Local impact through international engagement with ELIXIR
Collaborative activities between Australian BioCommons and ELIXIR have expanded rapidly since the signing of the three year ELIXIR - Australian BioCommons Collaboration Strategy in 2020 to leverage the international synergies between the two research infrastructures. The interactions so far have been productive, friendly and insightful, and span an impressive breadth and depth of topics.
An active diary of BioCommons’ engagements with ELIXIR tracks progress and enhances connections between activities. BioCommons is now participating in a raft of international ELIXIR activities through our national network of partners, involving team members from Bioplatforms Australia, Pawsey, NCI, QCIF, SIH at the University of Sydney and Melbourne Bioinformatics at the University of Melbourne.
Collaboration takes place across a range of ELIXIR Platforms and Australian representation in ELIXIR Communities helps to develop standards, services and training within specific life science domains in both Europe and in Australia. From recurring fortnightly meetings of large communities, to spontaneous targeted discussions to exchange practical updates between individuals, the mode of interactions are as diverse as the topics. Here we cover just a few examples.
Tools Platform and WorkflowHub Community
The ELIXIR Tool Platform helps researchers find and use computational tools by ensuring that they are properly described, packaged, benchmarked and included in an online registry with links to appropriate documentation and training. Connected to the work of the Tools Platform is WorkflowHub: a registry for scientific computational workflows. Like bio.tools, WorkflowHub promotes FAIR sharing.
BioCommons is taking a leading role in these activities by integrating with the Tools Platform, establishing solutions to streamline deployment of tools and workflows, and assessing approaches for benchmarking. BioCommons now also offers ToolFinder and WorkflowFinder which integrates directly with bio.tools and WorkflowHub respectively. The community can access these services to discover what bioinformatics tools are available on Australian infrastructures, along with the workflows that have been designed by the BioCommons & its partners and tested on these same infrastructures.
Sustainability of services underpins these activities as highlighted by a lively, BioCommons-ELIXIR jointly-convened Knowledge-sharing workshop on the design and operation of national- and international-scale bioinformatics services at this year’s ELIXIR All Hands meeting.
Training
Training is a core element of enabling scientists to use tools and services to achieve their best research. The BioCommons Training Team and the ELIXIR Training Platform have much shared experience in this area. Meeting regularly to swap ideas and identify common training needs, we collaborate to bring training opportunities to Australian and European audiences (time zones permitting!). ELIXIR Training Platform members are represented on the BioCommons Training Advisory Group, and BioCommons also participates in the development of methods and best practice for sharing (FAIR) training materials. Our close connections have recently supported the creation of a new national registry of training events, materials and trainers for the Australian eResearch community, DReSA which is in turn feeding back into the development of ELIXIR’s TeSS Training Portal.
Galaxy
Galaxy is an international, community driven effort to make it easier for biologists to analyse their data without the need for programming skills. There are long established ties and connections between the Galaxy EU, US and AU communities who constantly improve the Galaxy platform by developing and sharing new tools, workflows and training.
Over the past two years the global Galaxy community has worked together to develop and deliver truly international and interactive training events. The GTN Smörgåsbord: a global Galaxy course and SARS-CoV-2 Data Analysis and Monitoring workshop have simultaneously trained thousands of researchers across the world and exemplify the collaborative nature of the Galaxy community.
BioCommons team members attend the regular ELIXIR Galaxy community meetings, sit on the Galaxy Executive Board and other governing committees as well as maintain the very popular Galaxy Australia service.
Whether through technical deep dives and the sharing of expertise, or providing alternate use cases and unique perspectives, the ability to connect directly with ELIXIR members is levelling up BioCommons’ impact and is having a positive influence on the direction and outcomes of many ELIXIR projects. If you would like to meet some of our ELIXIR peers who are actively involved in BioCommons collaborations, please join us for their presentations at the BioCommons Showcase 2021.
