[BioRuby] NESCent Seeks Hackathon Whitepapers

[Hilmar Lapp]

The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), in keeping with  
its objective to promote collaborative development of open-source,  
reusable, and standards-supporting informatics resources, sponsors  
highly collaborative, face-to-face software development events, called  
"hackathons" (see [1]). To ensure that this program continues to be  
responsive to user needs and to tap into the expertise and creativity  
of the evolutionary biology community, NESCent is soliciting short  
whitepapers (2-6 pages) [2] on potential target areas for future  
hackathons.

To further encourage submissions, we have now distilled specific  
guidelines for proposing hackathon events, based on the experiences  
gained from events we have sponsored in the past:
http://informatics.nescent.org/wiki/Hackathon_Whitepaper_Guidelines

The Center's Call for Informatics Whitepapers [3] includes not only  
hackathons, but also a large spectrum of other initiatives to be  
undertaken by the Center, including training, software development,  
collaborative ontology development, and coordination of data  
standards. Whitepapers are accepted at any time and reviewed on an on- 
going basis.

URLs:
[1] Collaborative cyberinfrastructure events and programs organized by  
NESCent:
http://informatics.nescent.org/wiki/Main_Page

[2] NESCent Call for Informatics Whitepapers
http://www.nescent.org/informatics/whitepapers.php

[3] Hackathon Whitepaper Guidelines:
http://informatics.nescent.org/wiki/Hackathon_Whitepaper_Guidelines

[4] Past NESCent-sponsored hackathons:
http://informatics.nescent.org/wiki/Main_Page#Hackathons