CTSC:TTIC.011309

Back to Collaboration:Harvard_CTSC
Action Items (details below)

1. The final version of the XNAT engineer job description is now available for distribution to potential candidates.
2. All Consortium members are invited to make edits to the slides for the CTSC Imaging presentation to the Divisions Heads meetings (circulated via email and discussed at the next t-con).

Harvard Translational Imaging Consortium Meeting Minutes January 13, 2009

In Attendance (via phone):

• Randy Gollub
• Carolyn Zyloney
• Gordon Harris
• Sarah McMordie
• Ron Kikinis
• Valerie Humblet
• Robert Lenkinski
• Laura Alice
• Jeff Yap
• Bill Hanlon
• Bruce Rosen
• Stephan Voss
• Simon Warfield
• Annick D. Van den Abbeele

1. XNAT Engineer Job Description

Hiring an XNAT engineer is a top priority for the Imaging Consortium and the group agreed that a skilled candidate should be hired as soon as possible.

• Randy circulated the final version of the XNAT engineer job description in an email.
  • Dan Sullivan and Shawn Murphy approved this job description.

• Consortium members are invited to distribute this job description to potential candidates and their institutions HR department.
  • Carolyn circulated the job description to the MGH Martinos Center community and requested that MGH HR post the job.
  • Valerie has agreed to contact the HR department at the BIDMC and request that they post this job.

• Randy has requested that the XNAT Engineer be hired through and placed at Children's Hospital, with Simon Warfield acting as a manager.
  • The Consortium believes that placing the XNAT Engineer at Children's Hospital will facilitate the CTSC Imaging Group's efforts to resolve the issues regarding imaging data transfer between Children's Hospital and the other Harvard CTSC institutions.

• Randy and Carolyn will circulate the position for posting by the end of this week.
  • Consortium members are invited to suggest possible candidates for the position and circulate the job description to any potential candidates and their respective HR departments
  • Randy met with Carol Martin, the CTSC Central Diversity Chair, who has agreed to help recruit diverse and qualified candidates for the position.

• Since the position requires technical knowledge and skills related to the XNAT interface, the Imaging Consortium agreed to invite several experts in bioimaging informatics to help conduct interviews for the position or to suggest possible candidates. Randy will speak with Shawn Murphy, Dan Marcus, Ron Kikinis, and Gabrieli to see if they are interested in working with the Imaging Consortium to find a qualified XNAT Engineer.

• Randy Buckner is head of the Harvard Neuroimaging Informatics effort. Gabrieli has been working with Dr. Buckner for several years to make disseminate XNAT and make a user-friendly virtual XNAT interface. Gabrieli possesses a great deal of knowledge about XNAT.
  • The Consortium agreed to invite Gabrieli to help find a skilled XNAT Engineer and is considering inviting him to work as a consultant on the CTSC Informatics efforts.

• The Harvard CTSC is looking into potential funding sources to support the XNAT proposal.
  • Shawn Murphy will submit a grant proposal to NIBIB to provide support for the XNAT proposal. NIBIB currently does work on i2b2. The grant proposal will likely include a plan to develop XNAT at Harvard and then disseminate it to one to two other sites, such as Washington University in St. Louis.
  • The CTSC can also apply for funding from the BIRN project.
  • Since the XNAT proposal includes a plan for integrating the Slicer viewing tool, NAMIC may be able to provide support for the proposal.

2. Update on the Imaging Liaison position

• Dr. Valerie Humblet will be starting her duties as the Imaging Liaison soon.
  • The HR department at the BIDMC is in the process of setting Valerie up as an employee. Her start date is imminent.
  • Bob has arranged an office and will help her acquire a computer.

• Valerie will be visiting each institution over the next few weeks to get to know the members of the consortium better. The tentative schedule for these visits is:
  • Tuesday January 13th - Valerie will meet with Randy and Carolyn at MGH Charlestown Navy Yard for the 8:30 t-con.
  • Tuesday January 20th - Valerie will go to the TIMC (25 New Chardon St) to meet with Bill Hanlon and Gordon Harris for the 8:30 t-con.
  • A face to face meeting for the group at Children's Hospital is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday January 27th.
  • Tuesday February 3rd- Valerie will visit Jeff Yap at Dana Farber Cancer Institute
  • Tuesday Februaru 10th- Valerie will visit Clare at BWH

• The Group previously discussed changing the title of the Imaging Liaison position. Valerie has been invited to come up with a different name for her position.

