Workshop 1 - Bioinformatics as a Career: An insider view
Date: May 27, 2026 8:00-13:00
Objective: This event will be led by current Bioinformatics, Computational Biology and Data Science (BCBDS) trainees to raise awareness about and engage undergraduate students in the broad applications and career paths in BCBDS.
Audience: Undergraduates interested in learning more about BCBDS career paths and graduate students keen to share their BCBDS experiences
Capacity: 60
Format: Hybrid
| Timing | Outline |
|---|---|
| 08:00-9:00 | Breakfast and Registration |
| 09:00-9:15 | Welcome & Introduction (In-person + Virtual)
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| 09:15-10:15 | Interactive Panel Discussion with Trainee Presenters (In-person + Virtual) Each shares educational background, research focus and career journey:
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| 10:15-10:45 | Coffee Break & Networking |
| 10:45-12:00 | Hands-on activity: Designing your career path In this guided activity, participants will work in small groups to help each other identify their professional interests and connect them to the career profiles from the ISCB competency framework. Once they’ve identified a set of career profiles, they will work on creating a basic individual development plan. |
| 12:00-12:55 | Lunch & Networking Session (includes participants from Workshop #2)
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| 12:55-13:00 | Concluding Activity Audience participation activity on Slido:
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Workshop 2 - Nurturing an Early Career (EC) growth ecosystem in Canada
Date: May 27, 2026 12:00-17:00
Objective: This event will be a working group meeting for early career (EC) professionals to gather the infrastructure, resources and career supports needed to elevate and retain ECs in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology and Data Science (BCBDS) careers in Canada.
Audience: Early career professionals in BCBDS who want to become aware of available career supports and bring attention to the gaps, and leaders who want to collaborate on finding solutions to help ECs in BCBDS excel.
Capacity: 45
Format: In-person
| Timing | Outline |
|---|---|
| 12:00-13:00 | Lunch & Networking Session (includes participants from Workshop #1) |
| 13:00-13:15 | Welcome & Introductions (In-person) Audience participation activity on Slido:
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| 13:15-14:15 | Setting the Stage - Early Career Professional Perspectives Each shares career journey, opportunities and challenges encountered to date:
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| 14:15-14:45 | Coffee Break & Networking |
| 14:45-16:15 | Breakout Groups Each to identify opportunities and barriers, and propose solutions/strategies:
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| 16:15-17:15 | Report Back & Next Steps
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| 17:15-17:30 | Concluding Activity Audience participation activity on Slido:
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Workshop 3 - Reproducible Research: Essentials for Managing Your Data
Date: May 27, 2026 12:00-17:00
Objective: This workshop will equip participants with the essential methods and tools to manage their data efficiently, ensuring their research is reproducible, discoverable and machine-actionable.
Audience: Graduate students who want to make their work more Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Participants should have basic familiarity with R and/or Unix/Linux.
Requirements: You will also require your own laptop computer. Minimum requirements: 1024×768 screen resolution, 1.5GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, 10GB free disk space, recent versions of Windows, Mac OS X or Linux (Most computers purchased in the past 3-4 years likely meet these requirements). This workshop requires participants to complete pre-workshop tasks and readings.
Capacity: 45
Format: In-person
| Timing | Outline |
|---|---|
| 12:00-13:00 | Lunch & Networking Session (includes participants from Workshop #1 and #2) |
| 13:00-13:15 | Welcome & Introductions |
| 13:15-13:30 | Module 1: Introduction to Research Data Management (RDM)
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| 13:30-14:30 | Module 2: Version Control with Git (20 min lecture, 40 min lab)
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| 14:30-15:00 | Coffee Break & Networking |
| 15:00-16:00 | Module 3: Organizing Your Data for Machine-Actionability (20 min lecture, 40 min lab)
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| 16:00-17:00 | Module 4: Platforms to Manage Your Data and Facilitate Discovery (20 min lecture, 40 min lab)
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