Srebrenka Robic Introducing Bioinformatics to Agnes Scott College

Profile of institution Liberal arts Women’s college Approx. 900 full-time students Diverse student body, high percentage first-generation, Pell-grant recipients Approximately students a year graduate with biology and biochemistry/molecular biology majors

Agnes Scott Bio Major at a Glance BIO 191 &BIO 192 Intro Biology Sequence BIO 210 Communications and Inquiry in Biology Calculus or Pre-calculus Statistics Two chemistry courses Upper-level electives in biology (Bioinformatics, BIO 260, is one of them)

Bioinformatics course overview Introduction to sequence data mining, analysis tools and interpretation Genomics Education Partnership (GEP) research component in Drosophila annotation Each student also completes their own mini research project (topic based on student interest)

Challenges Only able to teach every other year The only course in bioinformatics, no CS or other related courses offered Finding appropriate teaching materials and relevant bioinformatics tools Evaluation of student success – what learning goals are really important?

Opportunities Exciting and relevant new area – students who take the course appreciate competencies they gain form it Relevance to women’s science education The ability to engage with current relevant problems in biology and work with real data New introductory biology sequence as a gateway to basic bioinformatics education