Scott Edmunds

![Cassyni X Sciety
crossover](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Open-science-Ftw-1024x1024.png){.aligncenter
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**Innovation + Integration = Cassyni X Sciety** 
As an Open Science publisher, we've [written
extensively](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/birthday-at-ismb2022/)
on [our aims](https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giac067) to think and
act wider to better address the [UNESCO Open Science
Recommendation](https://doi.org/10.54677/MNMH8546). Particularly the key
pillars of "Open Engagement of Societal Actors" and "Open Dialogue with
other Knowledge systems" where we need to improve the inclusiveness and
accessibility of our research by communicating it to a much wider
audience.

With these appeals for wider dialogue in science we've experimented with
video abstracts in [our GigaTV youtube
channel](https://www.youtube.com/@GigaScienceJournal/),  as well as
teaming up with [Cassyni](https://cassyni.com/) to disseminate scholarly
research through more discursive and interactive virtual seminars. Where
researchers and reviewer communities dive into the details of a paper,
offering critical discussions, insights, and interpretations. In a
similar manner, we have also opened up the publication process in our
*GigaByte* journal by linking our mandated open peer reviews and use of
preprints by crosslinking and highlighting these links using
[bioRxiv](https://connect.biorxiv.org/eval/?platform=z4oRbDWY&subject=all&type=trip)
and [Sciety](https://sciety.org/groups/gigabyte/feed) integrations.
Sharing these preprint peer reviews [(AKA
"evaluations"](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/peer-review-week-2023/))
in [Sciety 'Reviewing Groups'](https://sciety.org/groups/gigabyte/feed)
to enable further discoverability and insight for readers.

These parallel Open Science efforts have now crossed over, with Sciety
now integrating video seminars held on
[Cassyni](https://cassyni.com/?ref=blog.sciety.org) as part of the paper
evaluation history. This Sciety X Cassyni crossover helping enrich the
evaluation history of preprints, making it easier for researchers to
find valuable insights and trusted perspectives on the emerging
research.

This new feature is f[irst
showcased](https://sciety.org/articles/activity/10.46471/gigabyte.137?ref=blog.sciety.org)
on the preprint "[Building a community-driven bioinformatics platform to
facilitate Cannabis sativa multi-omics
research](https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.10.02.616368)" where the
*[GigaByte](https://gigabytejournal.com/?ref=blog.sciety.org)* author
discusses [the work in their preprint and
paper](https://doi.org/10.46471/gigabyte.137) in a Cassyni-hosted
seminar that was [organised back in
October](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/cannabis-genomics-cassyni-seminar/).

You can read more in the Sciety blog [where they
explain](https://blog.sciety.org/weeknotes/sciety-product-news-07-2025/)
that integrating video into Sciety brings a fresh dimension to how
preprints are reviewed and shared:

- **Richer Context:** Video discussions provide a nuanced understanding
 of a preprint that written evaluations may not fully capture.
- **Community Engagement:** They spotlight the collaborative effort of
 review communities, showcasing the dialogue that builds trust and
 transparency in early-stage research.
- **Discoverability and Credit:** Linking each seminar to a DOI ensures
 these contributions are easily discoverable and citable, giving proper
 recognition to the reviewers and communities involved.

For researchers reading preprints, this means a more dynamic way to
engage with the science, hear from experts, and decide what to explore
further. For communities and reviewers, it's a way to amplify their
efforts, make their work more visible, and demonstrate their commitment
to rigorous and transparent evaluation practices.

Further showcasing the many external tools and integrations we use in
*GigaByte* to open up our papers, the example used here also includes a
very [detailed protocols.io
protocol](https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.n2bvj3nz5lk5/v3) that
is embedded as figure 6 in the paper.
[Protocols.io](https://www.protocols.io/) being another Open Science
tool we've been working into our publication workflow [since
2016](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/reproducible-research-resources-researching-parasites/)
that allows authors to take advantage of their open access repository of
scientific methods and a collaborative protocol-centred platform. We
[promote](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/having-a-finger-on-the-pulse-of-data-citation/)
the [Data Citation
Principles](https://force11.org/info/joint-declaration-of-data-citation-principles-final/),
and as Cassyni, protocols.io and bioRxiv all provide DOIs the different
Research Objects (and any versions of them) can all be independently
cited, linked and tracked (see the References below).

