Merge branch '2020-04-08-post' into 'master'

online activity update & gratitude

See merge request grp-bio-it/blogs!1

content/posts/2020-04-08-covid19-update-gratitude.md

+---
+date: 2020-04-08
+description:
+featured_image: 
+tags: ["Toby Hodges", "Bio-IT", "Community", "Online Training", "Online Support", "Chat", "Gratitude"]
+title: "Update on Bio-IT Support During Covid-19 Outbreak"
+omit_header_text: true
+---
+
+A lot has happened in the past few weeks,
+as everyone at EMBL has been adapting to
+working from home.
+It's been a busy time for the Bio-IT community:
+as computational researchers and support staff,
+most of our community members are able to continue working on most of their normal tasks/research,
+the only major change being that they do that from home.
+Many such members are facing additional challenges, though,
+from struggling with reduced Internet connection speeds
+to balancing their work tasks with the need 
+to care for children and other family members.
+So we've been delighted to see the enthusiasm with which
+the community has come together online to 
+meet the challenges these lockdowns pose to our work
+and to support other members who are less able to keep working "as usual"
+while the sites are closed.
+
+[In our first post on this topic](https://grp-bio-it.embl-community.io/blogs/posts/2020-03-13-bio-it-activity-online-covid-19/),
+published as EMBL sites were beginning to close their doors,
+I outlined how existing Bio-IT resources and support could be accessed 
+and might help keep our community connected while Covid-19 restrictions are in place.
+We've got a few updates to give in this post, 
+and plenty of people to thank for helping to maintain and grow
+support for computational research at EMBL during this difficult time.
+
+### [`chat.embl.org`](https://chat.embl.org/) Update
+
+In the previous post, 
+we recommended the Bio-IT community's Mattermost chat system,
+at [chat.embl.org](https://chat.embl.org).
+Since the Covid-19 lockdowns began,
+we've seen a huge increase in message traffic on the system,
+and we're delighted to say that the platform is now accessible
+also to EMBL-EBI members,
+as long as they're logged into their institutional VPN.
+We're extremely grateful to our colleagues
+in EMBL IT Services and especially to Jelle Scholtalbers,
+of the Genome Biology Computational Support team,
+for their work to make this possible. 
+It's great to have the whole community connected like this.
+
+### Online Training
+
+So far we've been able to run two introductory courses for remote participants
+since the site closures began. 
+These were the first Bio-IT workshops to welcome at least one participant
+from each of EMBL's six sites, 
+as well as external participants joining via the [de.NBI](https://www.denbi.de) network.
+We were satisfied with how the courses went,
+particularly given the short time we had to prepare to teach them online for the first time.
+We'll write up our reflections on the experience of teaching by video conference
+in a separate post soon.
+For now, special thanks must go to Supriya Khedkar of the [Bork Group](https://www.embl.de/research/units/scb/bork/)
+for meeting the challenge of teaching her first course under such unusual circumstances
+with such style and positivity.
+
+The next Bio-IT course to run online will be an [Introduction to R](https://bio-it.embl.de/events/introduction-to-r/),
+to be taught by Thea Van Rossum (also of the [Bork Group](https://www.embl.de/research/units/scb/bork/))
+and Florian Huber ([Typas](https://www.embl.de/research/units/genome_biology/typas/)/[Beltrao](https://www.ebi.ac.uk/research/beltrao) Groups)
+on four consecutive mornings 5-8 May.
+
+### Online Events Calendar
+
+As many EMBL members aren't able to continue their regular work or research,
+opportunities to learn new skills, 
+connect with others,
+and discuss science 
+online are vital to the health of the organisation.
+Colleagues from many different parts of EMBL have been quick to
+adapt and start providing various different online activities.
+The speed with which we were all able to establish a [shared calendar](https://bio-it.embl.de/), 
+as a single point of reference for events, training, and other activities
+taking place online,
+is a testament to the positive and proactive attitude of the whole
+EMBL community.
+And another shout out should go to the EMBL IT Services team,
+who were able to engineer a solution to provide access to the calendar
+to members at EMBL-EBI, 
+who normally can't access the shared calendars available
+to the other five sites.
+
+We've embedded the calendar [on the front page of the Bio-IT portal](https://bio-it.embl.de/) -
+the list of events currently includes 
+scientific and non-scientific training courses, 
+webinars and online lectures,
+statistics book club sessions (more info below),
+drop-in and consulting sessions,
+and journal clubs.
+There's also a link to our [list of recommended online learning resources](https://bio-it.embl.de/online-learning/).
+
+### MSMB Book Club
+
+In the days before the EMBL Heidelberg site was closed,
+Eva Geissen of the [Centre for Biological Modelling](https://bio-it.embl.de/centres/cbm/)
+had the great idea of establishing a book club to work through
+[Modern Statistics for Modern Biology](https://www.huber.embl.de/msmb/),
+by Wolfgang Huber and Susan Holmes.
+
+After some hasty planning to shift the club online,
+the first session took place in late March.
+Wolfgang Huber, research group leader at EMBL and co-author of the book,
+was kind enough to spare time to join that session,
+and hopes to be able to continue to drop by for some of the subsequent discussions too.
+So far, the club has been meeting weekly,
+with each session providing a platform for discussing one chapter of the book.
+Eva's idea was popular -
+we had ~70 people on the first call -
+so we've been making extensive use of Zoom's breakout rooms feature
+to split into sub-groups with a view of encouraging every member to get involved
+in the discussion.
+We've already made some tweaks to the format and,
+with so many other things going on right now,
+I've been finding it difficult to properly read the entire chapter each week.
+But it feels like I'm not alone in the group and other members 
+are also drawing motivation from the sessions,
+to continue working through the material when they might otherwise be
+distracted by more immediate demands of their attention.
+
+We're fortunate too that Wolfgang and Susan,
+the authors of the book,
+have begun a series of online lectures and labs 
+(via the [Stanford-EMBL Life Science Alliance](https://www.embl.de/LifeScienceAlliance/start/))
+to accompany the book.
+It's a fantastic opportunity for our club members to consolidate what they are learning from reading the text.
+Many thanks to Eva for coming up with the idea and driving the organisation of the book club, 
+and to the other member of the planning team, 
+Matt Rogon 
+of the [Centre for Biomolecular Network Analysis](https://bio-it.embl.de/centres/cbna/),
+for setting up an RStudio Cloud environment
+for the club to work in.
+
+### What's next?
+
+We've got plans for more online activities and other ways
+in which we can continue to connect the EMBL Bio-IT community
+while we all try to weather the storm of Covid-19.
+We'll continue to post here when we have further updates,
+and you can always reach out to us whenever you like.
+In the meantime,
+stay positive,
+keep active,
+and take care of those around you.
+See you online!