3. Progress Report Update

• Randy will send the Progress Report to Gordon Williams by the end of this week.

4. XNAT Engineer Job Description

• The Consortium agreed that the XNAT Engineer position should be posted soon.
  • Consortium members were invited to make any edits to the XNAT engineer job description by Friday January 9th.

• Randy and Carolyn will circulate the position for posting by the end of this week.
  • Consortium members are invited to suggest possible candidates for the position and circulate the job description to any potential candidates and their respective HR departments
  • Randy met with Carol Martin, the CTSC Central Diversity Chair, who has agreed to help recruit diverse and qualified candidates for the position.

• Since the position requires technical knowledge and skills related to the XNAT interface, the Imaging Consortium agreed to invite several experts in bioimaging informatics to help conduct interviews for the position or to suggest possible candidates. Randy will speak with Shawn Murphy, Dan Marcus, Ron Kikinis, and Gabrieli to see if they are interested in working with the Imaging Consortium to find a qualified XNAT Engineer.

• Randy Buckner is head of the Harvard Neuroimaging Informatics effort. Gabrieli has been working with Dr. Buckner for several years to make disseminate XNAT and make a user-friendly virtual XNAT interface. Gabrieli possesses a great deal of knowledge about XNAT.
  • The Consortium agreed to invite Gabrieli to help find a skilled XNAT Engineer and is considering inviting him to work as a consultant on the CTSC Informatics efforts.

• The Harvard CTSC is looking into potential funding sources to support the XNAT proposal.
  • Shawn Murphy will submit a grant proposal to NIBIB to provide support for the XNAT proposal. NIBIB currently does work on i2b2. The grant proposal will likely include a plan to develop XNAT at Harvard and then disseminate it to one to two other sites, such as Washington University in St. Louis.
  • The CTSC can also apply for funding from the BIRN project.
  • Since the XNAT proposal includes a plan for integrating the Slicer viewing tool, NAMIC may be able to provide support for the proposal.

5. Consultation Service

• Randy met with the designers of the web based consultation request service.
  • Web based consultation requests will go live on January 15th. It be modeled after the word/pdf consultation request form that is already posted on the Catalyst Imaging site and after the bio-statistics web based request service, which is already live.
  • The consultation requests will be linked to an excel spreadsheet that was developed by the biostatistics group. The spreadsheet will record data such as the date of the consultation requests and will help track each request.

• Randy met with the CTSC Central Evaluation team.
  • The Evaluation Team will work with the Imaging Group to evaluate the effectiveness of the Imaging Consultation Service.
  • Consortium members are invited to suggest ideas for evaluating consultations. Randy and Valerie will meet with the Evaluation Team in the next few weeks to work on the evaluation plan.
  • The Genetics and Biostatistics groups will also work with the Evaluation Team.

• Updates on the effectiveness of the CTSC Imaging Consultation Service, with supporting data, will be reported in the Harvard CTSC Progress Reports. The first Progress Report is due soon.

• The Imaging Consortium plans on meeting with the individual departments at each hospital to advertise the consultation service.
  • The Consortium agreed that one of the first priorities is to make presentations to the Radiology Departments and other departments with Imaging expertise. During these meetings, the Imaging Liaison will describe the goals of the consultation service and look for volunteers who would like to be put on a list of potential consultants or collaborators to help respond to consultation requests.
  • The Consortium will also arrange meetings with the other departments at each institution (e.g medicine, surgery, pediatrics) to inform them of the services available through the Imaging consultation service. Many consultation requests will likely come from investigators within these departments.
  • The Consortium will edit the PowerPoint presentation at next Tuesday's t-con so that it is ready for these meetings. Presentations will include a 10 minute slide show and time for questions at the end.
  • The presentations will be given at the regular monthly Department administrative meetings. Consortium members are asked to contact the Radiology Departments at their institution so that these presentations can be given starting at the end of January.
• Valerie will give the presentations. Randy or Bruce and a consortium member from that site will be present at each presentation.

6. Institutional representatives in CTSC Central

• The Harvard Catalyst intranetincludes lists of the members of the various CTSC committees.
  • The logon name and password will be circulated via email.