Introducing the governance task team

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Melissa Haendel

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Jun 12, 2021, 11:16:01 AM6/12/21
to obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax, b...@uic.edu
Dear OBO colleagues,
I wanted to provide an update on the governance task team. 

As you may recall, we proposed to have a set of volunteers do requirements analysis and documentation for the current state of governance within the OBO community. The goal is to help advance OBO as a standards body, inform decision making regarding non-profit status, and create a more efficient and inviting environment for all. The outcome of this task team’s efforts will be a body of information that will be presented to the community. The task team may make recommendations, but it is the community that is expected to make decisions, decide next steps, and determine what to do with the collated information. We will provide updates and make the documentation available in a transparent fashion.

I wanted to introduce and thank our amazing set of volunteers:

Diane Alexander
An information architect for 20+ years with experience in developing developed Data Governance Programs.  Diane worked on the design and development of the Enterprise Architecture Governance Program at Bank of America. The EA program included an over-arching layer of governance in an Architecture Review Board, and also governance standards and processes (with a few review architecture checkpoints) to apply at the individual project level. She has been contributing to the FOODON ontology focusing on wine extensions :-).

Melanie Courtot 
Melanie has contributed to many ontologies - OBI, IAO, BFO and specific resources such as FLU, AERO etc. She is part of the OBO technical group and contributed to multiple processes and methodologies, including identifier policy, the PURL based system, MIREOT to import selected terms etc. For the last 5 years, she has been at EMBL-EBI - first the Gene Ontology editorial office, then implementation projects such as the GA4GH for which she developed the Data Use Ontology, and the International Hundred Thousand Consortium for which I do human cohort semantic harmonization. She also contributes to other federated cohort projects such as CINECA in Europe, Canada and Africa, or FAIRplus to improve Pharma data quality in Europe.
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcourtot/

Jane Lomax
Jane has been using and developing OBO ontologies since ~2002 when she worked on the nascent Gene Ontology and other related ontologies like ChEBI, Cell Ontology, Uberon etc. She was involved in the OBO Foundry in the very early days. For the last 5 years she has been working at SciBite, where she helps life-science companies (mainly pharma) to implement FAIR principles, with a significant ontology component. One of their products is an ontology editing platform that facilitates the use of public ontologies and standards. Jane has also been on the International Society of Biocuration executive committee for the last 3 years.

John Graybeal
John has been involved for 17 years in metadata and semantic initiatives, starting with the Marine Metadata community-building project and MMI repository (based on BioPortal backend at the time, and still operational!). John is the technical lead of BioPortal (and CEDAR) under Mark Musen, and recently helped start the OntoPortal initiative. He has led or participated in several standardization efforts in that period. He is especially interested in sustainability and scoping, and would like the task team to consider how to bring about good governance without funding and/or how to get some to support it. 

Jonathan Bisson
Jonathan has been using OBO ontologies for ~4 years. He is working on PHO (https://pho.nprod.net), an ontology (and its knowledge base) for Natural Products Chemistry. He has technical expertise in ontology development / implementation, and is interested in learning more about the philosophical aspects. He is also interested in ways to manage data and getting organizations organized around data questions. Jonathan has been part of governance groups in different structures, one of them being a hackerspace. In that context, Jon has helped the community overcome tensions between "let-me-do-what-I-want", "let-things-as-they-are", and "it-is-not-welcoming-for-people-like-me" sides of things. 

And for those that don’t know me and for parity:
Melissa Haendel
A member of the OBO community since ~2005, when I was tasked to develop anatomy and phenotype ontologies for the Zebrafish database ZFIN. I have since led and contributed to many OBO and some non-OBO ontologies, largely in the context of the Monarch Initiative (Uberon, CL, CARO, OBI, HPO, Mondo, VIVO, MAxO, ECTO, SEPIO, etc.). I have helped with OBO principles and policies over the years, most recently the code of conduct and the attribution policy. I also participate in other standards and data harmonization communities such as GA4GH, HL7, ISO, CRDC, OHDSI, etc. I have recently moved to the University of Colorado where I lead a semantic engineering team focused on biomedicine and translational science. I have helped set up governance for a number of consortial organizations, including the National Covid Cohort Collaborative, which is the largest US national EHR data sharing initiative to date. 

One idea I have for OBO is to create an OBO governance toolkit analogous to the ODK but essentially a template to help ontology communities establish good governance. In my opinion, OBO governance should be at both a pan-OBO community level and at an individual ontology community level. Feedback on this and any other ideas welcome. Please see the #governance channel in the OBO Slack here.

Thanks again to all the positive emails and excitement from the community that we have received. Please keep it coming. 
Best,
Melissa





Nico Matentzoglu

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Jun 13, 2021, 6:33:21 AM6/13/21
to Melissa Haendel, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax, Bisson, Jonathan
Very interesting and nice effort!

