VIZBI 2014 delegates can now propose and vote on topics for discussion during the two unconference breakout sessions scheduled after the afternoon coffee break on Wednesday 5th and Thursday 6th March.
This will be the second time that we have run these un-conference style group discussions. The VIZBI 2013 breakout session included discussions on ways of improving visual communication in papers, dealing with ‘balls of yarn’, and exploring highly variable regions in sequencing data. It also provided an opportunity for community building – and two of the biggest groups discussed the 2013 BioVis contest and the collaborative development of javascript libraries for biological visualization. One of the most important parts of an unconference is that discussion doesn’t take place behind closed doors. Delegates can move between groups until they find a topic they’d like to sit in on, and representatives are elected to present lightning talks the following day. These allow everyone attending VIZBI to hear the results of each discussion.
With two unconference breakout sessions this year, and a Heidelberg Unseminars in Bioinformatics meeting on the evening of the tutorial day, there are lots of opportunities for you to get together with like-minded members of the biological visualization community for constructive discussion. So, if you are coming to VIZBI 2014 and have a topic you want to explore, then check your inbox for the link and propose your topic now!