General Information
Bioinformatics Workshop Series
April - May 2001:

RE: SINGAPORE BIOINFORMATICS LEARNING LAB  (SIBILL 1 and 2)
    Bioinformatics Workshop Series Apr - May 2001
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Dear Participants of SIBILL 1 and SIBILL 2 Bioinformatics Workshop series

Welcome to the SIBILL Series of Bioinformatics Workshops
coordinated by the Bioinformatics Centre, NUS with
Dept of Biochemistry (SIBILL 1) and Dept of Biological Sciences (SIBILL2)

Please note that we have had an overflow of registrants to
these workshops and we have tried very hard to accommodate
as many participants as possible. However due to shortage
of facilities at our first location SIBILL 2 in DBS level 4 S2,
we have managed to find a second location SIBILL 1 in 
Dept of Biochemistry, Level 4, MD7.
Even then, we have had to turn away some, for which we
apologise due to our limited resources.

These workshops are anchored by staff of the Bioinformatics
Centre (BIC) as part of our efforts to bioinformatise 
life science researchers in our midst.

The key philosophy in these workshops is self-directed learning
based on a problem-based approach.

Principle 1
-----------
In the information age which we are entering today, almost
everything you need to know about the latest developments
in just about anything can be accessed anywhere anytime online.

Corollary.
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There are very few things you can legitimately claim you don't know
(because in many disciplines in the life sciences, you can read 
yourself up to the forefront of human understanding and knowledge, 
just by accessing information resources available from the Internet).

Lesson:
------
If you know how to teach yourself, and how to practise self-directed learning,
you can just about acquire any knowledge, information, computing skill
or bioinformatics skills, just by learning it yourself through
accessing information on the Web and asking questions to experts
in mailing lists and network newsgroups.

The first two examples used to illustrate this principle will be the
workshops for
a. Web Technology for Bioinformatics
b. Bioinformatics Database Survey Resources

In the first Workshop, you will either
a. select and define a bioinformatics problem, preferably related to 
   your research, or
b. be given a problem or two to choose from.

You will use the Internet to access the necessary information to
solve the problem or use the Net to ask experts.

Workshop trainers, instructors and facilitators will be present to
demonstrate, guide and facilitate or advise you on how to proceed 
if you get stuck.

All results have to be reported using HTML Web Pages and
uploaded onto a website for shared learning and for assessment.

Since the topic of this first workshop is Web Technology, it is likely
that you signed up for this workshop because you are not aware of
Web Technology.  Instructors in this workshop will guide you 
on how to plan your self-directed learning, and thus to teach
yourself the basics of Web authoring and Website creation.

In the methodology part of the report, you are expected to report
on how you learnt Web Technology in the process of solving your problem
and on what you have learnt.

Similarly you will leave the second Workshop having an introductory survey of
bioinformatics database resources available online, based on a problem in 
which you are expected to solve during the workshop, and the results reported 
using HTML and uploaded onto a website for shared learning and for assessment.

For those signing up for later or selected workshops, you are assumed you
have the basics of the philosphophy of this workshop series explained above.
You either already have learned the above topics, or you have to
capability to pick things up on the fly.

For more details, see http://everest.bic.nus.edu.sg/ under SIBILL 1 or 2.