<commit_before>---
layout: post
title:  "Teaming Up: How to Build Your Open Science Collaboration"
date:   2015-04-27
---

*This post originally appeared on the Mozilla Science Lab's blog.*

With the <a href="http://www.mozillascience.org/global-sprint-2015">Mozilla Science Global Sprint</a> coming up soon (<strong><a href="https://etherpad.mozilla.org/sciencelab-2015globalsprint">submissions</a> for project ideas are open until May 11</strong>), the community has been coming up with <a href="https://etherpad.mozilla.org/sciencelab-2015globalsprint">tons of awesome suggestions</a> for projects to work on; meanwhile, new projects on everything from <a href="http://www.mozillascience.org/projects/gnieh-bluelatex">collaborative LaTeX</a> to <a href="http://www.mozillascience.org/projects/RobSullivan-pmc-ref">sleuthing out what references are open access on BMC</a> to a <a href="http://www.mozillascience.org/projects/reactome">curated bioinformatics reaction pathway database</a> are cropping up on <a href="http://www.mozillascience.org/collaborate/">Collaborate</a>, our project to highlight interesting open source and open science projects you can jump into, and learn by doing. But all of these projects have to answer the same question: how do you present an open source project in a way that appeals to people, gets them interested, and attracts collaborators who will stick around? Here are a few tips on what we've learned during the first six months of Collaborate:

<h2>On Collaborate</h2>

Collaborate compiles and curates open source, open science projects, in order to make those projects discoverable and connect them with potential contributors. But once someone finds their way to your project, it's up to what you present there to convince them to jump in. A few tips for a strong listing:

<ul>
    <li><strong>Seek out users.</strong> Prolific and long-term volunteer contributors to open-source projects are often those who see themselves as the future users of that project. When describing your project, make sure to illustrate who you think the users will be, how you think they will use the project, and what benefit they're going to get out of it. Your goal should be for a visitor to read your project summary and say, 'I would totally use that - let's make it happen!'</li>
    <li><strong>Offer some examples</strong>. Link to examples of the project in action, that help newcomers understand what the project is and get excited about being involved. If your project is such that it can be demoed on a website, all the better - if it's not a web-oriented project, consider producing a blogpost that has figures or examples of your work thus far.</li>
    <li><strong>Describe a roadmap</strong>. The 'Main Deliverables' section of a Collaborate listing is there to let you describe what sort of high-level things collaborators will get to work on on your project. Don't worry about nitty-gritty bugs or feature descriptions - that's what your issue tracker is for. Rather, give a bird's eye view of the direction you're hoping to take the work in, and give people an idea of how they could fit into that.</li>
</ul>

<h2>On GitHub</h2>

Alright! People are excited about your listing on Collaborate, so they've joined your project and forked your repo. How can we turn that initial excitement into enough engagement to stick around and really dig in? A few more tips:

<ul><commit_msg>messing with permalinks<commit_after>---
layout: post
title:  "Teaming Up: How to Build Your Open Science Collaboration"
date:   2015-04-27
permalink: test
---

*This post originally appeared on the Mozilla Science Lab's blog.*

With the <a href="http://www.mozillascience.org/global-sprint-2015">Mozilla Science Global Sprint</a> coming up soon (<strong><a href="https://etherpad.mozilla.org/sciencelab-2015globalsprint">submissions</a> for project ideas are open until May 11</strong>), the community has been coming up with <a href="https://etherpad.mozilla.org/sciencelab-2015globalsprint">tons of awesome suggestions</a> for projects to work on; meanwhile, new projects on everything from <a href="http://www.mozillascience.org/projects/gnieh-bluelatex">collaborative LaTeX</a> to <a href="http://www.mozillascience.org/projects/RobSullivan-pmc-ref">sleuthing out what references are open access on BMC</a> to a <a href="http://www.mozillascience.org/projects/reactome">curated bioinformatics reaction pathway database</a> are cropping up on <a href="http://www.mozillascience.org/collaborate/">Collaborate</a>, our project to highlight interesting open source and open science projects you can jump into, and learn by doing. But all of these projects have to answer the same question: how do you present an open source project in a way that appeals to people, gets them interested, and attracts collaborators who will stick around? Here are a few tips on what we've learned during the first six months of Collaborate:

<h2>On Collaborate</h2>

Collaborate compiles and curates open source, open science projects, in order to make those projects discoverable and connect them with potential contributors. But once someone finds their way to your project, it's up to what you present there to convince them to jump in. A few tips for a strong listing:

<ul>
    <li><strong>Seek out users.</strong> Prolific and long-term volunteer contributors to open-source projects are often those who see themselves as the future users of that project. When describing your project, make sure to illustrate who you think the users will be, how you think they will use the project, and what benefit they're going to get out of it. Your goal should be for a visitor to read your project summary and say, 'I would totally use that - let's make it happen!'</li>
    <li><strong>Offer some examples</strong>. Link to examples of the project in action, that help newcomers understand what the project is and get excited about being involved. If your project is such that it can be demoed on a website, all the better - if it's not a web-oriented project, consider producing a blogpost that has figures or examples of your work thus far.</li>
    <li><strong>Describe a roadmap</strong>. The 'Main Deliverables' section of a Collaborate listing is there to let you describe what sort of high-level things collaborators will get to work on on your project. Don't worry about nitty-gritty bugs or feature descriptions - that's what your issue tracker is for. Rather, give a bird's eye view of the direction you're hoping to take the work in, and give people an idea of how they could fit into that.</li>
</ul>

<h2>On GitHub</h2>

Alright! People are excited about your listing on Collaborate, so they've joined your project and forked your repo. How can we turn that initial excitement into enough engagement to stick around and really dig in? A few more tips:

<ul>
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