RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 A global perspective on bioinformatics training needs
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 098996
DO 10.1101/098996
A1 Michelle D. Brazas
A1 Cath Brooksbank
A1 Rafael C. Jimenez
A1 Sarah Blackford
A1 Patricia M Palagi
A1 Javier De Las Rivas
A1 B.F. Francis Ouellette
A1 Judit Kumuthini
A1 Eija Korpelainen
A1 Fran Lewitter
A1 Celia W.G. van Gelder
A1 Nicola Mulder
A1 Manuel Corpas
A1 Maria Victoria Schneider
A1 Tin Wee Tan
A1 Dave Clements
A1 Angela Davies
A1 Teresa K. Attwood
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/27/098996.abstract
AB In the last decade, life-science research has become increasingly data-intensive and computational. Nevertheless, basic bioinformatics and data stewardship are still only rarely taught in life-science degree programmes, creating a widening skills gap that spans educational levels and career roles. To better understand this situation, we ran surveys to determine how the skills dearth is affecting the need for bioinformatics training worldwide. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we found that respondents wanted more short courses to help boost their expertise and confidence in data analysis and interpretation. However, it was evident that most respondents appreciated their need for training only after designing their experiments and collecting their data. This is clearly rather late in the research workflow, and suboptimal from a training perspective, as skills acquired to address a specific need at a particular time are seldom retained, engendering a cycle of low confidence in trainees. To ensure that such skill gaps do not continue to create barriers to the progress of research, we argue that universities should strive to bring their life-science curricula into the digital-data era. Meanwhile, the demand for point-of-need training in bioinformatics and data stewardship will grow. While this situation persists, international groups like GOBLET are increasing their efforts to enlarge the community of trainers and quench the global thirst for bioinformatics training.