BIN-Info sources

Information Sources for Bioinformatics

(Wikipedia, NAR, Bioinformatics.ca, PubMed, Citation index)

 

Abstract:

This unit introduces key information sources for bioinformatics: journals, forums, and supporting sites.

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Objectives: Get a sense for the academic field of bioinformatics and its community.

Outcomes: You are familiar with the sites that facilitate much of the ongoing discussion in the field.

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Deliverables:

• Time management: Before you begin, estimate how long it will take you to complete this unit. Then, record in your course journal: the number of hours you estimated, the number of hours you worked on the unit, and the amount of time that passed between start and completion of this unit.
• Journal: Document your progress in your Course Journal. Some tasks may ask you to include specific items in your journal. Don't overlook these.
• Insights: If you find something particularly noteworthy about this unit, make a note in your insights! page.

 

 

 

Evaluation

Evaluation: NA

This unit is not evaluated for course marks.

Contents

 

Task:

• Read the introductory notes on bioinformatics concepts for some general observations on bioinformatics, to set the stage.
• Read the introductory notes on information sources for bioinformatics.

 

Journals

 

Task:

• Visit the Nucleic Acids Research Journal (NAR) site and find the current database volume and the Web service volume.
• Task yourself to find at least one database and service that interests you, visit it and poke around. You should aim to develop an intuition for what to expect with such resources and how to use the services.

Incidentally: you can subscribe to regular Table of Contents updates from any journal. nature and Science should for sure be in your inbox, but subscribe to some of the bioinformatics journal alerts too = such as Bioinformatics - at least for this term.

• Among the top ranked journals (according to ISI), we have PLoS Computational Biology, BMC Bioinformatics, Nature Systems Biology and Applications, and Briefings in Bioinformatics. Explore.
• Wikipedia: Bioinformatics journals

 

Forums

Much current, active exchange of bioinformatics knowledge happens in non-traditional platforms:

Task:
Visit each of the forums below and find (at least) one item that interests you.

BioStars: General bioinformatics, computational-, and systems biology questions (timesink warning!)

Reddit: the bioinformatics "subreddit" (timesink warning!)

R-help: The R programming language

Stack Overflow: R-related questions

BioConductor Support: for all questions about the BioConductor Project

Cross Validated: statistics related questions on Stack-exchange

 

 

About ...
 
Author:

Boris Steipe <boris.steipe@utoronto.ca>

Created:

2017-08-05

Modified:

2020-09-15

Version:

1.2

Version history:

• 1.2 Removed bioinformatics.ca link. Maintenance updates.
• 1.1 Bioinformatics.ca links database no longer exists
• 1.0.1 Update Biostars link
• 1.0 Completed to first live version
• 0.1 Material collected from previous tutorial

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