Computational Biophysics Workshop - San Diego, September 21-25, 2015

General Evaluation of the Simulation-Based Drug Discovery Workshop at San Diego

September 21-25, 2015

The UIUC's Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group (TCBG), the NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics is headed by Klaus Schulten, and Co-PIs Zan Luthey-Schulten, Laxmikant Kale, Emad Tajkhorshid, and Aleksei Aksimentiev. As part of its outreach, the Center offers workshops to introduce and transfer its programs and technological solutions to the biomedical community. The Urbana Center, together with the San Diego National Biomedical Computation Resource (NBCR) organized a one-week (September 21-25, 2015) workshop at the University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA.

The program of the workshop consisted of lectures and hands-on sessions (a detailed, hour-by-hour schedule can be found on the NBCR workshop website.) Workshop lectures were given by

  • Ilkay Altintas
  • Rommie Amaro
  • Chris Chipot
  • Victoria Feher
  • Yinglong Miao
  • Art Olson
  • Michel Sanner
  • Abhishek Singharoy
  • Robert Swift
  • Emad Tajkhorshid
  • Dora Warshaviak
Teaching assistants helped participants during the hands-on tutorial sessions. Tutorials and software used in the workshop were developed by Urbana Center and the NBCR. The program of the workshop consisted of lectures and hands-on sessions, with an emphasis on the latter. On the last day of the workshop, participants were asked to complete a general evaluation form consisting of questions about outcomes, lectures, hands-on tutorial sessions, environment and technical resources, communication and dissemination, overall satisfaction, and questions soliciting open comments.

Highlights of the results include 100% of participants indicating an increased understanding of in the field of Simulation-Based Drug Discovery, 90% of participants indicating that the workshop addressed their research needs, and 100% of participants indicating they would recommend the workshop to others.

I. Outcomes

  N Strongly Disagree Disagree Unsure Agree Strongly Agree
1. The Workshop broadened my understanding of concepts and principles in the field of Simulation-Based Drug Discovery. 10 0% 0% 0% 20% 80%
2. The Workshop improved my ability to carry out original research in the field of Simulation-Based Drug Discovery. 10 0% 0% 20% 50% 30%
3. The Workshop improved significantly my skills in simulation based drug discovery. 10 0% 20% 30% 30% 20%
4. The Workshop taught me techniques directly applicable to my career. 9 0% 11% 0% 44% 44%
5. The material presented in the Workshop was relevant to my research. 10 0% 0% 10% 30% 60%

 

II. Lectures

  N Strongly Disagree Disagree Unsure Agree Strongly Agree
1. The instructors' knowledge of the subjects was good. 10 0% 0% 0% 20% 80%
2. The instructors explained the material well. 10 0% 20% 0% 40% 40%
3. The instructors provided real-world examples. 10 0% 0% 20% 20% 70%
4. The instructors were prepared for the lectures. 10 0% 0% 0% 30% 70%
5. The lectures were coordinated between instructors. 10 0% 0% 40% 30% 30%
6. Lectures incorporated recent developments in the field. 10 0% 0% 0% 10% 90%
7. The range of lectures captured the overall essentials of the field 10 0% 0% 0% 40% 60%
8. The level of the lectures was appropriate. 10 0% 10% 10% 50% 30%
9. The underlying rationale of the techniques presented was clear. 10 0% 10% 30% 30% 30%
10. The instructors stimulated my intellectual curiosity. 10 0% 0% 0% 30% 70%
11. The daily Q & A period was beneficial. 10 0% 0% 0% 20% 80%

 

III. Hands-On Sessions

  N Strongly Disagree Disagree Unsure Agree Strongly Agree
1. The hands-on sessions were important for the learning process in the Workshop. 11 0% 9% 36% 9% 46%
2. There were sufficient instructions to proceed with the hands-on assignments. 11 0% 0% 18% 46% 36%
3. The concrete examples in the hands-on tutorials increased my understanding of the lectures. 11 0% 0% 27% 27% 46%
4. The hands-on sessions were long enough. 10 0% 20% 30% 40% 10%
5. The hands-on sessions were coordinated with the lectures. 11 0% 0% 9% 46% 46%
6. TAs/instructional staff were well-prepared to answer questions. 11 0% 9% 9% 18% 64%
7. There were enough TAs / instructional staff to help the participants. 11 0% 0% 9% 36% 55%
8. The tutorial options accommodated the differing interests of participants. 11 0% 0% 0% 46% 55%
9. The tutorial options accommodated the differing expertise levels of participants. 10 0% 10% 10% 40% 40%

 

IV. Environment and Technical Resources

  N Strongly Disagree Disagree Unsure Agree Strongly Agree
1. The software used in the Workshop ran well on my (circle one: Windows/Mac/Linux) laptop. 11 9% 27% 18% 18% 27%
2. The lecture room was conducive to learning. 11 0% 0% 27% 27% 46%
3. The projection system was sufficient for the lectures. 11 9% 0% 9% 36% 46%
4. The hotel provided sufficient accommodations (answer if applicable to you). 5 0% 0% 0% 20% 80%

 

V. Communication and Dissemination

  N Strongly Disagree Disagree Unsure Agree Strongly Agree
1. Instructors were readily available for Q&A outside the lecture periods. 10 0% 0% 0% 10% 90%
2. The BBDTC website was informative about the event. 20 0% 0% 0% 60% 40%
3. The organizational emails before the Workshop were helpful. 9 0% 0% 11% 33% 56%

 

VI. Overall Satisfaction

  N Strongly Disagree Disagree Unsure Agree Strongly Agree
1. The Workshop was well organized. 9 0% 0% 0% 33% 67%
2. The balance between lectures and hands-on sessions was optimal. 11 0% 0% 33% 22% 45%
3. The Workshop addressed my research needs. 10 0% 0% 10% 50% 40%
4. Overall, the Workshop met my expectations. 10 0% 0% 0% 50% 50%
5. I would recommend this Workshop to others. 10 0% 0% 0% 40% 60%

 

VII. Comments

Participants were solicited for comments in four areas, 1) suggestions for improving the workshop, 2) suggestions for similar workshops, 3) most valuable/least valuable/future workshop topics, and 4) other comments. If a comment was made in one area of the open questions, it is generally not repeated again in another area below.

  • Suggestions for improving the workshop:
    • "There was no workshop geared toward our own research topics unfortunately. Maybe future workshops could have a (constrained in size, timescale, format, etc for the sake of time) system of interest for each participant to bring for analysis "
    • "More hands on time!"
  • Suggestions for similar workshops:
    • "The material that was sent ahead of time (the week before) worked really well in my experience. So I will recommend to send at least the installation of the programs to use before, so that we could really focus on the tutorial during the hands-on sessions."
  • Most/least valuable topics and suggestions for future workshop topics
    • "I think more basic stuff should be covered and also the broad range of materials presented did not give us time to digest them completely."
    • "I think a workshop exclusively about Free Energy Calculation and Conformational Sampling methods would be very useful, as we could explore this field with more time than we had in this workshop, since it is a very dense area."
  • Other comments:
    • "Great job, I learned a lot and enjoyed my time very much!"