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Team:Heidelberg/pages/Human Practice/igemathome
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We hereby have shown that it is feasible for an iGEM team to run an distributed computing project and it offers a great new approach to reach out to the society. | We hereby have shown that it is feasible for an iGEM team to run an distributed computing project and it offers a great new approach to reach out to the society. | ||
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Of course we think that iGEM@home is a great tool and needs to be continued after the end of this year’s iGEM competition. As it has an active and interested community and offers teams to do impressive computations, we '''hope to hand iGEM@home over to the headquarters for a centralized access in future'''. So that it becomes an integral part of iGEM, for the benefit of society. | Of course we think that iGEM@home is a great tool and needs to be continued after the end of this year’s iGEM competition. As it has an active and interested community and offers teams to do impressive computations, we '''hope to hand iGEM@home over to the headquarters for a centralized access in future'''. So that it becomes an integral part of iGEM, for the benefit of society. | ||
Revision as of 22:14, 12 October 2014
Contents |
Introduction
iGEM@home is a platform (build upon the BOINC framework) for the distribution of computations to volunteers who provide their computer resources when it is idle. The volunteers download a client software that pulls work from our central server and runs it when the computer is not used. After the successful execution of the computation the result is uploaded to our server. This approach allows it iGEM teams to run heavy computations without the need of access to a big server cluster. Furthermore the inclusion of general citizens in the project as providers for calculation power enables us to spread the word about Synthetic Biology circumventing the classical gatekeepers. During the development of the project we wanted to reach people who usually have nothing to do with science, let alone Synthetic Biology and iGEM. Our project offers a unique chance to not just tell people about Synthetic Biology, but to offer them the chance to participate and really get involved in a project. This will hopefully lead to new kinds of collaboration, better understanding and a broader acceptance of Synthetic Biology.
If you want to know more about the software that we developed please visit our Software Overview page, if you are rather interested in the modelling that we ran on iGEM@home and how it relates to our project please visit the Linker modeling.
Outreach
The need to build a vivid community is key to run a successful distributed computing project. As the project depends on the voluntary support of people it is important to get people enthused about the science behind the project, so they are willing to support the project. Good communication is therefore essential to find support. We therefore used different channels to present and promote our project and iGEM in general to convince people to help us.
Promotion Material
The [http://www.igemathome.org/ homepage] of iGEM@home
Website
A central part of was our campaign for iGEM@home is the website [http://www.igemathome.org www.igemathome.org] that is the frontend of our BOINC server and therefore needed to be externally hosted. (To find out more about the software click here). It bundles all important information on the [http://www.igemathome.org/project project] and explains iGEM in a layman’s way to an idea in what context this project was developed. It also provides a list of [http://www.igemathome.org/FAQ FAQ’s] that address most important concerns and questions that people have. In addition we also provide a list of [http://www.igemathome.org/related_projects other BOINC projects], because the client makes it very easy to support additional projects from different areas of science. Furthermore the website also hosts the [http://www.igemathome.org/igemathome/ “BOINC pages”]. These are the pages, where participants can view the server status, manage their account, create a profile and join the discussion in the [http://www.igemathome.org/igemathome/forum_index.php forums]. (For more information on the role of the forum in the outreach you can skip to #Forums.)
Video
The second pillar of our promotion is a video that provides the information in an easily digestible way.
The video presents iGEM, our project and distributed computing. It explains why we need the support of the users and how to help us.
Flyer
To promote iGEM@home on local level to friends, fellow students and people interested in science and iGEM we created Flyers that are supposed to make people interested in the project and lead them (via QR-code or link) to our website.
Campaign
Although iGEM@home is open for everyone to participate, we decided to promote the project mainly to people we knew (friends, family, fellow students etc.) and people that are already active in the BOINC community. We used social media and forums to present the project and shared our video as it is the easiest way to get informed. Moreover our project was covered by 2 journals ([http://www.spektrum.de/news/proteinforschung-zum-mitmachen/1307953 Spektrum der Wissenschaft] german popular science magazine and [http://www.spektrum.de/news/proteinforschung-zum-mitmachen/1307953 BioTechniques] an international journal on Life Science Methods) who wrote articles about the project, which was very helpful to reach new user groups.
Contact to User base
The important job after convincing the user to try our software, is to convince them to continuously support us by constantly feeding them with interesting facts on iGEM and offering them ways to influence the project. The first pillar for the communication is an integrated [http://www.igemathome.org/igemathome/forum_index.php forum] software, where the user can help each other and directly contact as us the developers if they experience bugs. The second pillar is a [http://www.igemathome.org/screensaver screensaver], where we can show the users interesting facts on science and promote the projects [Link collaboration with Marburg] of fellow iGEM teams. This bidirectional communication enabled an optimal exchange between our users and us as the project developers.
Results
(as of 12.10.2014)
Users
- 400 active users<ref>test</ref>
- From 42 countries
- 3/4 supporting additional BOINC projects
- Organized in 80 teams
- Age ranging from 12 year old brother to 88 year old grandma
Computation power
- > 1,100 actively calculating computers
- > 100,000 computed jobs
- 1.2 Million CPU hours
*
- Equivalent to a 28,190$ per month cloud computer cluster by amazon web services
*
Communication
- 190 forum posts (mostly bug reports and ideas for next development steps)
- Showed screensaver 1300 times for an average of 2:08 hours
- Showed nearly 40,000 screensaver slides
For the most up to date information visit the [http://www.igemathome.org/igemathome/server_status.php server status page], the official [http://boincstats.com/en/stats/155/project/detail/overview BOINCstats] and our [http://igemathome.org/igemathome/forum_index.php forum].
Survey and Meetup
Follows soon...
Conclusion
We consider iGEM@home a great success. Not just were we able to do calculations impossible without a huge server cluster, we also reached a lot of people who didn’t know about Synthetic Biology and iGEM before. The biggest part of our user base are people who are already contributing to BOINC projects, but this group is only united by their interest for number crunching and is in many other aspects quite divers.
We hereby have shown that it is feasible for an iGEM team to run an distributed computing project and it offers a great new approach to reach out to the society.
Future
Of course we think that iGEM@home is a great tool and needs to be continued after the end of this year’s iGEM competition. As it has an active and interested community and offers teams to do impressive computations, we hope to hand iGEM@home over to the headquarters for a centralized access in future. So that it becomes an integral part of iGEM, for the benefit of society.
