In November 2015, GOBLET organised a two day Train the trainer workshop in Cape Town, South Africa. The first day of the workshop was tailored to new trainers, covering the use of different learning methods and the importance of setting clear objectives for learning, before moving onto the practicalities of putting together a new training session and how to format the training to meeting participants’ expectations. Delegates were pointed to resources that provide reusable training materials, including EMBL-EBI’s Train online, the GOBLET training portal, ELIXIR’s Training e-support portal (TeSS) and a number of Github repositories.
Day two was tailored to more experienced trainers, starting with a session on how the bioinformatics trainer community can best support each other, and the use of technology to reach larger audiences. When developing a new course or curriculum, it’s extremely helpful to have some pointers as to what bioinformatics competencies scientists in different roles might realistically have.
Celia van Gelder (representing the ELIXIR Training platform) was one of the speakers who presented examples of how competency profiles have been, or will be, used to develop new training tailored to the needs of different audiences.