E-training at the IFB

We are a working group composed of IFB bioinformatics trainers and university lecturers who have been meeting since January 2020 to create innovative solutions for online training in the basic concepts of Unix, R and Python. Our common needs were the impetus for designing pre-training activities in bioinformatics for biologists, such as the EBAII professional training programme or university courses.

Hélène Chiapello, Research Engineer – Co-coordinator of IFB/ELIXIR-FR Training Programmes, INRAE (Jouy-en-Josas)
Thomas Denecker, Research Engineer – IFB, CNRS (Paris)
Lucie Khamvongsa Charbonnier, Research Engineer – IFB, CNRS (Marseille)
Pierre Poulain, Senior Lecturer – Université Paris Cité (Paris)
Denis Puthier, Professor – Aix Marseille Université (Marseille)
Olivier Sand, Research Engineer – Co-coordinator of IFB/ELIXIR-FR Training Programmes, CNRS (Lille)
Claire Toffano-Nioche, Researcher – CNRS (Gif-sur-Yvette)
Morgane Thomas-Chollier, Senior Lecturers – PSL University – Ecole normale supérieure (Paris)

1. Technical monitoring of digital environments dedicated to self-learning resources, with practical sessions tailored to our target audiences. We report on the technologies available for creating online scenarios for learning and acquiring basic command line and programming skills. This field is actively evolving, particularly with in-browser approaches (WebAssembly, Wasm). Our goal is to provide a self-training resource where biologists wishing to learn bioinformatics can acquire the basics of Unix, R and Python.
2. Designing educational content focused on the needs of bioinformatics trainers and teachers, ideally based on resources deployed on the IFB infrastructure. In 2021, we produced a self-training course on the basics of the Unix command line, a need widely shared by IFB service users. We set up this course on the Katacoda platform. This resource, consisting of three scenarios, has been successfully used as a prerequisite for several IFB bioinformatics training sessions and university teaching modules. Hundreds of learners have already benefited from this course. Since Katacoda shut down in mid-2022, we are currently experimenting with alternative solutions such as KillerCoda and Sandbox.bio.

1. Katacoda Unix Course: This course was available online until July 2022, when Katacoda changed its business model. Over 200 users, 3 scenarios, content available at https://github.com/IFB-ElixirFr/katacoda-scenarios
2. Killercoda Unix course: the scenarios are available here: : https://github.com/IFB-ElixirFr/killercoda-scenarios
   This course is currently available here: : https://killercoda.com/ifb-eformation-linux
3. A summary of our work was presented at the JOBIM 2021 national conference as a poster.
4. Some tutorials was developped with SandboxBio on sandboxbio.france-bioinformatique.fr

Contact : ifb-gt-eformation@groupes.france-bioinformatique.fr