1. EMBER A European Multimedia Bioinformatics Educational Resource

2. The Background vBioinformatics is a ‘new’ multidisciplinary science vinvolves both biology & computing vStill too few established university courses available vskill shortage in a high-demand area vEMBER was conceived as a collaborative project to vdraw together existing EMBnet partners vdraw on skills & expertise of EMBnet teachers vexploit EMBnet’s existing pool of teaching materials  provide a stand-alone multimedia bioinformatics course

3. EMBnet vEuropean Molecular Biology Network vnetwork of European bioinformation providers v30 National Nodes mandated by government vUK National Node is HGMP-RC at Hinxton vnow many non-European Nodes (e.g., China, Canada, Cuba..) v7 Specialist Nodes vEBI, Sanger, ICGEB, ETI, MIPS, Roche, U.Manchester vEMBnet was established in 1988 vactivities include provision of databases and software via login accounts, user support & training vmainly supported by EC funds and Node subscriptions

5. EMBER Consortium vUniversity of Manchester (Coordinator) vSwiss Institute of Bioinformatics - Switzerland vUniversity of Nijmegen - The Netherlands vSouth African National Bioinformatics Institute - South Africa vEuropean Bioinformatics Institute - UK vGulbenkian Institute of Science - Portugal vUniversity of Bruxelles - Belgium vInstitute for Marine Biosciences - Canada vResearch Institute for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology - Turkey vExpert Centre for Taxonomic Identification -The Netherlands

6. Manchester coordination vExisting on-line bioinformatics practical vin use world-wide vincluding in-house courses

7. Manchester coordination vExisting text-book vin use world-wide vincluding in-house courses

8. The Project vEMBER will vcollate, evaluate & amalgamate existing materials vrevise & update these where necessary vadd new material in line with perceived needs vUse the updated and new material to vextend our existing introductory text-book vextend our existing Web practical (produced professionally) vdevelop a parallel (Web-independent) course on CD-ROM vEMBER will be suitable for delivery vas part of conventional face-to-face courses vor in stand-alone, self-paced settings (e.g., the workplace)

9. The future vEMBER commenced on 1 May 2001. It will vrun for 2 years vsupport 2 postdocs at Manchester + 1 at SIB vThe team will liaise with vManchester’s DL course developers vthe Star Alliance vStanford, Sydney, South Africa, Singapore & Sweden vMay lead to the development of a worldwide education group ve.g., forming an education committee for ISCB

12. WP1: Review of skill shortages WP2: Formulation of new syllabus WP3: Material unification & assessment tools WP4: Review of IPRWP5: Manuscript & course revisions WP6: Website productionWP7: CD-ROM production WP8: Trials, evaluation & feedback WP9: Management