, posters, panel discussions, and informal discussion groups will enable BOSC attendees to interact with other developers and share ideas and code, as well as learning about some of the latest developments in the field of open source bioinformatics.

Please spread the word about BOSC--all are welcome. On Twitter, follow @OBF_BOSC and use hash tag #bosc2015.

Registration

Because BOSC is run as a two-day Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting at the annual ISMB conference, registration is via ISMB/ECCB 2015. You can attend just BOSC, or register to attend the full ISMB/ECCB conference as well.

If you need a formal invitation letter for your Ireland VISA application, please contact the ISMB

Important Dates

• Registration opens for ISMB and BOSC: March 25, 2015
• Deadline for submitting abstracts for longer talks: Tuesday April 7, 2015 (there will be an opportunity later to submit abstracts for lightning talks and posters)
• Notification of accepted talks: May 3, 2015
• End of early registration discount: June 5, 2015
• Codefest 2015: July 8-9, 2015, Dublin
• BOSC 2015: July 10-11, 2015, Dublin
• ISMB/ECCB 2015: July 10-14, 2015, Dublin

Session Topics

We welcome submissions relating to all aspects of bioinformatics and open science software, including (but not limited to):

• Open Science and Reproducible Research -- covers the theory and practice of open science, including open notebook science, open data, transparent and reproducible workflows, and shared standards for reviewing and publishing research papers.
• Standards and Interoperability -- includes standards such as ontologies, formats, etc, as well as Open Source approaches to integrating the latest bioinformatics tools, exploring how we can increase tool connectivity and help communities work better together.
• Data Science -- encompasses software and approaches to managing, exploring, and analyzing large-scale data to address research questions, such as genome assembly, variant prediction, eQTL analysis, phylogenomics, and epigenetics.
• Visualization -- focuses on approaches for interactive as well as static visual representations of biomedical data, ranging from exploration to explanation.
• Translational Bioinformatics -- explores applications of biological and medical informatics to the development of personalized healthcare, therapies, and a better understanding of human health and disease. Topics include the analysis of large scale population and family sequencing data, bioinformatics methodologies for clinical research, and tools for discovering clinically useful associations in human databases.
• Bioinformatics Open Source Libraries and Projects -- features short talks from new or ongoing projects describing their recent progress. Abstracts will be solicited from open source projects affiliated with the O|B|F (see http://www.open-bio.org/wiki/Projects), including the Bio* projects, DAS, BioMOBY, EMBOSS, and GMOD, but any other open-source project will be equally eligible to submit abstracts for this session.
• Panel: Open Source, Open Door: increasing diversity in the bioinformatics open source community. Chair: Monica Munoz-Torres. Panelists: Holly Bik, Aleksandra Pawlik, Jason Williams.

Keynote Speakers

This year's keynote speakers will be Holly Bik (University of Birmingham) and Ewan Birney (EMBL-EBI).

More information about BOSC 2015 Keynote Speakers

Sponsors

BOSC is organised by the Open Bioinformatics Foundation, a non-profit, volunteer-run group dedicated to promoting the practice and philosophy of Open Source software development and Open Science within the biological research community.

We thank Curoverse (the team behind the open source platform Arvados) as returning sponsors for BOSC 2015.

If you would like to be a sponsor of BOSC 2015, please contact us at at bosc@open-bio.org.

Organizing Committee

Co-Chairs

• Peter Cock (Biopython developer; James Hutton Institute)
• Nomi L. Harris (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

Outreach Coordinator

• Sarah Hird (University of California, Davis)

Members

• Brad Chapman (Biopython developer; Harvard School of Public Health)
• Robert Davey (The Genome Analysis Centre)
• Christopher Fields (National Center for Supercomputing Applications)
• Karsten Hokamp (Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)
• Hilmar Lapp (National Evolutionary Synthesis Center)
• Monica Munoz-Torres (Berkeley Bioinformatics Open Source Projects)

Ex Officio (Members of the O|B|F Board)

• Chris Dagdigian

Review Committee

Nomi Harris, Brad Chapman, Peter Cock, Karsten Hokamp, Raoul Bonnal, Chris Fields, Karen Cranston, Jens Lichtenberg, Eric Talevich, Frank Nothaft, Michael Heuer, Monica Muñoz-Torres, Francesco Strozzi, Hans-Rudolf Hotz, Timothy Booth, Tiago Antao, George Githinji, Manuel Corpas, Thomas Down, Sarah Hird, Scott Markel, Rob Davey, Spencer Bliven, Michael Reich, Lorena Pantano, Björn Grüning, Hilmar Lapp, Daniel Blankenberg, Amye Kenall, Hervé Menager.

Survey about BOSC 2015 location

We have asked you, and you have spoken! 59 past and/or future BOSC attendees participated in our survey, answering questions about what they liked at BOSC 2014, what changes they’d like to see, and—most importantly—what they thought about the proposal to possibly hold BOSC 2015 in Norwich (UK) just after the Galaxy Community Conference, rather than as an ISMB SIG. Although some survey participants indicated that they would be more likely to attend BOSC 2015 if it were co-located with GCC, the majority prefer BOSC to remain an ISMB SIG, so we will hold BOSC 2015 in Dublin on 10-11 July, 2015, right before ISMB 2015.

Although the survey is now closed, we are always happy to hear your suggestions for BOSC 2015. (We are particularly interested in increasing diversity at BOSC, and we welcome suggestions of people to invite.) You can reach us at bosc@open-bio.org.

Previous BOSCs

• BOSC has been held yearly since 2000.
• BOSC 2014 took place in Boston, MA, July 11-12, 2014.
• Information about the first 14 BOSC conferences

Contact Us

• Follow BOSC on Twitter: @OBF_BOSC, #bosc2015
• If you'd like to join the mailing list for BOSC-related announcements, including the call for abstracts and deadline reminders, please subscribe to the bosc-announce list. This list has low traffic, and your address will be kept private.
• If you have questions about the conference, or would like to volunteer to help out, please contact the organizers at bosc@open-bio.org.

ISMB Code of Conduct

In March 2015, ISMB published a Code of Conduct that applies to SIGs (including BOSC) as well as the main ISMB/ECCB meeting.