Introduction
To help you make the most of the course, the following is a brief explanation of how the course is organised, the applications we are using to run the course and how you can get support. This should enable all participants to have the best possible learning experience with us.
About the course
This knowledge exchange workshop is an opportunity for managers of bioinformatics core facilities from Latin America to learn from EMBL-EBI’s service teams and from each other. These facilities play an essential role in enabling research in the molecular life sciences. The landscape is constantly evolving as new research tools emerge, as experiments become increasingly data-intensive, and as their clients – experimental researchers – become more exposed to the power of data-driven biology.
After this course, you should be able to:
- Identify the strengths and limitations of your core facility.
- Apply a framework for designing new services (including training your users) or redesigning existing services.
- Explain different cost models, their pros and cons, and how to apply them in the context of your core facility.
- Identify opportunities of collaboration in LATAM and available resources from the region and EBI.
How is the course set up?
As you can see from the programme, live sessions will take place each day on Zoom from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm Costa Rica time (UTC-6).
Platforms
| Slack | To communicate outside of live sessions and during group work time we will use Slack. Please read the Slack help sheet for more information. |
| Zoom | Zoom will be used for our live lectures, challenges and check-ins. Please arrive at least 5 minutes before the session starts. Make sure your screen name is your actual name as you registered for the course (no nicknames please). If you are having trouble connecting, take a look at the Zoom help sheet. Please mute yourself when joining to avoid feedback. The trainers will let you know how best to ask questions during the session. Zoom breakout rooms will be used during some sessions. The trainers will explain more about how this will work and how to ask for help. |
| Google Docs | Google docs are often used for group editing, particularly for group projects. This handbook may provide you with links to any Google Docs you may need. |
Where can I ask questions?
- Post any questions that arise into the #general channel in the Slack workspace.
- The trainers will let you know how best to ask questions during the session
- Research-related questions can be direct messaged to trainers, although there is no guarantee they will answer them. They will not write your thesis for you, but they will help you if they can.
- If you have any problems with accessing the course, please post them to the #technical_support Slack channel, which will be monitored by the team throughout the course (09:00-17:00 Costa Rica time).
Our advice for making the most of this course
- Turn off all other internet-using devices.
- Carve out full days as if you were attending an onsite course. Bioinformatics is as fiddly as wet-lab research can be, so you have to factor in trouble-shooting time. This is easier if you don’t have a deadline or a meeting to make on the day.
- Embrace the community. There are many other trainees on this course who want to start using bioinformatics in their research, so do reach out to them.
- Virtual learning and teaching is harder than face to face. There could be connection issues, technical things going wrong, people dropping out and children or pets might run in mid-way through a sentence.
- Just remember: be patient, be caring, be kind, and we will get through this together and even with a smile on our faces.