Nothing to report back since last meeting.
Have been making progress in figuring out how to set-up a foundation. Discussion document was drafted in January for the SC, this has now been revised and is being recirculated. Planned to have an open meeting to discuss, probably in the first week of March.
Nothing to report back since last meeting.
This was previously something that someone called Tarik was involved in - not sure what became of this. Apparently Roy Gusinow has produced a (hexagonal) logo for his package.
They are posted in the forum.
Not everyone has access to (posting events in) the calendar. There has been feedback saying that google calendar isn't optimal as it's not broadly compatible (in particular, some apple users have complained). Currently, people with access to the calendar are:
No particular feedback from last year from Mark. It was helpful because it had an impact in making other SIB (and Swiss) groups aware of DataSHIELD. So defnitely a positive effect and interest generated.
In the past, people have been aware of DS and have not been interested - have been more interested in commercial alternatives. But then find out that the commercial alternatives don't work and so people are now coming back.
Bonn (conference 2024) still haven't been able to provide their finances from 2 years ago - which is why no funding came from SIB to Bonn. They said there should be a surplass of ~4300 euros. However, there's someone else from that institution who organised a conference Spring 2023 who hasn't yet received their (surplas) funds back, so we might still have to wait a while.
For this last year (2025), the estimated surplass is about 1000 CHF - but not confirmed (this was via email from Etienne 23/01/2026). NB there had been some sponsorship from the National Science Foundation which was separate for bringing speakers etc over. Mark will double-check what funds are left over.
How much were trainers etc given in Groningen/Bonn for helping out? In Lausanne, there was a separate fund (i.e. sponsorship) that was available for invited speakers etc.
NB, (surplass) money (from conference) is also required for other uses - particularly setting up legal entity.
Mark has been in contact with Morris, ELIXIR node in Netherlands. Mark ELIXIR node in Switzerland. Becca in contact with UK ELIXIR node re DataSHIELD as a service and there seems to be a real gap with what's happening at the ELIXIR level with what's put in place and the actual what's been put in place.
DataSHIELD offered as a service within the ELIXIR network could be a real bonus. Needs to be harmonised effort in the community. Can fulfill a gap for analysis edge cases when standard ELIXIR approach not possible/relevant. Need to promote DS as a potential solution for some of the issues in ELIXIR. But there is complicated politics around ELIXIR - with a lot of hostility towards tools that are not in ELIXIR.
Could have an ELIXIR working group?
Currently ~6 people have access to the DataSHIELD page at the moment. But passive linked in posts (just reposting) isn't particularly helpful. We need more proactive communication as this is the only thing that seems to work in terms.
Becca set up the page for her DataSHIELD Research Group (and not for the community). Becca says it's not her job to post on LinkedIn.
Maybe the community shouldn't have a linkedin page. Which is also a valid position.
Some posts have 100s of interactions, might get 10-20 new followers from a good post. But
Wiki is live training thing, updateable, maintainable. A physical book is a snapshot in time, therefore perhaps less useful.
The book of OHDSI is a live bookdown that is a bit similar to our wiki, but they also produce a physical version from time to time.
Perhaps we could produce a PDF or something once a year that is the current status of DS, as a training booklet - how to do development, how to use core functionality, how to deploy it, etc. Could be uploaded to zenodo and then we have a citable reference.
There are parts of the wiki that could be used like this. But other parts are just "pieces of information" without any narrative. So yes, there definitely some parts of the wiki that are useful - these could perhaps be added to a bookdown which would facilitate this "live book". Ther are other examples too (e.g. Turing book).
https://ohdsi.github.io/TheBookOfOhdsi
Would be good to consolidate the info about DS. There are concerns about AI gobbling stuff up - but also a good way that people are using more and more
NB OHDSI is a much larger community!!!
Stuart has done some summarising using LLMs - and it's worked really well!