POSE: Phase I: Building an open-source ecosystem around the Gen3 data platform

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

Gen3 is an open-source software platform that enables researchers to manage, analyze, and share scientific data. There are over twenty Gen3 Data Commons around the world that, in aggregate, manage over 20 petabytes of data that includes 90 million data objects that are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). Today, Gen3 is typically used by larger organizations that have experience with setting up and operating large scale cloud computing applications. This project seeks to expand the reach of Gen3 to bring these same powerful data sharing and analytical solutions to smaller research organizations, so that they can achieve the same important benefits for scientific advancement and reproducibility. With funding from the Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program, the team will develop an open-source ecosystem around Gen3, which will allow them to more easily accept improvements to the code base from the community, learn about and develop new scientific use cases, and create a governance structure that brings community needs into the Gen3 development roadmap. As part of this project, the project will enable development and strengthen the community of users around the open-source data platform Gen3, which will make the product easier to set up and maintain, prioritize features needed by the research community, and make Gen3 more accessible to a broader community, including those with fewer technical or monetary resources. To accomplish these goals, the team will 1) create a governance structure with a steering committee and working groups that will advance the needs of the Gen3 community; 2) improve documentation and new user onboarding; and 3) manage external contributions to the Gen3 source code. With these structural improvements, Gen3 can leverage the expertise of its existing and future users to bring new data sharing solutions to a broad range of researchers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.