The ELIXIR-EXCELERATE Train-the-Trainer pilot programme: empower researchers to deliver high-quality training

Introduction

ELIXIR (https://www.elixir-europe.org) is a distributed research infrastructure with a mission to manage, provide access to and safeguard the increasing volumes of data being generated by European life scientists. It coordinates and sustains bioinformatics resources across its 21 member states, and helps researchers to more easily find, analyse, share and exchange biological data. As thousands of European scientists make use of ELIXIR’s databases, tools, services and data, providing the necessary bioinformatics training to help them do so most effectively is a key priority, and one of ELIXIR’s main missions (van Gelder et al., 2016).

Bioinformatics seldom forms a core part of formal life-science degree programmes in Europe; therefore, PhD students, postdocs and even PIs seek out focused ‘point of need’ training to gain the skills they require to fruitfully expedite their research. Across Europe, the availability of bioinformatics training opportunities varies greatly from one country to another, and the number of available courses is not sufficient to meet demand, most notably in subjects such as the analysis of next-generation sequencing data. This high demand is not yet waning, and more courses will need to be brought online as the life sciences extend into new areas. Expanding the provision of training in Europe requires the development not only of new courses and materials, but also of new instructors able to deliver high-quality courses. However, the ability to develop new trainers through the provision of ‘instructor training’ is not yet available in all countries.

A continual challenge faced by course providers is finding appropriate individuals to deliver training. Bioinformatics is a dynamic, highly practical and evolving field, and is generally best explained by practitioners in the field. But subject specialists often have little or no formal ‘instructor training’, and hence may be unaware either of learning principles and their application to teaching, of how to tailor sessions to specific audiences, of how to assess whether learning is occurring or has occurred, or of how, ultimately, to design, develop and deliver effective training sessions and materials.

This situation argues for the development of a practical programme to familiarise subject specialists with good training practices (Via et al., 2013; Best Practices in Training, DEPOCEI Report, 2013, http://www.depocei.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/DEPOCEI_Final-report_TRAINING-BEST-PRACTICES.pdf), introducing pedagogical/andragogical theory and methods for course design, delivery and assessment. The idea would not be to try to transform would-be instructors into educationalists, but rather, to help them become responsive, reflective instructors able to provide high-quality training to a variety of audiences, and potentially also able to help others develop their own training skills. Many researcher-instructors (researchers whose career and/or personal interests involve teaching/training) are isolated in their own work settings. Having access to a network or community of practice is therefore important, not just for the support it can provide, but also for enabling their continued development, by sharing ideas and teaching practices, and exploiting training opportunities that arise.

In 2015, ELIXIR received funding for the EXCELERATE project https://www.elixir-europe.org/about-us/how-funded/eu-projects/excelerate) from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. One of ELIXIR-EXCELERATE’s main goals is to help ELIXIR support a pan-European training programme to increase bioinformatics capacity and competency.

Against this background, the ELIXIR-EXCELERATE Train-The-Trainer (EE-TtT) programme was developed with the following goals in mind:

This paper describes the EE-TtT pilot, which was designed and delivered between January 2016 and January 2017. It outlines the focus of the pilot, the content, structure and features of the TtT sessions developed in the first year, and the training materials created so far.

The EE-TtT pilot overview and goals

The pilot work involved exploring TtT approaches that were already in use within ELIXIR Nodes and related initiatives, and defining a basic framework and curriculum to deliver appropriate training sessions, fit for the needs of the ELIXIR community of bioinformatics instructors (van Gelder et al., 2016). A ‘kick-off’ workshop (see Supplementary Material 1) was held at EMBL-EBI (http://www.ebi.ac.uk), which brought together representatives from ELIXIR member states with external experts in educational psychology and TtT design and delivery from the Wellcome Trust, NIH-BD2K and Software Carpentry (SWC, https://software-carpentry.org) and Data Carpentry (DC, http://www.datacarpentry.org) Foundations. The objectives of the workshop were to:

Workshop participants experienced with bioinformatics training and/or TtT courses or tutoring were invited to elaborate on and present their experiences, and provide five key features a TtT programme should have. The commonalities from the features they provided can be grouped as follows:

A second part of the workshop was dedicated to breakout sessions, inviting all participants to discuss:

At the end of the workshop, an outline of the first year of the pilot programme was defined, and individuals to deliver it were identified (intending to train further individuals during the pilot).

In this paper, consistent with the 'instructor' and 'trainer' definitions adopted by the SWC/DC communities, we use the term 'new instructor' to indicate a TtT course completer ('instructor', here, referring to an individual who teaches bioinformatics) and 'trainers' to refer to those individuals who were, or became, qualified to teach EE-TtT courses.

