Empowering researchers with skills and tools in Open Science and Bioinformatics.
The project themed “Empowering researchers with skills and tools in Open Science and Bioinformatics”, is a series of events which include open science symposium, bioinformatics workshops, instructors training, hackathons for collaborative mini-projects, and a conference. The series of events aims to blend open science and Bioinformatics, to train researchers to conduct open, reproducible, and collaborative science. These will ultimately produce a pool of students, lecturers, and early career researchers, who can conduct and lead open bioinformatics research, as well as be change-makers in their communities.
Boss Events
1. Open science fair Symposium
The event aims to sensitize the participants on FAIR open data science practices such as project planning and organization, collaboration, licensing, and data sharing, among others, and expose them to the use of open science tools that facilitate these practices. See this page for more information.
2. Workshops
The aim of the workshops is to teach bioinformatics skills from beginner to advanced applications. They will first introduce beginners to basic bioinformatics skills such as basics to Unix, introduction to sequencing technologies, and more. This will be followed by intermediate training including tasks such as RNAseq analysis, variant calling, phylogeny, and more. Check out the GitHub pages here.
3. Train the Trainer
The instructor training program aims to train those interested in becoming trainers. They’ll be taken through best teaching practices and tools, and how to form communities.
4. Mini Projects
These will include projects that will allow our participants to practice the skills gained through the workshops and training. They get to put their creativity and knowledge to practice by reproducing works done by other researchers.
5. Conference
This will be the culmination of the events, with our participants getting to present their work to the members of the communities, participants of all the events, facilitators, and speakers. There will be talks from different speakers, researchers, and partners.
Science cafe
The science cafe is an activity we do biweekly where we have our members get to present their work. The aim is to promote collaboration and open science among our members and the bioinformatics community at large. Check out all our presentations so far. You can also send us an email or fill in this form to be added to a presenter list.
Talks
We invite speakers in bioinformatics, and other science fields to talk on different topics arising in the world of science. Our latest talk was by Peter Van Heusden on Contributions of Bioinformatics to COVID-19 research in Africa. Check it out.
Workshops
We hold workshops throughout the year on different topics that improve the skills of our members, such as coding, science presentations, scientific writing and more. Check out the latest BOSS Events workshop done in partnership with OpenScienceKE. Look out for more workshops alerts in the portal page.