‘Students-as-partners’ scheme enhances postgraduate students’ employability skills while addressing gaps in bioinformatics education

Figures & data

Table 1. Bioinformatics topics covered in the module Informatics for Life Sciences, and peer-facilitators’ published work used in the workshop talks.

Bioinformatics topic	Peer-facilitator’s published work
Database searching	Shanmugasundram, Gonzalez-Galarza, Wastling, Vasieva, and Jones (2013, 2014)
Sequence alignment	Bogomolovas et al. (2014)
Genomics	Sibthorp et al. (2013); Wright, Makki, Moots, and Edwards (2017)
Phylogeny and evolution	Pounder et al. (2015)
Protein modelling	Bogomolovas et al. (2014)
Population ecology	Withenshaw, Devevey, Pedersen, and Fenton (2016)
Modelling metabolic pathways	Shanmugasundram et al. (2013, 2014)

Table 2. Peer-facilitators statements during the activity planning.

A. First thoughts about the project

As an ecologist, it wasn’t immediately obvious that I needed bioinformatics skills, and so my engagement with this module was not wholehearted. In reality, however, I regularly use several tools in my research. I would therefore relish the opportunity to engage with students currently taking this course, and show them exactly how I have unexpectedly put bioinformatics theory into practice during my research

An additional strength of the project is the availability of experience in the form of previous students, using techniques that would have been of great benefit to us, in the same situation

Had such an opportunity been made available to me during my time studying the module, I believe that it would have made a great deal of improvement to both my learning and my research as a result

B. Career development

There are several reasons I was motivated to engage in the project. Firstly, as PhD students we are encouraged to engage in some form of teaching to strengthen their CV and this is a good and rare opportunity! Secondly, I think the experience of presenting and teaching in a different environment will prove invaluable to the development of my career

C. Bioinformatics skills development

I believe that retrospectively presenting my work in terms of the application of principles from this module will strengthen my own knowledge of my project and I wish I had the forethought to think how this module could enhance my own project while undertaking the module

Table 3. Peer-facilitators reflections in retrospect of the study.

A. Personal satisfaction

I enjoyed the satisfaction of having shared my personal research journey with others

Some students downloaded my slides from the VLE (students’ presentation)

I was really amazed by the level of response and active discussion in the workshop

I feel that tallying the outcomes of the project to achieve a publication has allowed some reflection on our achievements

I felt I was valued by the other senior academics when presenting at conferences as the presentation sparked questions and discussions aimed to peer-facilitators.

B. Bioinformatics/research skills development

I was able to learn more about bioinformatics applications from others peer-facilitators

Thinking precisely about how I used bioinformatics as part of my work gave me opportunity to view my own research in a new way

A pair of students asked for advice on analysing their data, having taken notes of similar analysis explained in the presentations

C. Teaching

It was really a rare and valuable opportunity to place myself between being a student and a tutor.

I was also able to learn a little about student behaviour. Good teaching experience

D. Employability

Although the interview for my current post-doctoral position was focussed on my genomics knowledge and research experience, one could argue that my peer-facilitator experience may have helped me reach wider audience from different biological backgrounds during interview seminar and discussions

Sharing the stage with senior academic in presenting this project has helped increase my confidence and time management skills in joint presentations

My proposal for teaching activities at the interview was built upon the experiences and opportunities to interact with experienced members of staff during this project. I would not have had an opportunity to further discuss teaching approaches prior to interview, if I didn’t participate in this collaboration expanding my network

I now work in a small company where effective teamwork is often necessary. I believe that describing previous experience of teamwork, like the students-as-partners project, during my interview highlighted my suitability for the role. My job also includes explaining complex subject matter in simple terms, for which this project provided plenty of experience

As a postdoc, I was an assistant instructor in the Wellcome Trust Advanced Course on Fungal Pathogen Genomics held at the Hinxtion Genome Campus. Here I demonstrated the database tools to participants (from PhD students to assistant professors from worldwide) and had discussion on how these tools could be used in their own research or what additional tools could be used to fulfil their own needs

Figure 1. Questionnaire responses from peer-receivers over the two years of study (Top – 2013/2014 academic year; Bottom – 2014/2015 academic year) – diverging from the proportions of neutral responses outward to the proportions of positive and negative responses.

Notes: The trend shows a strong positive response towards the questions asked of the peer-receivers. Response level is represented as a percentage of questionnaire responders.

Figure 2. Questionnaire responses from peer-facilitators over the two years of study.

Notes: There is a strong positive response towards the aims of the study. The response-level is shown as a percentage of questionnaire responders.

Figure 3. Diagrammatic representation of the bidirectional manner in which the benefits from the current study were perceived in the two years of study.

Shanmugasundram, A., Gonzalez-Galarza, F.F., Wastling, J.M., Vasieva, O., & Jones, A.R. (2013). Library of apicomplexan metabolic pathways: A manually curated database for metabolic pathways of apicomplexan parasites. Nucleic Acids Research, 41, D706–D713. doi:10.1093/nar/gks1139

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Shanmugasundram, A., Gonzalez-Galarza, F.F., Wastling, J.M., Vasieva, O., & Jones, A.R. (2014). An integrated approach to understand apicomplexan metabolism from their genomes. BMC Bioinformatics, 15, A3. doi:10.1186/1471-2105-15-S3-A3

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Bogomolovas, J., Gasch, A., Simkovic, F., Rigden, D.J., Labeit, S., & Mayans, O. (2014). Titin kinase is an inactive pseudokinase scaffold that supports MuRF1 recruitment to the sarcomeric M-line. Open Biology, 4, 140041.10.1098/rsob.140041

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Sibthorp, C., Wu, K., Cowley, G., Wong, P.W.H., Palaima, P., Morozov, I.Y., Weedall, D.D., & Caddick, M.X. (2013). Transcriptome analysis of the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans directed to the global identification of promoters. BMC Genomics, 14, 847. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-14-847

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Wright, H.L., Makki, F.A., Moots, R.J., & Edwards, S.W. (2017). Low-density granulocytes: Functionally distinct, immature neutrophils in rheumatoid arthritis with altered properties and defective TNF signalling. Journal of Leukocyte Biology, 101, 599–611.10.1189/jlb.5A0116-022R

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Pounder, K.C., Watts, P.C., Niklasson, B., Kallio, E.R.K., Marston, D.A., Fooks, A.R., … McElhinney, L.M. (2015). Genome characterisation of two Ljungan virus isolates from wild bank voles (Myodes glareolus) in Sweden. Infection, Genetics and Evolution, 36, 156–164.10.1016/j.meegid.2015.09.010

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Withenshaw, S.M., Devevey, G., Pedersen, A.B., & Fenton, A. (2016). Multihost Bartonella parasites display covert host specificity even when transmitted by generalist vectors. Journal of Animal Ecology, 85, 1442–1452. doi:10.1111/1365-2656.12568

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