In Galaxy, the term Special Interest Group (SIG) refers to a dedicated scientific community that crosses individual lab boundaries and wants to collaborate, share resources, support each other, and/or collectively advocate on a given theme. We have SIGs based on region, domain of science, and more. You might consider that a SIG covers any group of like-minded Galaxy enthusiasts not currently combined into a Working Group.

Agenda

In this tutorial, we will cover:

1. Characteristics of SIGs
2. Purpose of a SIG
   1. Prevent work duplication
   2. Highlight new resources
   3. Peer review
   4. Build community
   5. Many hands make light work
3. How do Working Groups & Special Interest Groups differ?
4. Representation in Galaxy Governance
5. How to join a SIG
6. Conclusion

You can find a directory of current SIGs below.

Characteristics of SIGs

SIGs vary hugely. Some SIGs meet and collaborate frequently, while others use their SIG to simply provide a key contact individual to represent their group in the Galaxy community. The following list, therefore, does not necessary apply to every SIG, but can give you a general idea of what SIGs can get up to.

SIGs can be:

• Focused on user community development
• Self-regulated, which includes organising meetings, developing training material and tools, maintaining the Hub and training pages, and choosing a representative for the Galaxy Community Board
• Long-term or transient
• Supported with administrative infrastructure provided by the Galaxy Project and the GCB, including:
  • mailing list
  • website infrastructure and a place on the Galaxy hub to present the Community
  • presentation slot at the annual GCC conference
  • Chat channel/room
• Set up to gather input from members
• Represented in the Galaxy Community Board which articulates needs to the Galaxy community to influence the next innovations (known to software developers as a Roadmap process: the selection of priorities for the coming years)

Purpose of a SIG

Taking into account the wide variety of SIGs, the following are often priorities for SIGs.

Prevent work duplication

It’s surprisingly easy for individuals halfway across the world to need the same tool and build the same tool. What a waste of time when there are so many cool things to do!

Highlight new resources

If you’re working in the same research area, for instance, it can be exciting when someone builds something new that could help your research. With so many things getting added daily, it’s easy to miss this news. SIGs can point out such highlights and give you new ideas for your research or work.

Peer review

Need someone to look at an issue? Want some feedback on a tutorial or tool? Your fellow SIG members are a lot more likely to help you if you help them, and, more importantly, if they know who you are. Cut through the 1.8k of issues on Github by making some work friends in your field.

Build community

The bigger the community you have, the more power in developing further resources (or grant proposals!), finding collaborators, co-authoring papers, etc. Higher user counts give you more sway in decision-making and building up Galaxy further, advancing your own work. It’s a lot easier to say you need something and 100 users agree, than to ask on behalf of yourself alone.

Many hands make light work

Users want tools, workflows, training, and events. When delivering training (like Smorgasbord global training events) or projects, explaining who you are to a grant board, or recruiting individuals to your SIG, it’s rather important that the website you point to, quite frankly, looks nice. Building tools, preparing training material, delivering events, and updating web pages takes time. If you can share these tasks amongst a SIG, you ensure sustainability and increase impact.

How do Working Groups & Special Interest Groups differ?

Working Groups (WGs) are distinct from SIGs.

WGs are:

• Focused on technical issues
• Managing important project infrastructure assets, including source code, for the long term
• Represented in the Galaxy Technical Board, which contributes to the roadmap (prioritisation of innovation goals in Galaxy) by providing technical input and requesting resources for technical and development activities

You can find a directory of current WGs below.

Representation in Galaxy Governance

SIGs send (at least one) representative to the Galaxy Community Board (GCB), which meets throughout the year to share useful tips and practices, as well as collects ideas for promoting via the Galaxy Governance structure to enact global change across numerous groups of individuals. Global software development is tricky, and effective communication and representation is key for making things happen to benefit our SIGs.

Details: What is the Galaxy Governance Structure?

Galaxy Governance consists of a Galaxy Executive Board that provides global direction, working with a Galaxy Technical Board that represents Working Groups and a Galaxy Community Board that represents Special Interest Groups.

