Hello everyone! My name is Elizabeth Hutchins and together with Hirotaka Iwaki [@hirotaka] I am co-leading the newly formed Data Modality & Methodology Documentation Task Force. We would like to introduce you to our task force and extend an invitation to any community members who might be interested in joining.
We are researchers dedicated to reproducible and collaborative data analysis methods. Last year, we worked on a Getting Started with Parkinson’s Disease Data guide. We want to go even further and give specific examples of code that the community can build upon for analyzing Parkinson’s Disease data.
The goal of this task force is to document standard data analysis methods and practices across multiple data modalities, with the aim of fostering reproducible and collaborative data analysis by creating and sharing resources that can be used by the wider research community. We will provide specific examples in the first year, and see the future of this effort as something that can be expanded upon year after year as the community grows. We also envision this task force as one that will complement the goals of the other task forces, for example, providing guidance for mentees in the mentorship and training initiatives.
Specific topics will be selected based on members’ expertise. Development of GitHub repositories will be the main focus. We will use GitHub, and other languages such as python and/or R depending on user preference. Potential projects include:
- GitHub repository: template for standard data analysis projects
- GitHub repository: [Cohort] + [data type], basic stats, QC, analysis
- Combined analysis across multiple modalities
- “Getting started” example
By joining this task force, members will have the opportunity to provide input to task force goals and outputs, contribute to the creation of a resource that would help other researchers in the community, and get credit for their contributions. We will have monthly meetings or progress check-ins to monitor progress. Our ideal timeline looks like:
- August: kick-off meeting, goal sharing, proposal suggestions
- September: proposal presentations, project assignments, team forming
- October: lecture on good coding practice and/or getting started with GitHub/support
- Nov, Jan, Feb - progress check-ins
- March, April - wrapping up
- May - present to other DCIs
If you are interested, please respond to this post and/or reach out to me or @hirotaka. Please also let us know if you have any questions in the below thread. We will send out the polls next week for the kick-off meeting.
We look forward to your participation and support!
