The Galaxy community has recently organised a workshop on SARS-CoV-2 Data Analysis and Monitoring with Galaxy. The goal was to build capacity, both in the analysis and data management sides of SARS-CoV-2, based on the acquired expertise since the beginning of the pandemic. On a broader scope, sharing the experience in SARS-CoV-2 data analysis, and fostering the principles of open data, open science and open infrastructure are key aspects in the current public health global situation.

For 4 days, experts from Africa, Europe, the USA and Australia covered topics from a general introduction to Galaxy –for those not familiar with the platform– to more specific ones like data upload, quality control, analysis of public datasets (variant calling, consensus building, reporting), visualisation and data export to public and open archives. Many other additional training materials were provided as well for those eager to learn more. In total, 25 sessions were delivered in 7 hours of pre-recoded videos (including lectures, demos and hands-on) and 6 hours of live Q&A sessions.

Format

As in previous workshops, we took advantage of the flexibility of the asynchronous format: pre-recorded lessons and walkthroughs for the attendees to watch and experiment with Galaxy at their own pace, providing also live support in chat.

This time, however, we also included two daily synchronous Q&A sessions to address questions from the audience. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive! The attendance to the Q&A was around 30 engaged participants, with plenty of questions. The post-workshop survey also shows this session as the favourite part of the workshop for many attendees.

For those that couldn’t make it on that week, all the tutorials will stay available in the Galaxy Training Network (GTN) and the recordings on the Galaxy Project YouTube channel.

Participation

Researchers in all career stages (PhD students, senior researchers…) and different roles (clinicians, laboratory manager, technicians…) have joined the workshop. In total, the registration surpassed the 750 participants from 82 countries!

To welcome the arabic-speaking community, Engy Nasr and Abdulrahman Yahia Azab recorded a great video introducing Galaxy, thank you both!

Feedback

The videos in the Galaxy YouTube channel had 3200 views, with a total of 320 hours of watch time.

The feedback survey reveals the usefulness of the training with an average score of 4.77/5. When asked for the format, the respondents indicated a preference for only videos (32%) over only tutorials (10%), being the combination of both the most popular vote (58%). The highlights were, apart from the abovementioned live Q&A, the use of real data and the dedication of the supporting team.

We would like to thank all the participants, instructors and helpers for the support, and all the sponsors for making it possible!