April OHBM Open Science Demo Call

By Elizabeth DuPre and Kirstie Whitaker

This month we continued our Open Science Demo Call series by speaking to Ariel Rokem,  Dora Hermes, and Tammy Vanderwal about three initiatives they’re involved with that promote openness in neuroimaging research.

Ariel Rokem

Ariel introduced us to NiPy--short for NeuroImaging in Python--which is a large community-of-practice to support using python for neuroimaging. He explained that NiPy exists within the broader SciPy--short for Scientific computing in Python--community, and it unites many individuals who use Python in their scientific analyses. As open communities, Ariel pointed out that anyone is welcome to use the NiPy and SciPy software as well as to participate in its development. If you’re interested in hearing more, he encourages you to check out the NiPy mailing list or the annual SciPy conference!

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Dora Hermes

Dora told us about iEEG BIDS extension proposal, a proposed extension to the BIDS standard for structuring human intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) data. She explained that to date, current challenges with iEEG data sharing include the large variability in both electrode locations as well as data formats across sites. The proposed extension will create a standardized structure to store iEEG data and metadata, allowing for novel, multi-model analyses via integration of iEEG with MRI, MEG and EEG. To contribute to the development of the iEEG BIDS extension, Dora encourages checking out the current draft or commenting on the BIDS mailing list.

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Christine Cong Guo

Tammy Vanderwal

Tammy announced a new competition she is running with Christine Cong Guo entitled Movies in the Magnet. Researchers from any career level are invited to submit novel analyses using movie-viewing data from the Healthy Brain Network dataset, and the selected submission will be invited to speak at OHBM as part of the Movies in the Magnet symposium. This competition highlights both the rich variability of naturalistic stimuli as well as the value of open data. Tammy and Christine encourage anyone interested to apply by Friday, May 25th!

Our next call will be on Thursday May 31st at 7pm BST (check your local time zone), where we’ll be looking ahead to the OHBM annual meeting in Singapore! If you’d like to nominate yourself or someone else to be featured on these monthly calls, please add their information at this github issue, or email the host of the calls Kirstie Whitaker at kw401@cam.ac.uk. You can also join the OSSIG google group to receive reminders each month.

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