Project grants/Genetics data edit-a-thon

Basic information

Project details

Full project name

Genetics data edit-a-thon

Project start date (include month, day, and year)

29th of May 2014 (Initially 24 May 2014)

Project completion date (include month, day, and year)

30th of May 2014 (Initially 25 May 2014)

Please describe the project in 1–2 sentences

In May we intend to launch the first of an annual series of genetics edit-a-thons. The aim for this project is for participants to edit, record and link together all the new knowledge surrounding genetics and data.

Amount requested

£300

Project lead details

Are you an individual or an organisation?

Organisation

Are you currently a member of Wikimedia UK?

Yes

Project lead name

Suraj Rai

Project lead username or email

s.rai@dnadigest.org

Project lead title (position), if any

Operations Manager

Project description

Please describe what the project will entail, in as much detail as you feel appropriate.

DNAdigest is organising a wiki edit-a-thon on May 29th (Initially 24th of May). At the Wayra Office space in London Euston wc1e6ja. The aim of this project is to make it easier for anyone to find the right resources, online tools for genetics data sharing when searching wikipedia for help.

We want to make wiki enriched with new content and links across its wide encyclopaedia. This would cover everything from “data sharing”, “research data”, “data formats”, “genetic data governance” to queries related to: “How should I manage my data locally and how can I make it available for other researchers?” “Where can I store my data in a public repository? What data goes in which repository?” “How can I find data that I may access and use for my research?”

We want to increase the wiki knowledge base on new practices for genetic data sharing and link out to relevent resources, tutorials, databases, data format standards and organisations.

Who are we inviting? We are inviting a broad range of people to participate including biologists, geneticists, data analysts, scientists, bioinformaticians and the general public who have an interest in this topic. The knowledge of our community has been exemplified with the extensive references and documentation already gathered during our previous hack days. By inviting a wide range of participants we encourage collaboartion, discission and other benefits from this multitude of experiences and perspectives.

Why are we the right people to run this project? We have a long running experience in building hackdays, organising logistics and bringing people together to collaborate. We are motivated because easier access to knowledge will contribute to advancements in research for treatments and cures for genetic diseases.

How will we avoid conflicts of interest? Whilst we will be hosting the event we will not have any influence on how these posts are written. Instead we will follow guidance from Wikipedia's rules/methods. Overall by inviting a wide variety of members we hope to crowdsource knowledge. Of course for participants less well versed in the field we will have starting points but the overall aim is to remain as hosts and allow the wide participants to contribute.

Keywords: #OpenScience #OpenData #EMR #ReproducibleResults #HackDay #rarediseases #cancer #research #genetics #genomics #bioinformatics #BigData #Security

Goals and measures of success

Project goal

Please briefly describe what will be accomplished if the project is successful.

Project goal

The goal of the project is to have all the current existing tools, respositories and formats uploaded onto wikipedia. With links and descriptive text that is crowdsourced through our physical and online participants.

Measures of success

Please provide a list of measurable criteria that will be used to determine how successful the project is. You will need to report on the success of the project according to these measures after the project is completed.

Measures of success

We will consider this event a success on three fronts in the short term by participants, edits made and in the long term by use of the pages. In participants we will utilise a feedback form to gage how they felt about the event. We will measure the edits made in terms of quality and number allow for us to track our contribution to wikipedia. The long term measurement will be us measuring the use of the pages by bookmarking and watching updates to see its success in disseminating knowledge.

Budget and resources

Project budget breakdown

£250 = covering sandwiches, fruits, teas and coffees for 50 people.

£50 = printing, pens and further physical materials for 50 people.

Non-financial assistance requested

Any links to wiki editing resources to print for our attendees.

Impact and benefits

How will this project support Wikimedia UK's charitable objects and its vision, values and mission?

This project supports multiple values from accessibility and quality by allowing for new knowledge to be contributed to the wiki, transparency by allowing for the public + knowledgeable individuals to contribute knowledge in forum without influence, to community because this is the first of many events we hope to run this will build a community to future wiki editors.

G1.1 The quantity of Open Knowledge continues to increase G1.2 The quality of Open Knowledge continues to improve G2a.1 We have a thriving community of WMUK volunteers.

Discussion

Hi Suraj, thank you for your application. The members of the Grants Committee will get back to you soon with any comments they may have. -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 15:51, 28 April 2014 (BST)

This sounds good and looks like reasonable cost, I also see the timescale is short so I hope we can respond quickly. It would, though, be good to have some clarification re: whether the proposal is to add new articles (or other content) or if it's to strengthen ties between articles (improving their quality), etc. and if you have a set of target articles in advance. Cheers Sjgknight (talk) 16:51, 28 April 2014 (BST)

Thank you for the opportunity. We've had to reschedule the day to the 29th of May to avoid clashes. Initially we had wanted to do everything in a long day of editing. However because it's now an evening day starting from 4:30 finishing most likely at 10. The key aspects we'll be focusing on is adding content of new tools, references and also creating stronger links between existing articles. I hope this is clear

• This sounds like exactly the sort of thing WMUK should support, and as Simon says, it's only a relatively small amount of money. If you need some experienced Wikipedinas to help with the event, I'd more than happy to help. Harry Mitchell (talk) 20:10, 28 April 2014 (BST)

Hi Harry yes we'd love to invite and host yourself we'll be having the event in our offices in Wayra. We'll be making sure to publicise this very well.

• £5 per person for the food and drink is perfectly reasonable. Same with £1 per person on pens and other materials. This is clearly within the mission of the charity, so I see no reason not to give this our approval. CT Cooper · talk 03:26, 30 April 2014 (BST)

Thank you very much, we have had to move the event a few days later on the 29th but we hope to make it well worth Wiki's grant

I'm a bit concerned the now rather soon date has been changed a couple of times. Also that's a very long evening session now - who'll be coming along? It'd be good to know if you've had experience of organising an edit-a-thon previously, and/or if you'd like support? None of this is a show-stopper I don't think, but just good to share how things have been thought through. Sjgknight (talk) 13:11, 6 May 2014 (BST)

Approval

Suraj, this application has now been approved. As Sjgknight noted, do let us know if you would like any support towards organising the event or help on the day. Regards -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 10:45, 8 May 2014 (BST)

The event

The event took place on 29 May; details can be found here. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 11:52, 2 June 2015 (BST)