I would like to suggest that the discussions around governance (design of the toolkit, etc) happen as publicly as possible - perhaps we could set up a governance repo and you could use GitHub discussions rather than slack for discussing the various legs of the governance effort? As I also want to see this effort being successful, I want to suggest that it is quite important that we avoid having the governance team do a lot of work on something only to be shot down later because of a mismatch in expectations between the operations committee and the governance team (after all, actionable governance is pretty new land for most of us). Happy sailing and great work you all! :)

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Melissa Haendel

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Jun 13, 2021, 10:57:27 AM6/13/21
to Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax, Bisson, Jonathan
Thank Nico,

Just to remind everyone again, the goal of the task team is to perform information gathering and bring our findings to the community for open decision making, where the community is defined as anyone who wants to participate. 

As I mentioned, there is already an OBO slack channel for #governance that is open to everyone for discussions. 

It is not clear that we need a full repository for governance resources yet. The other governance documents that we have worked on to date within OBO are largely in the github.io docs folder here. It may well be that there will be enough documentation to warrant process and a location for their versioning and development, but let's pose that question to the community when the time comes.

What would also be helpful is if people could make tickets with their ideas, ideally with governance tags on them. I noticed that while most of the “policy" tagged items are operational, others are related to governance and decision making. Perhaps splitting these apart would aid discussion and help define what we as a community actually view as governance. The task team can evaluate these tickets to try to understand what we are doing now.

I think what might also be helpful is to have an OBO town hall to explain our information gathering strategy and gather ideas and examples from the community. I think this would be a good way to engage community members in a more open and transparent fashion. 

Note that the task team hasn’t even met yet! So please stay tuned as we will absolutely keep everyone apprised.

Cheers,
Melissa 

Asiyah Yu Lin

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Jun 14, 2021, 1:29:29 PM6/14/21
to Melissa Haendel, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax, Bisson, Jonathan
Thank you, Melissa and all others for the effort in governance with the OBO community. I am in full support. This is a missed part of this collaborative community due a long time ago. I'd be happy to contribute, help or coordinate wherever you need me - which is all I do at my current job.
Adding to Nico's note, the governance is very important, and needs a designated place to put a collection of documents, discussion notes, etc. For me personally, I am in a lot of slack workspace, but I can not follow with all the slack updates because the flood of the information is out of my control.  The  " github.io docs folder here " may not fit the request, as it is a one-pager list of things. 
Another aspect is that the http://www.obofoundry.org/ and the github.io are not linked to each other. It will be nice to have two contents being pointed to each other for the wider communities. Eventually, when the governance documents being formalized, all those documents will need to made available on the .org website. 

Thanks,
Asiyah


Hunter, Larry

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Jun 14, 2021, 3:45:53 PM6/14/21
to Melissa Haendel, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax, Bisson, Jonathan


On Jun 13, 2021, at 4:57 AM, Melissa Haendel <mel...@tislab.org> wrote:

I think what might also be helpful is to have an OBO town hall to explain our information gathering strategy and gather ideas and examples from the community. I think this would be a good way to engage community members in a more open and transparent fashion. 

I think this is a great idea.  Perhaps at ICBO (15-18 September 2021 in Bolzano and virtually)?

Larry

Janna Hastings

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Jun 15, 2021, 3:04:11 AM6/15/21
to larry....@cuanschutz.edu, Melissa Haendel, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax, Bisson, Jonathan
An OBO town hall meeting at ICBO is a great idea! 

Janna

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Bisson, Jonathan

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Jun 16, 2021, 6:58:22 PM6/16/21
to Janna Hastings, larry....@cuanschutz.edu, Melissa Haendel, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax
Janna Hastings <janna.h...@gmail.com> writes:

> An OBO town hall meeting at ICBO is a great idea!
>
> Janna

I will not be at ICBO this year for various funding reasons, but if
there is a remote option for that specific meeting I will be happy to
join.

J.

Asiyah Yu Lin

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Jul 23, 2021, 3:16:32 PM7/23/21
to Bisson, Jonathan, Janna Hastings, larry....@cuanschutz.edu, Melissa Haendel, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax
Dear Janna,

Do you have a time slot in mind to set up for this OBO town hall? We'd like to have a session to initiate the discussion around governance and sustainability. Of course we will need to check with the OBO operations committee first.

Thanks,
Asiyah 

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Ramona Walls

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Aug 2, 2021, 12:37:03 PM8/2/21
to Yu Lin, Bisson, Jonathan, Janna Hastings, larry....@cuanschutz.edu, Melissa Haendel, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax
I would like to second the suggestion to have a town hall discussion at ICBO this fall. This seems like our best option to get public input quickly. I am willing to help organize the town hall, with guidance from the task team. I think we probably need to pick a date soon. Is there anyone on the task team or operations committee that objects to having an OBO town hall at ICBO?

