Frequently Asked Questions

Tutorial Questions

How can I add my SIG meetings to the Galaxy Community Activities calendar?

Add the following guest to all of your Google Calendar meeting events: 8a762890fbe724e9d29b67915aa0197a352642f94b22ec64a85430daaf1abb5e@group.calendar.google.com

Then it will show up in the Galaxy Community Activities calendar!

How can I plan meetings across timezones?

  1. Go to a timezone website to see equivalent times across the globe.
  2. Select multiple times that capture at least 2/3 of the globe (we recommend three timezones)
  3. Alternate meetings across those timezones to enable global participation.
  4. Share your meeting time by going to this timezone website and inputting your timezone and meeting time. This will give you a URL you can link to any communications that will automatically convert that time to the local time of anyone opening the URL. You can also include your meeting notes link there for ease.

Time-saving tip: If you meet every 2 months, you can set up 3 recurring calendar events for each time chosen to recur every 6 months. It’s automatic, it’s inclusive, and it’s less effort!

Time zone map showing England, California, and eastern Australia timezones, with three circles around times that include 2 of the 3 timezones during working hours

How do I add a news feed to a Matrix channel?

  1. You must be an Admin in the channel. Find this out by going to the channel and selecting Room info –> People, or clicking on the little circle images of people in a channel. Admins can make other admins.

  2. Go to Room info –> Extensions –> Add extension –> Feeds

  3. Under Subscribe to a feed, add a URL from this GTN feeds listing. Make sure that it ends in .xml. For example, https://training.galaxyproject.org/training-material/topics/community/feed.xml would provide updates on any community-tagged GTN materials into the Matrix channel.

  4. Under Template, change the existing text to the following: $LINK: $SUMMARY

  5. Provide a reasonable name, and then hit Subscribe!

Details from Matrix are here: https://ems-docs.element.io/books/element-cloud-documentation/page/migrate-to-the-new-github-and-feeds-bots

How do I add my community to the Galaxy CoDex?

You need to create a new folder in the data/community folder within Galaxy Codex code source.

Hands-on: Create a folder for your community
  1. If not already done, fork the Galaxy Codex repository
  2. Go to the communities folder
  3. Click on Add file in the drop-down menu at the top
  4. Select Create a new file

  5. Fill in the Name of your file field with: name of your community + metadata/categories

    This will create a new folder for your community and add a categories file to this folder.

How do I find the Community Home pages?

The Community Home shows statistics for the topic (e.g. number of tutorials, slides, events, contributors, etc), as well as annual “Year in review” sections listing all new additions to the topic/community for each year.

You can find your Community Home by

  1. Opening the GTN Topic page of your choice
  2. Scrolling down to the Community Resources section (below the list of tutorials)

  3. Clicking the Community Home button

    screenshot of the community and maintainer homepage buttons

For example, have a look at the Single Cell Community Home

screenshot of the single cell community home page

How do I find the Maintainer Home pages?

The Maintainer Home pages shows the state of the topic and its materials in terms of which available GTN features are being used, adherence to best practices, and when tutorials have last been updated, and which tutorials are the most used, etc. This can help inform where to focus your efforts.

You can find your Maintainer Home by

  1. Opening the GTN Topic page of your choice
  2. Scrolling down to the Community Resources section (below the list of tutorials)

  3. Clicking the Maintainer Home button

    screenshot of the community and maintainer homepage buttons

For example, have a look at the Single Cell Maintainer Home

screenshot of the single cell maintainer home page

How do I join the Galaxy Community Board?

SIG representatives should join our:

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.

Galaxy Executive Board is in a rectangle over top of two rectangles, the Galaxy Technical Board and Galaxy Community Board, which are themselves over top of Working Groups and Special Interest Groups, respectively. A Project Management Office rectangle spans the image across the bottom

What's the Galaxy Community Board?

The Galaxy Community Board provides a supportive virtual forum for the exchange of ideas, and a governance body to represent Special Interest Groups (SIGs) in Galaxy.

The goals of the GCB are to:

  • share resources, tips & best practices to make running SIGs easier;
  • discuss scientist (user) feedback to help guide Galaxy platform development;
  • communicate scientist (user) needs to the Galaxy Governance structure; and
  • develop proposals to advance scientist (user) goals in the Galaxy community.


Still have questions?
Gitter Chat Support
Galaxy Help Forum