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June 2022 Meeting Summary

We gathered on June 23, 2022, for our Advisory Committee meeting! It was a productive session where we focused on increasing user engagement and expanding our outreach to the global community.

Strengthening User Engagement​

Our discussions centered on how to make Genesys a more interactive and welcoming space for everyone.

Latest Updates We started with a briefing from Christelle, who shared the latest developments and progress made since February, ensuring the Committee is up to date with our current trajectory.

The Genesys Forums Pilot We are excited to proceed with a pilot version of the Genesys Forums. This two-month trial is designed to test how a dedicated support forum can increase user engagement and help the community find answers more efficiently.

The Committee highlighted that successful forums require a long-term commitment to moderation to ensure responses remain valid. To mitigate the risk of "outdated content," we are considering a design that displays the most recent content by default.

Expanding Our Reach​

We also explored new ways to bring more data providers and users into the Genesys ecosystem.

Promotional Outreach The Committee recommended the creation of an attractive promotional two-pager to disseminate to potential partners. The goal is to have a clear, concise document where one page highlights the benefits for genebanks and the other focuses on the advantages for data users.

Better Citations To incentivize scientists and data managers to share their work, we discussed introducing data-publication-style citations for individual datasets and subsets. A "How to cite" feature would allow citations to be generated directly from metadata (title, date, contributors, and URL), providing proper recognition for those who contribute their data to Genesys.

Our Community​

A warm thank you to everyone who joined the conversation:

  • Chris Richards (USDA, USA)
  • Peter Wenzl (Alliance Bioversity-CIAT, CGIAR)
  • Semíramis Rabelo Ramalho Ramos (Embrapa, Brazil)
  • Stephan Weise (IPK, Germany)
  • Francisco Lopez (ITPGRFA, FAO)
  • Luigi Guarino (Crop Trust)
  • Christelle Rabil (Crop Trust)
  • Matija Obreza (Crop Trust)

Apologies:

  • Sunil Archak (NBPGR, India)

Where We Go From Here​

We've committed to several key actions to keep the momentum going:

  • Forum Evaluation: Draft the list of criteria to determine if the Forums should become a permanent fixture.
  • Pilot Launch: Develop the Genesys Forums prototype and run the 2-month pilot.
  • Outreach Material: Create the promotional two-pager for potential users and data providers.
  • Citation Prototyping: Develop the "How to cite" feature for individual datasets and subsets.

We're looking forward to seeing these initiatives come to life!