Call for Tutorials - ISMB 2022

Chair: Annette McGrath, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia
Co-chair: Patricia M. Palagi, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland
Co-chair: Madelaine Gogol, Stowers Institute for Medical Research, United States

Closed: December 13, 2021

This call is an open invitation to scientists and professionals working in the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology to submit high quality proposals for Tutorials at ISMB 2022.

Tutorial Program at ISMB 2022

The purpose of the Tutorials program is to build knowledge and provide hands-on training in "cutting-edge" topics relevant to the bioinformatics field and the COSI communities. Tutorials offer participants an opportunity to get an introduction to important established topics in bioinformatics, to learn about new areas of bioinformatics research, or to develop advanced skills in areas about which they are already knowledgeable.

Tutorials may include any form of presentation such as brief talks or panel discussions but should include hands-on exercises. Tutorials serve an educational function and are expected to provide a balanced perspective on a field of research. They should not focus on the presenters' own research or software, unless balanced with other tools in the same realm. However, tutorials on broadly used bioinformatics tools will be considered. Please note that if you wish to focus your talk on a demo of a specific software package, your proposal should be submitted to the Technology Track.

Potential topic areas (a list of Tutorials presented in 2021 is available here) may include but are not limited to the following:

• Data analysis: single-cell, metagenomics, long read-sequencing data or any other life sciences data
• AI and Machine Learning for bioinformatics
• GA4GH tools for data sharing
• Translational informatics: Opportunities for bioinformatics in the clinical realm
• How to make your software sustainable and reusable for open access or commercial usage
• Biological Sciences for Bioinformaticians (eg aimed at Comp-science graduates with less/no prior biology knowledge)
• Data Science in Genomics
• Workflow tools (eg Snakemake, NextFlow)
• Data Visualization for Bioinformatics
• Bioinformatics on Cloud Platforms

• Best practices (eg learning github, Python coding standard PEP8 etc)

Tutorials organization

Tutorials can be planned to be either in-person in Madison or fully online, but should not be blended. (eg. tutorial presenters and participants should either be fully online or in-person).

Tutorials presented in-person will be held on July 10 at the Monona Terrace Convention Center. Tutorials presented online will be held on a weekday (TBD) prior to the conference start. If submitting an online tutorial proposal you will be asked to confirm your preferred time zone for presentation. 

Tutorials timing for full-day or half-day sessions: (updated Feb 17/22)
In-person: July 10, 2022
Full Day Schedule: 11:00 am - 6:00 pm Central Time
(10:45 am Coffee on arrival; Lunch Break 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm; Coffee Break at 4:00 - 4:15 pm)

Virtual: Held on July 6 and/or 7, 2022
Full Day Schedule: 9:00 am - 4:00 pm Central Time (10:30-10:45am, 12-1pm, and 2:30-2:45pm)
Half Day Schedule: 9:00 am - 1:00 pm Central Time (Breaks at 10:30-10:45am and 11:45am-12pm)

Compensation

The conference organizers are able to offer a complimentary conference registration for up to 3 tutorial presenters. Tutorial organizers may choose to share the value of the complimentary registration if the tutorial has additional presenters.

Submitting a Tutorial Proposal

Tutorial proposals should contain the following information in a maximum of 4 pages:

• Title of Tutorial
• Abstract for Tutorial
• Learning Objectives for Tutorial
• Maximum number of attendees participating
• Draft Schedule of the tutorial including coffee breaks (half-day or full-day schedule) - Include draft talk titles or draft content to be covered in each section
• Identify and highlight blocks of hands-on content in your submission
• Draft List of Tutorial Speakers with titles and affiliations
• Intended audience and level - Describe the audience for which the Tutorial is aimed, and at which level it would be taught (e.g. beginner, past experience, advanced knowledge).

The final proposal must be uploaded as a PDF file only.

Deadline for Tutorial Proposals: Monday, December 13, 2021

Click here to complete a submission for Tutorials. You will also be asked during the submission process to provide a brief description of the tutorial that will be used on the website to promote it to delegates, and to confirm that if selected, you will submit draft and final tutorial materials for committee review by the listed deadlines

Review of Tutorial Proposals

All tutorial submissions will be evaluated by a committee, which will consider the following criteria:

• Relevance, interest, and value of the topic to ISMB attendees and COSI communities
• The tutorial should achieve a good balance between the theoretical component and hands-on exercises
• Completeness, clarity, and quality of the proposal and materials including schedule of tutorial
• Educational value and effectiveness of the proposed presentation approach
• Overlap with tutorials held in 2021
• Educational value and effectiveness of the proposed presentation approach and FAIRness of the data, tools and content

Successful tutorial proposals will be notified by Friday, January 28, 2022.

Tutorial Materials

The tutorial speakers agree to provide participants with teaching materials that include:

• Copies of the final slides in Powerpoint or PDF format for posting online.
• Copies of relevant articles/book chapters published by the presenters provided as Supplementary
• Information. Presenters will have to obtain copyright permission from their publishers, as required.
• Links to repositories containing training materials.
• Make your training materials FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable), as much as possible.

Recording of Tutorial sessions

Tutorials programs will be recorded to serve as online learning tools following the conference. All presenters must agree to allow ISCB to post the recordings of the Tutorials program as a requirement of acceptance.

Copyright

The authors will grant copyright to tutorial materials to the ISCB for a period to extend from acceptance through August 1, 2022, and they agree that their materials may be made available for use in perpetuity through ISCB.

Tutorial Contact Information

Correspondence from prospective instructors should be sent to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.