[Go] Fwd: Calling all Curators

[Mike Cherry]

Below are two messages for Scientific Curators that do manual  
curation.  The first call is this Thursday at 9AM pacific time.

-Mike


Begin forwarded message:

> From: Mike Cherry <cherry at stanford.edu>
> Date: March 17, 2008 9:57:09 AM PDT
> To: GO Annotation list <annotation at genome.stanford.edu>
> Subject: First Curator Call
>
> In light of spring/easter vacations I'd like to hold our first  
> teleconference this Thursday (March 20) noon-1PM Eastern (9-10A  
> Pacific & 4-5P UK).  I know everyone cannot make that time.
>
> It seems that Tuesday from noon-1P might be generally a good time  
> for the future.
>
> Anyway, this first call will be more organizational in nature than  
> future calls.  Please call into the following numbers with the  
> listed access code.
>
> US:  1-866-365-4406
> access number: 7237541
>
> UK: 08004960580
> access number: 7237541
>
> I look forward to our discussions.
>
> -Mike
>



Begin forwarded message:

> From: Mike Cherry <cherry at stanford.edu>
> Date: March 14, 2008 8:00:04 AM PDT
> To: annotation at geneontology.org
> Cc: refgenome at geneontology.org
> Subject: Calling all Curators
>
> This is to all scientific curators at all model organism databases  
> (MOD). I would like to begin a monthly teleconference, which could  
> also include a video conference later this year. There are several  
> forms of interaction between individual curators and between MODs  
> already however a regular frequent forum is needed to continue  
> making progress.  In particular, we need to continually work to  
> reduce variability between the annotations created by different  
> MODs, and by different curators.   This is NOT for just the GOC and  
> those that normally are involved in GOC conferences.  This is for  
> all MOD curators.  The MODs are become closer in their procedures as  
> a result of the discussions occurring as part of the GOC.  However,  
> there is a lot more than can be done to unify all curators at all  
> the MODs.  Thus this call will not be a GOC call on picking the best  
> GO term -- that may happen a little but the intent is to include  
> broader curation activities.
>
> While this meeting will be started by the Gene Ontology Consortium I  
> want this to grow to all scientific curators that create manual  
> annotations.  This conference call is not about making software that  
> does annotation, but would include discussions of software to assist  
> curators.  This is not a conference discussion of software  
> practices, there are enough venues for these discussions.
>
> The video part will be a future addition as I feel that these  
> meetings will be more productive if we can see each other, we are  
> discussing the human activity of curation and a discussion works  
> better face to face.   I am very interested in having a video  
> component as I believe this will help the meetings provide an even  
> better connection.  We will be able to use WebEx to share slides and  
> web screens.  This monthly conference will start as a conference  
> call and with time we can work out the technical details for the  
> video and/or Skype. As you'll see below we could have greater than  
> 50 people on these calls.
>
> The biggest issue is scheduling. I would like to propose that two  
> regular times are schedule switch monthly between the two times.   
> Its obvious that it is difficult to get California and the UK on a  
> call at the same time during normal business hours.  Requiring  
> folks, at least initially, to call in from home is a big negative.   
> Thus I have created a doodle pool.  Please ignore the dates, rather  
> use this as just days of the week.  All times in the poll should be  
> stated as Eastern time.  The result of this pool is to identify two  
> different times that would work for the most people.  This assumes  
> that most will only connect once every two months.
>
>   http://www.doodle.ch/eambfifz3ip5v2sv
>
> While a core number of the participants will be from the GOC. I want  
> the group include a diverse number of curators. Other topics like  
> sequence annotation both DNA and protein, phenotype annotation, and  
> of course general topics appropriate for any curation group for  
> example how do you prioritize the literature and how do we work with  
> journals in a more productive manner.
>
> The intension is for ALL MOD curators to be involved, not just the  
> one or two people that currently represent a group at the GOC.  I  
> feel it will be a failure if this is just for the usual crowd. If  
> this can get a diverse group interacting then perhaps we will need  
> to have additional regular calls. The goal is to foster interactions  
> between the community of curators that exist around the world. GO  
> already has mechanisms for communication that work, but could always  
> be better. There are many others that are not connected either  
> because they don't belong to the GO club (some people feel this way)  
> or they personally don't connect with GO because their project  
> already has others participating in the GOC.  We already have a  
> start on a broader group.  The Annotation email list has 106  
> addresses, something about 45 are addresses of people that have  
> attended a GOC meeting.  That leaves 61 addresses that are either  
> not connected to GOC or are other curators at GOC projects but have  
> not attended one of the Consortium meetings.
>
> After each teleconf there will be a brief summary sent out (not sure  
> which lists to include yet) and that email may get even more people  
> interacting and interested in the next call.
>
> Because scientific curators are professional staff members we need  
> to raise the requirement for interactions with the goal of being  
> more efficient, have less variability between the annotations, and  
> to have more understanding of what others do.  Interacting with  
> other groups to promote an exchange of information will result in  
> more effective operations and more standardized results. This goes  
> beyond GOC and the MODs as the curation profession needs to work  
> together and decrease the amount of isolation that I believe exists.  
> I certainly do not believe that this is done on purpose but rather  
> the interaction has not been made simpler.  For sure there are lots  
> of interactions already, but I believe there could be many more. The  
> GOC is a great example of how things change when people talk to each  
> other.  The hope is that curators from projects funded by NIH, NSF,  
> USDA, DOE, BBSRC, EBI,  ... and industry will come together at least  
> every two months.  Curators already, by definition, have a lot of  
> interaction with the communities they server. We need to add a  
> reward system where they are also judged by the amount of  
> interaction with other curators. Some already do a lot of this, many  
> don't do as much as they should -- we can help this happen.  I'm  
> thinking of contacting the PIs of the MODs and strongly encourage  
> their staff to participate.
>
> Please fill out the doodle poll (URL above).  I propose that the annotation at geneontology.org 
>  list can be used for this new interaction.  That list already has  
> many curators subscribed plus it is not a very heavily used list at  
> the moment.  After a week or two I'll get back to you with the time  
> of our first conference.
>
> -Mike
>

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