Abstract 2019 Using NCBI Resources to Develop Case Studies for Student-Directed Discovery

Biology research projects involve finding relevant literature and biological information, such genome- and gene-level sequence datasets, gene expression studies with data, and 3D macromolecular structures. Learning how to perform these tasks is often a key component of undergraduate research experiences, as many students may not have gained these skills in their regular biology coursework. Therefore, facilitators and mentors need to provide undergraduates with hands-on experience in using free, accessible, reliable and high-quality bioinformatics resources for scientific discovery through guided and independent real-world (or case study) examples. NCBI resources provide ample opportunity for student-driven exploration of biological data and gaining experience with tools that can be helpful throughout their careers. However, the sheer amount of data and diversity of NCBI resources can be overwhelming. Thus, this presentation aims to provide educators with some tips and tricks for developing materials to introduce and train student to perform web-based bioinformatic discovery. One of our objectives as the NCBI Education Team is creating case-based, interactive workshops that include detailed, re-usable materials. We use a workshop development methodology in which we first conduct market research to define our audience and learning objectives. Then, we map out a generalized workflow relevant a research community, from a relevant entry point to the target objective, using our expertise with the NCBI ecosystem to identify relevant NCBI tools and data. Once this is defined, we create a case study mapped to this workflow with relevant NCBI resources that is likely of significant interest to our target audience. After the workshop is presented, we collect participant feedback and use it to prepare future iterations of related workshops. Over nearly a decade, this has proven to be a very successful strategy for educational materials development. For example, during Summer 2023, we gave a series of six workshops targeting undergraduate educators and student researchers. This workshop series reached 635 participants from across 62 countries, and received Net Promoter scores between 54-86. Notably, between 88-95% of participants plan to use something they learned in either their research or teaching, demonstrating the relevance and utility of our chosen topics and case studies. We will showcase several concrete examples of this successful case study development process. In doing so, we will show some little-known ways that searching in NCBI resources can assist in the development of new case study-based exercises and highlight relevant updates to NCBI products. We will also point out how to find a good amount of existing, diverse educational materials and point out how to adapt these by adjusting changing the case study's organism or target biological molecule. This presentation and the resources described in it are supported by the National Center for Biotechnology Information of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health.