Hi all,

Pardon the cross-postings -- we continue to work on the VIVO communication channels.

I've been in my new role for about a month and much has happened.  I have been overwhelmed by the energy, creativity and effort of the VIVO community members.  I want to share a few developments:

  • VIVO will hire a full-time technical lead.  The position has been posted here:  http://goo.gl/QQJQTu  If you know of potential candidates that can help develop our open source development community, please let them know of the position.
  • Our annual membership drive will start soon.  If you know of organizations that might be interested in financially supporting VIVO through membership, please let us know.  VIVO is growing and financial support is incredibly helpful.
  • The VIVO Steering Committee now posts its minutes to the wiki.  See https://wiki.duraspace.org/x/6YF6Aw   BTW, if you don't have a Duraspace username and password, you may want to get one.  You will be able to edit wiki pages and enter issues in the the Jira issue tracker.  More on both in future emails.
  • Conference preparation is gearing up.  You may have seen the recent call for papers:  http://goo.gl/XaPc7n   Please consider submitting a paper or poster, or volunteering to help review submissions.  And, of course, please plan to attend in Cambridge, MA August 12-14.
  • OHSU hosted an outstanding VIVO Implementation Fest.  Thanks to Melissa and Jon and the organizing task force!  Materials from the IFest are available on Google Drive:  http://goo.gl/6EzVrc 

Four task forces are forming to help VIVO develop: 

1. Julia Trimmer of Duke has volunteered to lead a task force that will collect VIVO user success stories.  These stories are critically important in building understanding of how VIVO helps people. If you would like to join this task force, please contact Julia.

2. Violeta Ilik of Northwestern has volunteered to lead a task force to improve the VIVO Implementation documentation.  This has been one of our most requested "needs."  To volunteer, please contact Violeta.

3. Chris Barnes of Florida and Ted Lawless of Brown have volunteered to lead a task force to develop recommendations for including contributed, non-core applications in VIVO releases.  The community has developed many oustanding VIVO applications.  Contributed applications demonstrate the stength of the community as well as improve the benefit of having a VIVO.  Please contact Chris or Ted to volunteer for this task force.

4. I will facilitate a task force to inventory VIVO digital assets -- web sites, repos, mail lists and other assets.  As you may know, VIVO has collected a variety of things over time and they can be bewildering to new comers and veterans alike.  The task force will also recommend consolidation of assets to simplify our environment.  Paul Albert of Weill Cornell Medical College, Alex Viggio of Symplectic, Lauren Gala of Penn, Jim Blake of Cornell and Jon Corson-Rikert of Cornell have volunteered for this task force.  If you would like to help, please contact any of us. 

Go VIVO! 

Mike

 

Mike Conlon
VIVO Project Director