How to join a SIG

You can find out how to join any given SIG by going to their SIG page, which you can peruse from the SIG directory.

Comment

Being part of a SIG is awesome! You find people from different institutes, disciplines or regions who are all excited about the same thing. It’s one of the best bits of the Galaxy Community more broadly - it’s a welcoming and energetic bunch!

If you do not find a SIG that represents your interest, you may want to make one!

Conclusion

congratulations Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end! Hopefully you think SIGs are brilliant and maybe you have joined one, or want to start one!

You've Finished the Tutorial

Please also consider filling out the Feedback Form as well!

Key points

• Special Interest Groups are groups of like-minded Galaxy enthusiasts that enable global collaboration

• There are many existing Special Interest Groups within Galaxy that welcome new members

• If you are interacting with the Galaxy community and want to find like-minded individuals, you might want to make a Special Interest Group

Frequently Asked Questions

Glossary

CoP

Community of Practice

GCB

Galaxy Community Board

GEB

Galaxy Executive Board

GTB

Galaxy Technical Board

SIG

Special Interest Group

WG

Working Groups

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Citing this Tutorial

1. Wendi Bacon, What's a Special Interest Group? (Galaxy Training Materials). https://training.galaxyproject.org/training-material/topics/community/tutorials/sig_define/tutorial.html Online; accessed TODAY
2. Hiltemann, Saskia, Rasche, Helena et al., 2023 Galaxy Training: A Powerful Framework for Teaching! PLOS Computational Biology 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010752
3. Batut et al., 2018 Community-Driven Data Analysis Training for Biology Cell Systems 10.1016/j.cels.2018.05.012

BibTeX

@misc{community-sig_define,
author = "Wendi Bacon",
	title = "What's a Special Interest Group? (Galaxy Training Materials)",
	year = "",
	month = "",
	day = "",
	url = "\url{https://training.galaxyproject.org/training-material/topics/community/tutorials/sig_define/tutorial.html}",
	note = "[Online; accessed TODAY]"
}
@article{Hiltemann_2023,
	doi = {10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010752},
	url = {https://doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1010752},
	year = 2023,
	month = {jan},
	publisher = {Public Library of Science ({PLoS})},
	volume = {19},
	number = {1},
	pages = {e1010752},
	author = {Saskia Hiltemann and Helena Rasche and Simon Gladman and Hans-Rudolf Hotz and Delphine Larivi{\`{e}}re and Daniel Blankenberg and Pratik D. Jagtap and Thomas Wollmann and Anthony Bretaudeau and Nadia Gou{\'{e}} and Timothy J. Griffin and Coline Royaux and Yvan Le Bras and Subina Mehta and Anna Syme and Frederik Coppens and Bert Droesbeke and Nicola Soranzo and Wendi Bacon and Fotis Psomopoulos and Crist{\'{o}}bal Gallardo-Alba and John Davis and Melanie Christine Föll and Matthias Fahrner and Maria A. Doyle and Beatriz Serrano-Solano and Anne Claire Fouilloux and Peter van Heusden and Wolfgang Maier and Dave Clements and Florian Heyl and Björn Grüning and B{\'{e}}r{\'{e}}nice Batut and},
	editor = {Francis Ouellette},
	title = {Galaxy Training: A powerful framework for teaching!},
	journal = {PLoS Comput Biol}
}

                   

Go Further

Do you want to extend your knowledge? Follow one of our recommended follow-up trainings:

• tutorial Hands-on: Creating a Special Interest Group

Galaxy Administrators: Install the missing tools

You can use Ephemeris's shed-tools install command to install the tools used in this tutorial.

shed-tools install [-g GALAXY] [-a API_KEY] -t <(curl https://training.galaxyproject.org/training-material/api/topics/community/tutorials/sig_define/tutorial.json | jq .admin_install_yaml -r)

Alternatively you can copy and paste the following YAML

---
install_tool_dependencies: true
install_repository_dependencies: true
install_resolver_dependencies: true
tools: []

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