Adapting Undergraduate Research to Remote Work to Increase Engagement

Cohen, Susan E.; Hashmi, Sara M.; Jones, A-Andrew D.; Lykourinou, Vasiliki; Ondrechen, Mary Jo; Sridhar, Srinivas; Ven, Anne L. van de; Waters, Lauren S.; Beuning, Penny J.

doi:10.35459/tbp.2021.000199

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…This component is ideally available in a recorded and written format to allow students to reference back to it. This is especially important for maintaining the availability of information in a virtual format ( Cohen et al 2021 ).…”

Section: Virtual Expeditions Have Scalable Formatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Virtual Expeditions Facilitated by Open Source Solutions Broaden Student Participation in Natural History Research

Tanner

Moore

2022

Integrative and Comparative Biology

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From its genesis in the Victorian era as an activity for the elite to today's emphasis on “Big Data” and continuous monitoring, natural history has a prominent role in scientific discoveries for many fields. However, participation in field expeditions is limited by funding, space, accessibility, and safety constraints. Others have detailed the active exclusion of minoritized groups from field expeditions and harm/discrimination faced by the few who do participate, but we provide one solution to broaden opportunities for participation in natural history: Virtual Expeditions. Virtual Expeditions are broadly defined as open source, web-facilitated research activities designed to analyze bulk-collected digital data from field expeditions that require visual human interpretation. We show two examples here of their use: an independent research-based analysis of snake behavior and a course-based identification of invertebrate species. We present a guide to their appropriate design, facilitation, and evaluation to result in research grade data. We highlight the importance of open source technology to allow for longevity in methodology and appropriate quality control measures necessary for projects that include dozens of researchers over multiple years. In this perspective, we specifically emphasize the prominent role that open source technology plays in making these experiences feasible and scalable. Even without explicit design as broadening participation endeavors, Virtual Expeditions allow for more inclusive participation of early career researchers with specific participatory limitations. Not only are Virtual Expeditions integral to the large-scale analysis necessary for field expeditions that generate impossibly enormous datasets, but they can also be effective facilitators of inclusivity in natural history research.

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Section: Virtual Expeditions Have Scalable Formatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Virtual Expeditions Facilitated by Open Source Solutions Broaden Student Participation in Natural History Research

Tanner

Moore

2022

Integrative and Comparative Biology

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“…Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many undergraduates, including those at the University of Washington, spent nearly a full year learning remotely, and undergraduate researchers lost their on-campus work–study research positions. , We set out to re-employ the work–study undergraduate researchers at our Institute by offering a virtual research opportunity, which has been reported to be beneficial and valuable for students in other undergraduate research programs. , However, we needed a different approach than our previous apprenticeship model, as the frequent 1:1 contact central to that model was impractical to implement remotely and too few mentors were free to individually work with each undergraduate at our Institute. Previous cohort-based research courses in computational protein design, in which multiple students are taught by a smaller number of mentors, enabled them to accommodate greater numbers of students and have shown significant success in increasing students’ enthusiasm for biochemistry and computational biology. − We adopted this cohort-based model and curated a completely remote computational curriculum that allowed students to take ownership of their portion of a team research project while learning from each other.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…17,18 We set out to re-employ the work−study undergraduate researchers at our Institute by offering a virtual research opportunity, which has been reported to be beneficial and valuable for students in other undergraduate research programs. 19,20 However, we needed a different approach than our previous apprenticeship model, as the frequent 1:1 contact central to that model was impractical to implement remotely and too few mentors were free to individually work with each undergraduate at our Institute. Previous cohort-based research courses in computational protein design, in which multiple students are taught by a smaller number of mentors, enabled them to accommodate greater numbers of students and have shown significant success in increasing students' enthusiasm for biochemistry and computational biology.…”

Section: ■ Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing Computational Protein Design Literacy through Cohort-Based Learning for Undergraduate Students

et al. 2022

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Undergraduate research experiences can improve student success in graduate education and STEM careers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, undergraduate researchers at our institution and many others lost their work–study research positions due to interruption of in-person research activities. This imposed a financial burden on the students and eliminated an important learning opportunity. To address these challenges, we created a paid, fully remote, cohort-based research curriculum in computational protein design. Our curriculum used existing protein design methods as a platform to first educate and train undergraduate students and then to test research hypotheses. In the first phase, students learned computational methods to assess the stability of designed protein assemblies. In the second phase, students used a larger data set to identify factors that could improve the accuracy of current protein design algorithms. This cohort-based program created valuable new research opportunities for undergraduates at our institute and enhanced the undergraduates’ feeling of connection with the lab. Students learned transferable and useful skills such as literature review, programming basics, data analysis, hypothesis testing, and scientific communication. Our program provides a model of structured computational research training opportunities for undergraduate researchers in any field for organizations looking to expand educational access.

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Adapting Undergraduate Research to Remote Work to Increase Engagement

Cited by 2 publications

References 36 publications

Virtual Expeditions Facilitated by Open Source Solutions Broaden Student Participation in Natural History Research

Virtual Expeditions Facilitated by Open Source Solutions Broaden Student Participation in Natural History Research

Increasing Computational Protein Design Literacy through Cohort-Based Learning for Undergraduate Students

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