Preparing to Submit

Forecasts can be submitted once per week. Ground truth data are uploaded to this repository between Friday and Monday. Submission window open right after the new data has been uploaded and closes on the next Wednesday at 23:59 CET. Forecast can be submitted once at any time during this window.

We rely on GitHub to store and interact with forecasts. To submit a forecast, you will need a free GitHub account.

Broadly, the steps to submit are:

1. Fork this repository (called flu-forecast-hub)

   • Use the Fork button at the top right of the main page of the repository
   • (optional) In case you want to use the CLI and keep your fork synchronized with the main repository, configure a remote and sync your fork

2. Create a metadata file, including information about the team and methods. The metadata file should be placed in the folder model-metadata and named:

   team-model.yml

   Where:

   • team is the team name (corresponding to the field team_abbr of the metadata file, see below)
   • model is the name of your model (corresponding to the field model_abbr of the metadata file, see below)

   Both team and model must be less than 15 characters and can include only uppercase or lowercase letters, digits, the _ and the + sign. If submitting multiple models, please create a team-model folder for each one.

3. Create a new sub-directory for your team. Each team stores their forecasts in a separate folder within the model-output folder of this repository. Before submitting your first forecast, please create and name your own folder in the format:

   team-model

   Where:

   • team is the team name (corresponding to the field team_abbr of the metadata file, see below)
   • model is the name of your model (corresponding to the field model_abbr of the metadata file, see below)

   Both team and model must be less than 15 characters and can include only uppercase or lowercase letters, digits, the _ and the + sign. If submitting multiple models, please create a team-model folder for each one.

4. Submit forecasts by creating a pull request

It is possible to submit the forecasts in two different ways, depending on personal preferences and technical expertise: the gitHub Web interface and the command line. The steps above are explained in more detail in the following pages, providing instructions for:

• submitting via the website
• submitting via the command line

If you are new to GitHub and pull request, here are some helpful beginner guides to Github.