A NATIONAL EDUCATION AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM FOR WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT Lead Team, Workforce DTF Rebecca Jackson, MD (co-Lead)

Goal of Workforce Development Domain Task Force IOM Report - NCATS ACWG The translational science workforce has the skills and knowledge necessary to advance translation of discoveries. This goal focuses on: Building an environment that supports and values translational science as “the place to go” for those who want to pursue high-impact careers in health sciences. Training, educating and providing all members of the research team with the skills sets and tools needed to advance the field of translational science Developing a translational science workforce that can meet the needs of today and tomorrow.

The Challenge Challenges: A shrinking pool of clinician and other translational investigators Need for training to acquire unique skills and expertise Address skills required for tomorrow’s needs Exposure to breadth of careers and perspectives (e.g. community, industry and government perspectives on aspects of translational research) Avoid redundancies (or complement) local resources Cost and time efficient On-demand resources allow access without extending length of time of training Can be used when new approaches develop in field (or are needed)

The Opportunity Provide a platform to facilitate the dissemination of educational resources to share flexible learning tools and schedules for all members of the workforce Considerations How do we identify the unique assets of the consortium to develop the translational science workforce? What are the greatest scientific and career training needs (and the training resources ) that prepare the workforce to seize these opportunities? Ensure that we consider a dynamic platform that supports education and workforce development across the continuum of career or for different members of the team

Alignment with NCATS and CTSA Workforce Development Goals Incubator for novel training models, core competencies and fundamental skill sets Be more inclusive, provide more flexible learning modules for all members of the workforce e.g. GCP training platform Embrace Innovative Curricula and Team-Based Education and Training e.g. entrepreneurship, regulatory science, community engagement Recruit and support diverse research team members who are underrepresented in translational science research Provide a plan to facilitate the dissemination of educational resources to promote flexible learning tools and schedules for all members of the workforce

Development of Federated Platform for Sharing Resources An integrated and extensible “home” for workforce development for clinical and translational research Core Competencies Educational Resources Foundational courses and education tools for CTS training Unique programs (accessible expertise not widely available) Resources to enhance implementation of best practices Sustainable and innovative workforce Foundation Landscape of resources CT University Ultimate Objective

This is not a New Idea- So Why Did the Last Attempt not Succeed? Created centralized registry (listings) of “boutique” courses rather than sharing actual educational resources Attempted to identify and post “best in class” Selective rather than inclusive Concerns regarding maintenance of quality of courses and materials Where does oversight of materials reside? Lack of organizational structure for cataloging resources No robust search engine to enhance accessibility Governance CTSA Consortium? NCATS? Local CTSAs? Open source vs password protected? Lack of metrics and assessment of quality Sustainability

The Foundation for Success-Our Education Resources Each CTSA has developed innovative training modules and resources to support attainment of core competencies and fundamental skill sets CTSA also have areas of unique expertise that might not be available at all CTSA institutions e.g. use of natural animal models of disease, phase 1 trial design, regulatory science, etc Entrepreneurship, community engagement Education and training resources from other government (e.g. CC, FDA or NSF) and private sectors have been developed offering unique perspectives and content critical to enhance effective collaborations The challenge is that these resources are underutilized and often inaccessible Difficult to identify where resources might exist that can be leveraged Contributes to redundancy and inefficiency The Present The Future

Assessing the Education Resource Landscape Establish goals of sharing Linked to competencies? Unique courses? Teaching/learning materials How many shareable resources exist Are CTSAs and other agencies/groups willing to share What specific resources could be included Breadth of resources How to identify an educational resource MOOC and blended Slides and/or video, pod casts, ibook Should we prioritize what materials are included Should other career development materials be included

Facilitating sharing: Creating a Federated Education Network Centralization –Pros: Eliminates redundancy, single view of data, rapid query execution, consistent definitions –Cons: Slow to deploy, higher costs, difficult to customize data analytic workflows Federation –Pros: Quick to deploy, low (shared) costs, flexibility, ability to customize, local control over data –Cons: Redundant infrastructure, possibility of conflicting data models or definitions, query performance time, technical complexity

Centralized vs. Federated Repositories DimensionCentralized RepositoryFederated Repository Data IntegrationPerformed using centralized ETL (extract-transform-load) tools, requires use of a single data model Performed using distributed ETL (extract-transform-load) tools, supports multiple data models Data Storage and ManagementConventional or emergent database technologies (SQL, document-based, triple “Store”) Data Discovery and QueryStructure query language (SQL, SPARQL, Xquery) Structure query language (SQL, SPARQL, Xquery), distributed query languages (DCQL) SecurityManaged centrally by individuals responsible for repository Managed by individual data stewards (local control) ScalabilityMultiple instances can be “clustered” Distributed network approach (analogous to commodity internet) PerformanceNon-linear growth in computational and physical penalties relative to scale of data Linear growth in computational and physical penalties relative to scale of data CostNon-linear growth in cost relative to scale of data Linear growth in cost relative to scale of data

Need for Structured Organization of Educational Resources The Problem Collections of educational resources too unstructured: from a variety of incompatible sources no standard naming convention each with a custom browsing and querying mechanism and poor interaction with other educational sources Difficult to use and understand the available information and knowledge Unable to search and accurately access desired materials The Solution-Organize Educational Resources through Establishing and/or Adoption of Ontologies provides structured organization of knowledge formal specification of how to represent objects, concepts and relationships among them shared understanding [language] for communicating biological information overcomes semantic heterogeneity commonly encountered in biomedical databases interpretable by humans and by computer programs. expandable

Developing Ontologies for Education Resources

How do we find the right resources- Need for Query Tool Extensible hybrid query tool (semantic + syntactic) Syntactic interoperability: information is correctly exchanged between two systems according to structured rules whether or not sensible meaning is preserved. Semantic interoperability: Computer systems communicate information and have its meaning be properly interpreted by the receiving system Semantically anchored discovery of both local (at each CTSA site) and remote (across consortium) linked data Integrated discovery of heterogeneous knowledge sources eagle-i is one open source option Resource information publishing platform Network search application Resources remain and are controlled locally Open-linked data

Assessing Quality and Effectiveness Metrics Need to define metrics of success Assess attainment of knowledge or competencies? Build in use assessments of quality and benefit Structured brief survey vs Amazon or Trip Advisor-like user assessment

Ensuring sustainability Initial deployment will require financial and personnel resources However costs for maintenance can be minimized with careful selection of approach Need to select open source platform Ideally would leverage platforms already adopted in at least some CTSAs Curation and up keep of resources must stay local and not add additional burden Resources are maintained locally Users group can enhance platform, ontologies can be expanded and local sites can add resources (or remove/protect) easily Accessibility of content to community can differ for different materials Open source vs. password protected vs. only at institution (or with enrollment in blended course)

Next Steps to Developing Selected DTF Projects/Activities Identify biggest opportunities What challenge(s) do we want educational resource to address? Critical to manage scope of project Solicit partnerships from a wide spectrum of experts Work with Informatics DTF for input especially on ontologies Identify expertise on metrics Focus on innovation and efficiency Proposed timeline to stand up phase 1 in next 18 months Approach (next steps) Establish WG for project Present to Steering Committee at May Face-to-Face Summit of education and informatics leaders from phase 1 institutions Establish goals and project phasing Expeditiously survey landscape of unique resources Identify where we can leverage and disseminate existing resources Develop framework of ontologies