Ramona
------------------------------------------------------
Ramona L. Walls, Ph.D.
Data Scientist, Ontologies, Semantics, and Metadata, Critical Path Institute
Assistant Research Professor, Bio5 Institute, University of Arizona


Ramona Walls

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Aug 2, 2021, 12:48:30 PM8/2/21
to Yu Lin, Bisson, Jonathan, Janna Hastings, larry....@cuanschutz.edu, Melissa Haendel, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax
ICBO does have a remote option this year.
------------------------------------------------------
Ramona L. Walls, Ph.D.
Data Scientist, Ontologies, Semantics, and Metadata, Critical Path Institute
Assistant Research Professor, Bio5 Institute, University of Arizona

Melanie Courtot

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Aug 6, 2021, 9:01:16 AM8/6/21
to Ramona Walls, Yu Lin, Bisson, Jonathan, Janna Hastings, larry....@cuanschutz.edu, Melissa Haendel, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax
Janna, all,

Seems like there is overwhelming support to have this happen - how do we move forward? Ramona I'm happy to help with organisation if you need a hand. Janna, can you pre-book us in? It'd be good to fix the date and length soon.

Cheers,
Melanie

Janna Hastings

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Aug 6, 2021, 9:05:49 AM8/6/21
to Melanie Courtot, Ramona Walls, Yu Lin, Bisson, Jonathan, larry....@cuanschutz.edu, Melissa Haendel, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax
Hi Melanie, 

Yes, it's on the agenda for sure. There is some uncertainty with the schedule planning for ICBO at the moment due to various still-open questions from the local organisers, but I think we can already decide in broad outline. How about if we aim to hold this on Friday during the European afternoon (on the 17th September), either before or after the keynote talk? If you agree, I can get a specific time by mid-next week, I think. 

Best wishes,
Janna

Melissa Haendel

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Aug 6, 2021, 9:56:39 AM8/6/21
to Janna Hastings, Melanie Courtot, Ramona Walls, Yu Lin, Bisson, Jonathan, larry....@cuanschutz.edu, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax
For the Governance part, I suspect we’ll need ~2hrs but let's think through format and time a little more on the next OBO-Ops call when we have it on the agenda.

Cheers,
Melissa 

Melissa Haendel


Asiyah Yu Lin

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Aug 6, 2021, 11:02:13 AM8/6/21
to Melissa Haendel, Janna Hastings, Melanie Courtot, Ramona Walls, Bisson, Jonathan, larry....@cuanschutz.edu, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax
Hooray! Melanie and Melissa, just let you know that I am also the one working with Ramona for this town hall call. Count me in when help is needed.

Thanks,
Asiyah

Ramona Walls

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Aug 6, 2021, 12:47:32 PM8/6/21
to Asiyah Yu Lin, Melissa Haendel, Janna Hastings, Melanie Courtot, Bisson, Jonathan, larry....@cuanschutz.edu, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax
Thank you Asiyah and Melanie for helping. I am excited to see this move forward. I have arranged to skip my conflict next Tuesday so I can be at the OBO Ops call. Asiyah, I will update you after that.

Ramona
------------------------------------------------------
Ramona L. Walls, Ph.D.
Associate Director of Data Science, Ontologies, Semantics, and Metadata, Critical Path Institute
Assistant Research Professor, Bio5 Institute, University of Arizona

Janna Hastings

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Aug 11, 2021, 4:40:46 AM8/11/21
to Ramona Walls, Asiyah Yu Lin, Melissa Haendel, Melanie Courtot, Bisson, Jonathan, larry....@cuanschutz.edu, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax
Hi all, 

I have tentatively scheduled the OBO Town Hall for 18:30 CEST on the 17 September. Hopefully that works in all relevant time zones, 

Best wishes, 
Janna

Asiyah Yu Lin

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Aug 13, 2021, 12:59:05 PM8/13/21
to Janna Hastings, Ramona Walls, Melissa Haendel, Melanie Courtot, Bisson, Jonathan, larry....@cuanschutz.edu, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, jgra...@stanford.edu, Jane Lomax
That works for me. Thank you!

Bjoern Peters

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Sep 16, 2021, 7:37:51 AM9/16/21
to Lin, Yu, Janna Hastings, Ramona Walls, Melissa Haendel, Melanie Courtot, Bisson, Jonathan, Hunter, Larry, Nico Matentzoglu, obo-discuss, Melanie Courtot, Diane, John Graybeal, Jane Lomax
Bumping up this old thread which gets at the genesis of this town hall.. Looks like there were several volunteers to help and to do the governance session, but no one in charge of the overall. 

I am travelling and wont be able to participate.

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