Node: ELIXIR Luxembourg
Authors: Hana Marčetić and Vilem Ded, data steward liaisons
Topics: Existing work, Gaps to action
A shared website can become more than a communication channel. It can also help document services, align responsibilities and make approvals traceable.
ELIXIR Luxembourg Node has organised its first half day local All Hands Meeting where individual service owners (people unofficially responsible for the service) presented the service and it quickly became clear that there is a need to clarify individual responsibilities and align on processes. Break out groups identified general issues and created a long list of TODO items. The Node website was till then one of the very few resources documenting services and activities within the Node. That served as a basis to turn it into a shared platform for discussion between members.
Several contentathons were organised to address the issues identified in the upcoming year. The events hosted coordinator, data stewards, technical personnel and led to an update of the website content making the services more visible. Most importantly, it helped align across the Node and members and more clearly define who is responsible for what and what our Node offers in the first place.
Any major change of the website content now requires confirmation (merge request approval) by a board member, a very lightweight but efficient way to capture responsibility and trace approvals. All this work highlighted the challenges with organising work and coordination, and created the space for alignment of what is currently working and how. From there on, and building on the National data strategy, we can move forward with documenting and further clarifying the Node strategy.