Opening up more parts of the research process, and integrating tools
that make this more accessible and easy to comprehend helps build trust
and engagement at a [critical time for
science](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-real-reason-people-dont-trust-in-science-has-nothing-to-do-with/).
Collaborations and connections such of these are easy wins for Open
Science, improving Open Science workflows and uptake without additional
effort for the researcher. At GigaScience Press we will continue to
experiment with new ways to further open up our published research, and
you can see any future Cassyni X Sciety crossover papers by following
our [Cassyni](https://cassyni.com/s/gigascience-press) and
[Sciety](https://sciety.org/groups/gigabyte) feeds.

<https://cassyni.com/s/gigascience-press>

<https://sciety.org/groups/gigabyte>

### **References**

Mansueto L et al., Building a community-driven bioinformatics platform
to facilitate *Cannabis sativa* multi-omics research, *GigaByte* 2024
<https://doi.org/10.46471/gigabyte.137>

Mansueto L et al., Building a community-driven bioinformatics platform
to facilitate *Cannabis sativa* multi-omics research. *bioRxiv*
2024.10.02.616368; <https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.10.02.616368>

L Mansueto et al. ICGRC Portal Tripal Data Generation and Setup.
*protocols.io* 2024.
<https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.n2bvj3nz5lk5/v3>

L Mansueto et al. (2024, October 24), New bioinformatics resources from
The International Cannabis Genome Research Consortium. *Cassyni* 2024.
<https://doi.org/10.52843/cassyni.y1p61f>

The post [Crossing the Open Science Streams: Cassyni X Sciety (and
GigaByte)
FTW](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/cassyni-x-sciety/){rel="nofollow"}
appeared first on
[GigaBlog](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog){rel="nofollow"}.

Building a community-driven bioinformatics platform to facilitate Cannabis sativa multi-omics research

Building a community-driven bioinformatics platform to facilitateCannabis sativamulti-omics research

ICGRC Portal Tripal Data Generation and Setup v3

New bioinformatics resources from The International Cannabis Genome Research Consortium

Innovation + Integration = Cassyni X Sciety

As an Open Science publisher, we’ve written extensively on our aims to think and act wider to better address the UNESCO Open Science Recommendation.

Crossing the Open Science Streams: Cassyni X Sciety (and GigaByte) FTW

Reaching new highs in Cannabis sativa Omics There is a growing interest in Cannabis (Cannabis sativa) research, and recent changes in regulations have spurred numerous genomic studies of this once-prohibited plant. Industrial hemp and medical marijuana are now global multibillion-dollar industries, but due to its widespread prohibition in the 20th and early 21st century it [&#8230;]
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/cannabis-genomics-cassyni-seminar/">Getting deep into the weeds of Cannabis genomics: Join our first Cassyni Seminar</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog">GigaBlog</a>.

![Internation Cannabis Genomics
Consortium](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/icgrc2-banner.png){.aligncenter
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**Reaching new highs in *Cannabis sativa* Omics** 
There is a growing interest in Cannabis (*Cannabis sativa*) research,
and recent changes in regulations have spurred numerous genomic studies
of this once-prohibited plant. Industrial hemp and medical marijuana are
now global multibillion-dollar industries, but due to its widespread
prohibition in the 20th and early 21st century it has missed out on many
technological advances in molecular breeding that have greatly benefited
the improvement of traditional crops. A wealth of sequencing data has
started to be generated (including [this high-quality medicinal cannabis
reference](https://doi.org/10.46471/gigabyte.10) published in
*GigaByte*) but there is a need for genomics and bioinformatics portals
to assist the access and analysis of the growing amounts of genotyping
data from diverse accessions. These platforms aiding less-bioinformatics
savvy plant breeders through the discovery of alleles for important
traits, but have currently been absent for cannabis.

The ***I****nternational **C**annabis **G**enome **R**esearch
**C**onsortium* (ICGRC) has taken up the task of providing an
authoritative source of rigorous and peer-reviewed scientific
information relating to *Cannabis* genetics, genomics and phenotyping.
Just out in *GigaByte* are new papers presenting two of these outputs:
the [CannSeek database](https://snp.icgrc.info/cannseek/) bringing
together the many genomics datasets; and a community-driven [ICGRC
bioinformatics platform](https://icgrc.info/) to facilitate Cannabis
multi-omics research. The papers promoting these resources, providing
details on how to use them, and most importantly providing insight into
how they were put together. Including
[protocols](https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.n2bvj3nz5lk5/v3)
(handily hosted in our [favourite protocols.io
platform](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/reproducible-research-resources-researching-parasites/))
providing detailed information for others to set up similar platforms,
especially for crops like Cannabis where only sequence datasets are
readily available.

