Talk for Westmead Millennium Institute Bioinformatics SIG June 4 2015. In April 2000 I was shown a desktop folder full of ABI sequence chromatograms from a microbial genome, told to do some bioinformatics and left to get on with it. I turned to the Web for help, where I discovered my first online support network - the Bioperl mailing list. In the 15 years since, I've worked on a variety of bioinformatics-based projects with 3 different organisations. In that time I've witnessed several shifts in the types of online communication tools used by the bioinformatics community: from mailing lists, through blogs to Twitter. In this talk I'd like to examine how online networks have helped me do bioinformatics over the years, how they've changed and developed and to what extent they provide a sense of community for the "lone bioinformatician".

1. How online networks (mostly) kept a lone
bioinformatician from going insane
Neil Saunders
DIGITAL PRODUCTIVITY
www.csiro.au

2. Social Networking: Slide 2 of 29
obligatory advertising slide
Transformational Bioinformatics Team
Australian eHealth Research Centre, CSIRO
http://aehrc.com/research/biomedical-imaging
Goal: develop advanced computational and statistical methodologies and apply them to large
datasets in the health/life sciences space
Bill Wilson Denis Bauer Firoz Anwar James Doecke Neil Saunders Sam Burnham Aidan O’Brien
Type Detail Value People
Software NGSANE: Lightweight Production Informatics Framework for High Throughput
Data Analysis
Collaborators: MQ, Garvan, ANU Denis
Contract Colo Vantage modeling CRC interventions
Janssen (J&J Pharma)
$100,000
$125,000/yr for 2 years
Rob
Sam
Publication A blood based predictor for neocortical Aβ burden in Alzheimer's disease: results
from the Australian Imaging, Biomarkers and lifestyle study of ageing
Burnham et al. Molecular Psychiatry.
IF=15
Sam, James, Bill
Grant MND Research Institute $100,000 Denis, Bill

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a quick introduction to me
for the purpose of this talk

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back in the year 2000
sequencing microbial genomes
one Windows machine, several thousand chromatograms

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online support back then came in one form
the mailing list

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what I learned from mailing lists
“community norms” :-)
Neil,
I’ve never written a “RTFM” post in my life...

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the mailing list is not (quite) dead

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experiments in more “personal” community
the Nodalpoint portal

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what we learned from Nodalpoint
if you build it, they might come

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the rise of the bioinformatics blog
2004 - 2008

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blogs as community
bio::blogs

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what we learned from blogs
want to express an opinion? be prepared to engage
https://xkcd.com/386/

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structural bioinformatics Brisbane 2006 - 2009
predicting protein-protein interactions (Predikin)
something else happened in 2006 (more on that later)

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an unlikely science community
the life scientists group at FriendFeed

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rewards & recognition via online networks

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why was FriendFeed important?
because it was not one of these - “facebook for scientists” a.k.a. fb4sci
social networks for scientists
N. Saunders (SMMS, UQ) Science networks November 26, 2008 8 / 29

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health “omics” CSIRO 2009 - present
this is very much the age of Twitter
but what can you do with a real-time stream of 140-character
messages?

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post links to interesting articles
possibly your own

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provide status updates
services, software

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advertise jobs
also meetings, events

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advertise your other online content

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ask/answer questions

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discuss topical issues

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and so back to forums...
forums have evolved and are still valuable

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thoughts on online community 1/n
four ages of online interaction (at least since c. 2000)
the age of forums/mailing lists and portals
the age of blogs
the age of “facebook for scientists”
the age of Twitter

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thoughts on online community 2/n
online communities
No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work
for someone else
- Bill Joy
It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.
- Clay Shirky
clearly they are A Good Thing
they’ve provided me with advice, support and comfort for 15+ years

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thoughts on online community 3/n
don’t be a lone bioinformatician
https://biomickwatson.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/a-guide-for-the-lonely-bioinformatician/

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thoughts on online community 4/n
local versus online
is online community “enough community”?
what about local communities?
what about bioinformatics in Sydney?

29. DIGITAL PRODUCTIVITY
www.csiro.au
CSIRO Digital Productivity
Neil Saunders
t
e
w website