14th Discussion-7 November 2013

Brief Description and Continuing Discussion:

Topic 1: How to select and evaluate new software packages (Led by TBC)

Introduction and Preliminary Information

As core facilities one of our day to day tasks is to keep abreast of developments within the bioinformatics community and always be on the lookout for new pieces of software which might be of use for the analyses we perform. Additionally many of us are (or maybe should be) involved in the purchase of commercial software, either stand alone analysis packages, data management systems or software which comes with large hardware purchases.

In this session we'd like to look at how different groups handle the evaluation and introduction of new software packages. Topics we will try to address will include:

• How do you discover new software packages to investigate?

• If you're searching for a specific type of software how do you quickly get a list of candidates or judge potential suitability. Whose opinions do you trust?

• What criteria do you include when evaluating new software packages and how do you weight them. Are there any red lines which would immediately cause you to reject a package?

• Do you, as a matter of course, consider commercial as well as open source packages? Do you judge these differently? What would sway you to opt for a commercial package over an open source alternative?

• When evaluating a package for a new type of data do you run example data sets? If so where do you get these and how do you judge the results?

• Are you consulted on the software side of any large hardware purchases (microscopes, mass specs, sequencers etc)? Has the software side of a hardware package influenced a decision on which hardware to purchase? Have you encountered problems with the software packages for large hardware purchases which could have been spotted if it was evaluated during the purchase period?

Topic 2: Open Forum (Led by TBC)

In previous calls we've aimed to have two discussion topics but we're going to experiment with changing this to a single defined topic followed by an open forum where anyone can raise a question in which they're interested. This is intended to be used either for short questions (gauging interest in a topic, asking for quick opinions, addressing a specific issue etc), or to kick of a longer discussion which can continue on the mailing list or be the subject of a future call.

Questions for this session can be asked in advance by either posting them to the mailing list or by adding them into this wiki page. You can also ask questions directly on the call if you prefer.