TY - JOUR AU - Chapman, Brad AB - Background: Computational biology comprises a wide range of technologies and approaches. Multiple technologies can be combined to create more powerful workflows if the individuals contributing the data or providing tools for its interpretation can find mutual understanding and consensus. Much conversation and joint investigation are required in order to identify and implement the best approaches. Traditionally, scientific conferences feature talks presenting novel technologies or insights, followed up by informal discussions during coffee breaks. In multi-institution collaborations, in order to reach agreement on implementation details or to transfer deeper insights in a technology and practical skills, a representative of one group typically visits the other. However, this does not scale well when the number of technologies or research groups is large. Conferences have responded to this issue by introducing Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) sessions, which offer an opportunity for individuals with common interests to intensify their interaction. However, parallel BoF sessions often make it hard for participants to join multiple BoFs and find common ground between the different technologies, and BoFs are generally too short to allow time for participants to program together. Results: This report summarises our experience with computational biology Codefests, Hackathons and Sprints, which are interactive developer meetings. They TI - Community-driven development for computational biology at Sprints, Hackathons and Codefests JF - BMC Bioinformatics DO - 10.1186/1471-2105-15-S14-S7 DA - 2014-11-27 UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/springer-journals/community-driven-development-for-computational-biology-at-sprints-CwnK1MfqXC SP - 1 EP - 7 VL - 15 IS - 14 DP - DeepDyve ER -