Building Biodiversity Information Education: Next Generation Bioinformaticians P. Bryan Heidorn Carole Palmer Dan Wright Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Information Power Tool Training Who needs bioinformaticians? What is a bioinformatician? Who are the bioinformaticians? What do bioinformaticians need to know? Proposed training programs

Reports on cyberinfrastructure and e- science initiatives recognize the shortage in qualified professionals to manage the increasing stores of scientific data (National Science Board, 2005) Who needs bioinformaticians?

What is a bioinformatician? preparing information specialists to work in such “information-rich environments and to participate as peers in problem solving” requires cross training in library and information science and discipline knowledge of scientific domains. Florance et al. (2002)

Who are the bioinformaticians? Biologists at all degree levels self trained in information technology Information technologists at all degree levels self trained in biology (I.e. clueless for X months) Professional Bioinformaticians

Audiences for TDWG Training Practicing Biology Researchers Practicing Computer/Information Scientists Bachelors/Masters/PhD Students –Biology –CS –Biological Informatics

Settings Online Documentation –Standard itself –Primer –PowerPoint (added audio stream) Just in time Workshops (e.g. DigIR training) [A]Synchronous Distance Education

Granularity University training (Semester Granularity) –Masters in Biological Informatics (National Science Foundation under Grant No. IIS to Carole L. Palmer and P. Bryan Heidorn.) –MSLIS Data Curation Concentration (Institute of Museum and Library Services RE ) –Individual Courses

What do bioinformaticians need to know Abstract Skill Sets 1) Evaluation and implementation of information systems: user based assessment and continual quality improvement for the development of tools that work and are used. 2) Information acquisition, management, and dissemination: development of digital libraries, data archives, institutional repositories, and related tools. 3) Information organization and integration: ontology development, structuring information for optimal use and sharing, and standards development.

Six step plan 1)Spur interest in BDI education and outreach among TDWG members or potential members. 2)Develop and ever changing list of the knowledge and skills required in biodiversity informatics. 3)Define educational units which might include key documents, a bibliography, and optional venues to face-to-face and Internet classes.

Six step plan 4) Maintain pointers to relevant educational units where they exist outside of TDWG. 5) Make educational materials where they do not exist, so that it easy for prospective learners can most easily acquire the knowledge. 6) Identify the dependencies among required skills and knowledge so that learners can plot a meaningful path through educational units.

Technology dependencies What must you know to use a standard? Darwin Core –requires a transport layer (DigIR then TAPIR) –XML editors/validators (not all equal XMLSpy, Oxygen, …) DigIR requires PHP, SQL General Computational Compatency TDWG pointers to learning about these technologies

What do new students in botany, entomology, X-ology need to learn about computation before getting to your lab or museum? What (if anything) falls beyond TDWG’s purview?

Biological Informatician’s Skill Sete.g. UIUC, MS in Bioinformatics Core Requirements Computer Science Biology Bioinformatics CS 411: Database Systems CS 473: Algorithms 18 to choose from (= computational biomolecular informatics) Applied Bioinformatics Bioinformatics Laboratory Techniques in Bioinformatics Algorithms in bioinformatics **Principles of Systematics Computing in Molecular Biology Genomics, Proteomics, and Bioinformation

Concentration / Disciplinary Natural Science Ontologies Science Communication Biodiversity and Ecology Informatics Representing and Organizing Information Interfaces to Information Systems Building Digital LibrariesIndexing and Abstracting Health Sciences, Information Services and Resources Architecture of Networked Information Systems Information Sources and Services in the Sciences Implementation of Information Retrieval Systems Use and Users of Information Electronic Publishing Document Modeling Current Courses New this SemesterProposed

Biodiversity Informatics Data Quality and Data Curation Natural History Museum Informatics Social Factors in Data Sharing Interactive Keys Field Monitoring Geographic Information Systems Information Federation in Biology Computational Ecology Biodiversity Ontologies Molecular Bioinformatics

Educational Objects Education materials are type 3 documents. Need templates. Parts of educational objects –Standard –Dependencies –Primer –Demonstrations –Exercises –…

Synchronous Distance Ed Classroom Instructor Students VOIP Conference Skype Video/Desktop sharing Conference e.g.Webhuddle Internet Student Scientist TDWG Meeting