is to teach computer-aided sequence analysis: Today, every molecular biologist has to use several software tools on the Internet to analyse the rapidly growing amount of biological sequence data (genes, proteins, structures). Many scientists lack the understanding of mathematic and algorithmic basics of these tools. At their own institutes or work places they cannot find any training in this respect. The BioComputing Course of the Virtual School of Natural Sciences is intended to close this gap.
In 1996, 37 students from 14 countries participated in the course (1995: 34 students from 13 countries). Their educational background spread from the undergraduate to a professor from a different discipline. They were divided into 6 groups, each being supervised by one lecturer. Every study group was composed of people with either knowledge in computer science or in biology/biomedicine.
Each group studied the Hypertext Coursebook together. Once per week 2-hour group sessions took place in the virtual BioMOO conference system. The text, exercises, solutions, and sometimes questions regarding a student's current research activity, were discussed. We found that e-mail and mailing-lists represented valuable media for subsequent discussion of open questions.
Eight
authors from Germany, USA and Mexico wrote the 6 chapters of the Hypertext
Coursebook. Beside the relevant definitions, algorithms and illustrations,
it includes hypertext-links to the BioComputing tools on the Internet.
These tools were explained during the course.
Three computer science and biology professors, 2 graduated biologists and one PhD bioinformatics student (from Germany, USA, Mexico and France) organized the course in 1996. Prominent scientists were invited to give occasional guest lectures.
had a substantial share in the success of the course: Internet technology is not as easy to use as one might expect. Many students "paid" for the course by providing assistance. They offered their special expertise and helped
Other volunteers created registration and evaluation forms, graphics and diagrams, and animations and visualizations of algorithms. The full list of authors, instructors and contributors fills several pages, and thus we cannot list them all, but we must mention Gustavo Glusman, coordinator of the BioMOO conference system, for his extraordinary contribution.