In April 2016, the initial pool of instructor trainers met at the University of Cambridge, UK, to start collecting materials, and to discuss the content and structure of the pilot courses. Two models were particularly influential in this process: the TtT programme at EMBL-EBI (Watson-Haigh et al., 2013) and the SWC/DC Instructor training (Teal et al., 2015; Wilson, 2016). The former inspired the four core topics that were selected for the EE-TtT pilot courses (see Table 1 and the following section). The initial content of each core topic was based on the EMBL-EBI TtT and Carpentries Instructor training materials (http://swcarpentry.github.io/instructor-training/). The EMBL-EBI TtT is the longest running programme (since 2012) and is focused on providing practical guidance for developing and delivering engaging training in any aspect of bioinformatics, building a network of support for new trainers to exchange ideas and encouraging them to reflect on their practice and development. The teaching philosophy of the SWC/DC communities is based on key research findings about how people learn, and how best to teach them. It was also decided to adopt a number of ‘challenges’ (i.e., practical exercises); from the Carpentries training we use an exercise in which participants, in groups of three, video each other teaching, then watch the videos and give and act upon feedback. This is combined with exercises from EMBL-EBI training on creating appropriate aims and outcomes, which are peer-reviewed within the group, along with sessions focused on the practicalities of running bioinformatics training. EE-TtT materials are being further developed on the basis of additional exploration of educational psychology principles and theories (see, for example, Ambrose et al., 2010; Brown et al., 2014; Dunlosky et al., 2013; Green, 2015; Lang, 2016)

The pilot was delivered in seven EE-TtT courses - each using a slightly different format and focus - and one workshop on ‘Using clouds and virtual machines in bioinformatic training’. Teaching materials were progressively accumulated in a freely accessible GitHub repository (https://github.com/TrainTheTrainer/EXCELERATE-TtT).

The TtT pilot and training materials are described in more detail below.

EE-TtT pilot delivery and outcomes

Discussion and future directions

This paper describes the Train-the-Trainer pilot project that was designed, developed and carried out in the context of ELIXIR-EXCELERATE. The EE-TtT pilot represents an essential step towards a sustainable and scalable ELIXIR TtT programme, and the development of a network of trainers and instructors within the ELIXIR community. We ran seven courses, trained more than sixty new instructors and started training three new TtT trainers. We also developed - and have already used - a first draft of supporting materials, and have started structuring them according to the FAIR principles. Most importantly, we have gained further insight into both the potential and challenges of delivering such a programme in the ELIXIR context.

Participant feedback collected at the end of each course has given strong, positive indications of the perceived utility of the programme, but the longer-term impact of the training on the individuals who received it needs to be reviewed. To this end, we will shortly invite all participants to complete a long-term feedback survey, providing us with a more concrete view of the impact this training has had on their own practice. Expectation sessions run during a number of the courses suggested that participants did gain a number of ‘take away’ lessons, and we need to determine whether these were actually put into practice and how this affected the training they delivered.

Another important issue is how to increase the number of TtT trainers who are able to deliver courses independently. The approach taken to date has been to develop interested trainers by having them initially attend a TtT course as a learner, then attend a second course as an assistant. However, the few new candidate TtT trainers who have undertaken this process, despite long-standing experience in bioinformatics training / teaching, felt that, after attending just one or two EE-TtT courses, they were neither knowledgeable nor experienced enough in the pedagogical elements of the course to teach it themselves.

Given that most trainers have had no formal training in education theory, it will be essential to get this balance right, if the programme is to scale. We therefore need to learn from this as the course matures, and capitalise on existing experience. This could include identifying opportunities to work with experienced instructors: for example, becoming a SWC/DC instructor trainer is a quite demanding and compelling process, requiring learners to meet once a week for eight weeks to engage in discussions around teaching pedagogy. New instructors then shadow a teaching demonstration and part of an online instructor training event and attend regular meetings of the trainer community. Their training is completed after delivering two instructor-training workshops (ideally, one in person and one online). To remain an active trainer, a new trainer commits to teach at least two instructor training events per year, among the other things (see https://github.com/carpentries/policies/blob/master/trainer-agreement.md). Furthermore, the availability of very detailed and consistent training materials is an extremely helpful support, especially for new instructors; and the presence of an experienced community of trainers, who meet at least twice a month, is key to sharing experiences and hence developing new trainers’ self-confidence.

Another example from which valuable lessons may be drawn is a recent course run by the EMBL-EBI Node as part of an ongoing collaboration with Australian trainers, in which a group that had previously been participants in a TtT course, with significant training experience, were remotely coached to deliver a very successful TtT session. Their critical feedback will be instrumental in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the current programme, and the opportunities that may exist to evolve and improve the course, ultimately to create more, and more confident, trainers.

As part of the ongoing, rigorous process of assessment, we put the outcomes of the EE-TtT pilot programme under a microscope, one year after it started. This was done using a Degrees of Freedom Analysis (Tractenberg, 2017) of the features of the EE-TtT pilot courses, in terms of their utility, feasibility, sustainability of learning, and scalability, with the aim of bringing out strengths and weaknesses of the programme. The results of this detailed analysis are presented in a separate paper (Via et al., 2017).

Thanks to the enthusiastic work of a group of individuals involved in the EE-TtT activities, we designed, developed and reviewed a new TtT pilot programme tailored to the training needs of the ELIXIR community. We are now ready to move forward and consolidate the EE-TtT programme for the remainder of the EXCELERATE period and beyond.