i5K Coordinating Group

Conference Call Agenda

November 17, 2021

11:00-12:00 (EDT) – Note change from Daylight to Standard time

Attending: Glenn Hanes, Monica Poelchau, Kevin Hackett, Anna Childers, Robert Waterhouse, Chris Childers, Brad Coates, Kristen Panfilio, Robert Miller, Marian Goldsmith

  • Meeting Reports
    • ESA, Oct 31-Nov 3, 2021: Symposium “Advancing Insect Genomics through the Ag100Pest and i5K Initiatives”: Can we have an i5K YouTube Channel rebroadcast? (Brad, Sheina)
      • Symposium is available on demand
      • Panel discussion
      • ESA has no ownership of the videos; so they can be re-broadcast after December 31st. Brad is following up with presenters to get permission to upload to youtube
  • Upcoming Meetings [brief updates]
    • PAG, Jan 8-12, 2022, San Diego: Workshop Proposals (were due Sept 3, 2021) (Brad)
      • still in flux
      • AGBT has a virtual option - may be an alternative to PAG
    • i5K-Ex Situ 2022 Webinars: an alternative for those that cannot attend PAG (Brad)
      • Brad will start recruiting in earnest after thanksgiving.
    • Arthropod Genomics Symposium, 6-12 June 2022, Notre Dame (Anna, Rob)
      • Filling slots in the program with confirmed speakers.
      • Exploring costs of a hybrid solution delivered by Notre Dame
      • 2 days prior to symposium - hands-on workshop that will be in person. Hoping that this will drive some in-person attendance. Might be good to have a poll to gauge interest; and work from survey results from previous years.
  • Publications [brief update]
    • PNAS (Anna). Main papers have been accepted.
  • EBP Metrics [10 min] (Monica)
    • context: annual metrics that i5k reports to EBP. Example: # of genome assemblies under the ‘i5k’ project umbrella and their quality stats
    • What formal contributions is i5k expected to give to EBP; how should we work with our community to achieve them?
    • Better organize umbrella structure at NCBI. E.g. put Beenome 100 umbrella under i5k umbrella.
    • Existing insect genome projects don’t necessarily know if they can/should be under the i5k umbrella project
    • Rob: there is a technical solution to add existing projects under an umbrella, but a lot of it is manual work and email correspondence
    • Anna - the carrot would be better recognition for your genome, EBP/i5k community contributions
    • Marian - part of the i5k mission has always been education. Have a separate category/master list for projects that don’t necessarily want to be part of i5k? It’s too difficult to wrangle everyone.
    • Monica - is this the correct role for i5k? We are not actually the group producing the genomes. Perhaps this should just be restricted to Ag100Pest, Beenome100, ERGA…
    • Kristen - if the goal is to attract funding, then perhaps use some other metrics on how i5k fosters community and education.
    • Anna - already put in loads of work into trying to inform the community of what projects are targeting which species, but it is still not working smoothly and communications are somehow not achievable even with this huge effort
    • Monica - i5k is broader than a genome-generating-machine, so we’re not going to fit very well into a table of genome-generating-machines
    • Anna - Could we justify that all genomes in the Workspace should recognize themselves under the i5k umbrella? If they aren’t already captured under a separate umbrella directly under EBP? (For new genomes). Assembly quality doesn’t matter to be counted. Monica can bring this up at the next i5k workspace working group meeting.
    • Marian - it may be time to summarize this discussion to Harris and ask him. Kevin agrees
    • FYI - Rob’s new tool: https://rmwaterhouse.org/a3cat

NEXT MEETING: TBD