Emergent Session (looking for collaborators): Challenges for small collaborative software projects

[handwerkerd]

By Daniel Handwerker, Section on Functional Imaging Methods, NIMH
Recording and streaming volunteer : ?

Emergent sessions

(Depends who might be interested in joining and when they're available)

Short description and the goals for the session

This is currently a sketch of idea for an emergent session that I haven't quite seen at OSR before. For the past several years, I've participated in emergent sessions that focused on multi-echo fMRI and http://tedana.readthedocs.io One factor that has repeatedly come up in those sessions is the semi-unique challenges of running an open neuroimaging software project with a small number of part-time contributors. If others express interest in participating, we can edit this to be an actual announcement for a emergent session.

This session would be a panel representing 4-5 neuroimaging software projects that include <<10 active contributors at any given time. Ideally these are projects that are not anyone's primarily work time responsibility. The panel would discuss successes and challenges regarding the following topics:

• Getting started: What did it take to get a new small project off the ground? Was it the work of one person or did it start with a group deciding they'd collaborate on an unmet need?
• Governance and management: Creating a system that does not require too much overhead for a small project, but supports stable decision making and leadership transitions.
• Changes in contributors: Many small projects start as the work of grad students or postdocs who sometimes go onto other things. What coding and community development practices are used to keep code coherent and welcome new contributors?
• Making progress: How to make progress if a project is no one's primary job responsibility
• Specialization: Neuroimaging software exists because it requires specialized knowledge or methods that aren't in off-the-shelf tools. How do teams support contributions from with with different areas of specialized knowledge (including coding skills)?

Tagging @handwerkerd @tsalo @emdupre @dowdlelt @eurunuela @n-reddy @smoia (Please tag others in comments who might be interested in participating)

[dowdlelt]

I lack any experience with OSR - of course, you mentioned what it was at the last meeting, but thats the extent of my knowledge. I'm not sure about scheduling and such, but if necessary I could have opinions on these things. To be honest, I'm just not really sure what this would all look like, or how it would go.

[smoia]

I'm happy to join too (with loads of opinions on this), but maybe having a speaker from a community that became bigger could help as well!

[smoia]

Tagging @DominiqueMakowski - maybe you're interested to bring your experience with Neurokit?

[DominiqueMakowski]

Happy to take part in the convo

[handwerkerd]

@smoia and @DominiqueMakowski I'll email you so that we can coordinate directly. If we're going to officially propose this, I'd still like one or two more people. I know one issue we've thought about with tedana is how to be welcoming to people with skills to contribute who don't see themselves as programmers or have felt unwelcomed in other coding projects. There are special challenges with this in small projects. I have my own thoughts and experiences, but would welcome people reading this who can help add more from that perspective.

[n-reddy]

I'd be happy to participate too, if my experience would be helpful. I think I'd mainly be able to contribute my perspective as someone who is still quite new to coding projects like tedana and am building my skills. If that would be useful for this session, please let me know!

[slugtmeijer]

Hi, this is Selma, chair of the Open Science Room during OHBM 2023 in Montreal. Thank you for submitting this idea. We think it's a great initiative and would like to create space for this in the Open Science Room. Given that we have more submissions than sessions, we would like to propose that you can use the Open Science Room outside the hours of planned sessions to host this meeting. We can help to advertise through the ORS channels. We will try to include sessions of this type as a separate category for future OHBM meetings. If you send me an email we can discuss details for this year further: slugtmeijer@brocku.ca. Thanks

[rgbayrak]

Here is the streaming link to your combined emergent session, distribute it widely 🤓
https://www.crowdcast.io/e/osr-2023-emergent-5