[open-science-dev] SWAT4LS Hackathon - You DONT need to be a coder!

[Peter Murray-Rust]

One or two people have worried that because they don't write code they will
be unsure of what they can contribute.

DONT PANIC.

Almost all the work in semantic applications is design and coordination of
information. If this is done well, then the coding follows easily. The
sorts of questions we shall address in ORR are:
* what is a disease? what diseases have multiple names (answer nearly all,
unfortunately!)
* what information do we need to add to ORR? places? dates? types of study?
organisms? drugs?
* where can we find systematic collections of information?
* how do we rank the importance of documents?

and so on.

The main tools at this stage will probably be spreadsheets and text editors.

And one of the most important skills is keeping a clear head and gentle
dispoisiton when everyone is arguing their heads off. Believe me,
ontologies cause more friction than almost any other discipline. Everyone
has their own view of how to describe the world in formal terms and
everyone differs slightly from everyone else.

P.


-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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