Online Courses for Navigating Research Mentoring Relationships

项目总结/摘要 研究指导关系是学生获得核心知识的最重要手段之一。 研究能力，发展作为科学家的强烈自我认同感，并为职业生涯做好准备。 然而，在如何启动和导航这些关键关系的学生的实际培训是缺席， 大多数生物医学研究培训计划。培训，使研究生掌握技能， 成功的学员需要知识。为了解决这个问题，科学传播实验室已经 与威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的《进入研究》一书的作者合作， 评估在线教学计划。这个项目的重点是学生在关键的本科， 渐变过渡，即，高级研究本科生、学士后学生和一年级学生 研究生，并将提供指导（在线课程），可以整合到一个课程的 现有的研究培训计划或由个别学生独立从事。这些课程将 解决来自不同背景的学生从本科过渡到 研究生院通过（1）教他们培养有意图的指导关系，并利用 这些关系有利于他们的教育，研究和职业生涯，（2）建立一个国家社区， 来自不同机构和背景的学生支持他们的集体学习/培训，（3）提供 在他们的研究培训中获得免费的循证、深入、及时的指导，以及（4）突出 负责任地开展研究的重要文化方面，可重复性，公平和包容性。的 目前正在利用教育专家的反馈以及学生对课程的测试对该计划进行评估。 作为该项目的一部分，我们开发并部署了iBiology课程平台（ICP）， 管理系统（LMS），提供在线课程。我们在这一补助金补充的目标是准备国际比较方案 软件代码，以实现强大的开源版本，并开发所需的文档和资源， 通过和进一步的社区发展。我们将重构和泛化ICP，以便它可以用于 除了iBiology课程之外，我们还将记录ICP并将其作为开放源代码发布 为更广泛的社区提供软件。该项目的预期成果是：（1）提高安全性，速度， 和可访问性，从而为所有用户提供更好的用户体验;（2）一个小型，灵活， 一个可定制的开源学习管理系统，可以很容易地适应，以满足一个 各种各样的教育计划;（3）一个充满活力的开发人员和用户社区， 简单的电子学习系统-简单易懂，易于扩展，易于部署， 管理-因此有动力为平台的发展和增强做出贡献;以及 (4)教育工作者更多地采用和使用国际比较方案及相关资源，从而改善学习 学生的成果。

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT Research mentoring relationships are one of the most important means by which students acquire core research competencies, develop a strong sense of self-identity as a scientist, and prepare for careers. However, practical training for students in how to initiate and navigate these critical relationships is absent from most biomedical research training programs. Training that empowers graduate students with the skills and knowledge to be successful mentees is needed. In order to address this, the Science Communication Lab has partnered with the authors of Entering Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to build, test, and evaluate a program of online instruction. This project focuses on students at the critical undergraduate to graduate transition, i.e., advanced research undergraduates, post-baccalaureate students, and first year graduate students, and will provide instruction (online courses) that can be integrated into the curriculum of an existing research training program or engaged with independently by individual students. These courses will address challenges that students from diverse backgrounds face as they transition from undergraduate to graduate school by (1) teaching them to cultivate mentoring relationships with intentionality and to leverage those relationships to benefit their education, research, and careers, (2) building a national community of students from diverse institutions and backgrounds to support their collective learning/training, (3) providing access to free evidence-based, in depth, just-in-time instruction in their research training, and (4) highlighting important cultural aspects of responsible conduct of research, reproducibility, and equity and inclusion. The program is being evaluated using feedback from educational experts, as well as student testing of the courses. As part of this project we developed and deployed the iBiology Courses Platform (ICP), a learning management system (LMS), to deliver the online courses. Our goal in this grant supplement is to ready the ICP software code for a robust open source release and to develop the documentation and resources needed for adoption and further community development. We will refactor and genericize the ICP so it can be used for implementations other than iBiology Courses. We will also document and release the ICP as open source software for the broader community. The expected outcomes of this project are: (1) improved security, speed, and accessibility of the ICP, resulting in a better user experience for all users; (2) a small, nimble, and customizable open-source learning management system that can be easily adapted to meet the needs of a variety of educational programs; (3) a vibrant community of developers and users who engage with this uncomplicated e-Learning system – simple and comprehensible, straightforward to extend, easy to deploy and manage – and are therefore motivated to contribute to the development and enhancement of the platform; and (4) increased adoption and use of the ICP and related resources by educators, leading to improved learning outcomes for students.