[Bioclusters] ANNOUNCE: New On-Site and On-Line Courses

J.W. Bizzaro jeff at bioinformatics.org
Fri Jun 2 11:05:14 EDT 2006


(Apologies for multiple copies)

The non-profit Bioinformatics Organization (Bioinformatics.Org) is pleased to 
announce the expansion of its educational services with the introduction of 
on-site and on-line training courses in bioinformatics.

Since 1998, Bioinformatics.Org has been providing free hosting services for 
bioinformaticists.  They've been focused largely on software development 
projects, but we're now expanding both research and educational services.

Training courses and static tutorials will employ the open-source Moodle course 
management system to manage student registration and course materials.  It's 
located here:

     http://edu.bioinformatics.org/

(Note: Account registration will be separate for this system until it can be 
integrated with the rest of the Bioinformatics.Org website.  If you are member 
of Bioinformatics.Org, you'll need to re-register for this site in order to use 
it.)

While the on-line course materials will remain gratis, courses lead by an 
instructor will often require a fee -- tiered for academics and economies -- to 
compensate the instructor and to help the Organization.

Our very first course is on-site and targeted toward laboratory researchers who 
wish to learn how two open-source scripting languages can become powerful tools 
for data analysis.  Please pass the following announcement on to any researcher 
who would be interested in this course.

                 OPEN SOURCE BIOINFORMATICS FOR RESEARCHERS
                                CAMBRIDGE, MA
                             SEPT. 19 & 20, 2006

DESCRIPTION:
This is a course on the fundamentals of open-source programming, to help 
biologists understand how and when to use the right computer tools for solving 
computational biology problems, whether sequence analysis, gene expression, 
mass spectrometry, or systems biology.

This course is modularized so that researchers can understand two distinct 
tools: a programming and scripting language such as Perl, and a data analysis 
and visualization language such as R. Armed with knowledge and some hands-on 
experience with these tools (including add-on modules like BioPerl and 
Bioconductor), scientists will be able to appreciate and use software better in 
their organization, and also be able to put research questions in the context 
of these tools. They will be able to do basic computational tasks themselves 
and better communicate with their IT group.

PREREQUISITES:
There are no prerequisites for this course other than having a need to learn 
some of the fundamentals of programming, in case the scientist has any 
bioinformatic tasks in their day-to-day work.

COURSE OUTLINE:
Day 1:
     09:00 - 12:00 pm: Basics of Perl
     12:00 - 01:00 pm: LUNCH
     01:00 - 04:30 pm: Data manipulation using Perl/BioPerl

Day 2:
     09:00 - 12:00 pm: Basics of R
     12:00 - 01:00 pm: LUNCH
     01:00 - 04:30 pm: Bioconductor for microarray analysis

Breakfast and afternoon tea is provided, but lunch is not.

LOGISTICS:
When: September 19th & 20th, 2006
Where: The Radisson, Cambridge, Massachusetts

COURSE FEES:
Commercial: $600/person
Academic: $300/person

All attendees are encouraged to bring their own notebook computers, since this 
will be a hands-on workshop. CDs will be provided to install the necessary 
software, and lecture notes and exercises will be provided.

Register today (account required):
http://edu.bioinformatics.org/course/view.php?id=2

Additionally, please let us know if you'd like the Bioinformatics Organization 
to come to your institution and provide training in the following areas:

     Scripting Languages for Biology:
         - Perl/BioPerl

     Statistical Tools for Biology:
         - R/Bioconductor
         - Matlab and Octave

     Data Management Tools for Biology:
         - MySQL

Also let us know if you're interested in creating and running your own course.

Cheers,
Jeff
-- 
J.W. Bizzaro
Bioinformatics Organization, Inc. (Bioinformatics.Org)
E-mail: jeff at bioinformatics.org
Phone:  +1 508 890 8600
--


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