Hackathon on image analysis training material reusability

Among the three major components of imaging based research – laboratory experiment, microscopy and image analysis – nearly 60% of life science researchers acknowledged that “Image Analysis is the most difficult”.

Training researchers on image data analysis is crucial to ensure that they can get the most out of the data that they generate. Several initiatives are active in developing training solutions in image data management and analysis : Neubias (www.neubias.org), EuroBioimaging (www.eurobioimaging.eu), Global Bio Imaging (www.eurobioimaging.eu/content-page/global-bioimaging-project ) and Elixir (www.elixir-europe.org ) .

Together we have organized a hackathon to bring together training providers from the imaging community and contributors to the ELIXIR Training Platform. The purpose was  to create a curated collection of training materials on data management and analysis and facilitate their Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Re-usability.

Precisely, this work in progress consists in representing training material in BISE and to link it with tagged sofwtare tools, in a interoperable way with TeSS.  For this we need to agree on the minimum metadata needed to describe a training material, and to test it during this hackaton against existing training material. In addition, we wanted to work on guidelines for the portability of hands-on training.

During this hackaton we have been working on

– embedding training material in Docker, with a Jupiter notebook for example

– working on the BISE (biii.eu) core ontology to include training material and align it with Bioschemas, to be interoperable with TESS.

Dates: 14-15 May 2018

Location: University of Cambridge, UK