Background: At the outset of COVID-19, many bench researchers who rely on in-person work were unable to conduct their research. To help upskill during this time, a librarian at our academic medical center was recruited by faculty in our graduate biomedical sciences program to create R programming instruction for wet lab researchers working from home. The R training was in preparation for subsequent sessions on RNA-seq analysis with subject matter experts.
Description: In consultation with bioinformatics experts, a librarian developed and tailored a synchronous online curriculum, utilizing an outcomes-focused framework centered around skills students would need in subsequent RNA-Seq instructional sessions. Seven one-hour sessions were taught by a health sciences librarian to wet lab researchers, ranging from introductory sessions for complete beginner programmers through topics including data structures, data cleaning, visualization and basic analysis. These sessions were later offered by Zoom to general library patrons as well with less overt focus on bioinformatics skills. In turn lessons learned, particularly around common areas of confusion and difficulty, informed librarian-led instruction to biomedical/life sciences graduate students later in the summer.
Conclusion: Across classes, enrollments were robust: in terms of attendees in Zoom sessions 543 attended the 7 bench science R sessions, 602 logged into library-held R sessions, though these numbers count “seats” filled, not unique individuals. Of those in the wet lab researcher group, students were deemed prepared for subsequent materials on RNA-seq by informatics instructors and evaluations were positive. The library sessions were also positively received based on evaluations, but the differing levels and background in coding represented a challenge to teach effectively to all. Finally the lessons learned helped improve learning activities for the more in-depth masters and PhD classes, and students evinced a high level of mastery on their final projects and evaluations were positive.