**Budding new forms of Science Communication** 
*GigaByte* has tried to make this information as accessible as possible
with embedded protocols and interactive figures (check out ![Animated
GIF showing Cannabis Genomics figure
9](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/97b7zr.gif){.alignright
.size-full .wp-image-5917 decoding="async" width="258"
height="224"}[figure
9](https://gigabytejournal.com/articles/135/assets/figure-9.html) of the
[CannSeek paper](https://doi.org/10.46471/gigabyte.135)), but to provide
even more insight we are teaming up with [Cassyni Science Communication
Seminars](https://cassyni.com/) to host an online seminar with the
authors of these papers. Providing an opportunity to get firsthand
insight from the authors on why these platforms are important, how you
can use them, and the technical details on how they were developed. Also
providing an opportunity to ask questions to them directly, both during
the live talk, and asynchronously before and after the talk using
 Cassyni's Q&A functionality. We've [talked
previously](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/birthday-at-ismb2022/) of
our aims to think and act wider in Open Science, our next [10-year
goal](https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giac067) to better address the
[UNESCO Open Science Recommendation](https://doi.org/10.54677/MNMH8546).
Particularly the key pillars of "Open Engagement of Societal Actors" and
"Open Dialogue with other Knowledge systems" where we need to improve
the inclusiveness and accessibility of our research by communicating it
to a much wider audience.

With these appeals for wider dialogue in science we've experimented with
video abstracts in [our GigaTV youtube
channel](https://www.youtube.com/@GigaScienceJournal/),  and taking this
a step further we've now teamed up with [Cassyni](https://cassyni.com/),
a platform that helps academics discover and disseminate scholarly
research through more discursive and interactive virtual seminars.
Helping simplify the process of scheduling and running academic
seminars, and publishing all the resulting talks with a DOI to make them
citeable and part of the world's largest freely accessible and fully
searchable research seminar library.

![Cannabis Genomics
seminar](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-19-at-6.37.20-PM-1024x560.png){.aligncenter
.wp-image-5914 decoding="async" width="754" height="412"
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sizes="(max-width: 754px) 100vw, 754px"}

Join us on 24^th^ October at 10pm AEDT/12 noon BST/1pm CEST/7am ET for
t[his first seminar](https://cassyni.com/events/6ttAf8cL1ruzkWZznh5Xed),
or watch the recording of the talk afterwards here and on our [Cassyni
page](https://cassyni.com/events/6ttAf8cL1ruzkWZznh5Xed). [First author
Locedie Mansueto from ]{.ant-typography .ant-typography-ellipsis
.ant-typography-ellipsis-single-line .css-1ugl0ze}[Southern Cross
University in Australia will be presenting on both of these papers, and
then participate in a Q&A to answer any questions on how to use and
reproduce these resources. ]{.ant-typography .ant-typography-ellipsis
.ant-typography-ellipsis-single-line .css-1ugl0ze}Follow the
[Gigascience Press Seminar Series
page](https://cassyni.com/s/gigascience-press) for news on future
seminars and talks.

 

#### References

Braich S et al.,  A new and improved genome sequence of *Cannabis
sativa*, *Gigabyte*, 2020  <https://doi.org/10.46471/gigabyte.10>

Mansueto L et al., CannSeek? Yes we Can! An open-source single
nucleotide polymorphism database and analysis portal for *Cannabis
sativa*, *GigaByte*, 2024  <https://doi.org/10.46471/gigabyte.135>

Mansueto L et al., Building a community-driven bioinformatics platform
to facilitate *Cannabis sativa* multi-omics research,GigaByte,2024
<https://doi.org/10.46471/gigabyte.137>

The post [Getting deep into the weeds of Cannabis genomics: Join our
first Cassyni
Seminar](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/cannabis-genomics-cassyni-seminar/){rel="nofollow"}
appeared first on
[GigaBlog](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog){rel="nofollow"}.

Reaching new highs in
 
 Cannabis sativa
 
 Omics

There is a growing interest in Cannabis (

 Cannabis sativa

) research, and recent changes in regulations have spurred numerous genomic studies of this once-prohibited plant.

Rogue Scholar Posts

Crossing the Open Science Streams: Cassyni X Sciety (and GigaByte) FTW

Getting deep into the weeds of Cannabis genomics: Join our first Cassyni Seminar