Online Course

S*Alliance Announces Third Online Bioinformatics Course Includes New Alliance Member, University Of California San Diego

February 8, 2003.

The S* Life Science Informatics Alliance announced today that the S* 3rd Online Bioinformatics Course will be held from 17 Feb to 2 June 2003. Some two hundred students from all over the world will be taking part in this course from wherever they are using the Internet. As in the previous two courses, they will sit through online lectures, participate in online discussions with the lecturers and teaching assistants, and participate in regular online assessments.

"This course signals a very important step in the life of S-star. With the knowledge gained from our earlier free courses, this new course has allowed us to extend our repertoire of topics and include additional lecturers. We continue to ensure that the education we offer is free and open to all worldwide with access through the internet", assured Professor Tony Weiss, the previous chairman of S*, who is currently the Chair of Molecular Biotechnology,University of Sydney, Australia.

Started in 2001, the S* Online Bioinformatics Course is an international course originally run jointly by Karolinska Institutet, National University of Singapore (NUS), Stanford University, University of Western Cape's South Africa National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI), University of Sydney and Uppsala University, who are members of the elite S* Life Science Informatics Alliance. Formed in 2000, the S* Alliance is a collaboration among top universities and institutes in five continents, with names or locations starting with "S" - namely Singapore, SouthAfrica, Stanford, Sweden, Sydney.

"This year, we are pleased to announce the inclusion of additional lectures from a new member of the S* Alliance," said the new Chairman, Shoba Ranganathan, referring to the plans for the University of California San Diego (UCSD) to sign the Alliance membership documents.

"UCSD is proud to be associated with the S* Alliance, representing some of the top institutions in the world engaging in bioinformatics education," said Professor Lynn Ten Eyck of UCSD, who is concurrently a Senior Principal Scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. "Bioinformtics is a field that lives and breathes on the Internet, and it is highly appropriate that the S* Alliance courses be offered through this medium. This helps train excellent students world-wide to solve problems that have world-wide impact."

"We are also taking efforts to improve the quality of the online videos," said the S* Coordinator Justin Choo, "and we are taking the critique of Nat Goodman seriously." referring to the recent review of the Genome Technology columnist who put the S* course as tops in his list. "This year, we are again oversubscribed, with over 100 participants still in the waiting list." he added. "We are reviewing how we can scale up to ease this huge demand for online bioinformatics education."

"We are concerned that students who enjoy the introductory course have a way to follow up. Thus, a number of participants, including Stanford, are offering certificate programs or even full degrees to students online." said Russ Altman of Stanford University. "For example, we have just instituted a new online Professional MS in Biomedical Informatics at Stanford." Information about all the Stanford programs is at http://www.smi.stanford.edu/academics/. "At the same time, members of S* Alliance are currently in the process of applying for grants to scale up and sustain their respective contributions to the S* online courses so as to cope with the pent-up demand for quality bioinformatics education worldwide," said Shoba Ranganathan and S Subbiah, one of the earliest pioneers of Bioinformatics in Singapore who is currently based in Stanford.

In addition, the S* Alliance is also announcing that top Asian students in the online S* course will receive an award of a free subscription to the new journal, Applied Bioinformatics. This arrangement was the result of the involvement of APBioNet and their collaborators, Cray Inc. and publisher Open Mind Journals Ltd. Earlier last year, APBioNet and S* Alliance had signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in targeting the Asia Pacific region for emphasis in bioinformatics education.

"I hope this arrangement with Cray and Applied Bioinformatics gives due recognition to the quality of training our S* course participants have received. It should provide the added incentive for new participants to work hard at the online course," said Tan Tin Wee, APBioNet founding secretariat, who also doubles up as S* secretariat as well. Previously, S* participants received only a certificate of participation signed by representatives from the S* Alliance member institutions.