The Data and Research Computing division provides a broad range of educational programs and services to the School of Medicine in support of the research activities of faculty, staff and students.
This includes educational offerings and programs in biomedical research computing (R, Python, cluster computing, MATLAB) and data management and data sharing, as well as supporting awareness, access, and education on a variety of software tools for biomedical data analysis and visualization.
GROWING TO SUPPORT YOUR DATA NEEDS
In FY20, Becker Library was able to offer an entirely new area of training and services as a result of hiring a new senior support scientist in partnership with the Institute for Informatics at the end of the previous year. Multiple researchers have already received assistance with sharing their results in various data repositories.
The division provided special programming on data management and sharing as part of Becker Library’s Open October series of events, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research’s Researcher Forum, and the Bioethics Research Center’s responsible conduct of research curriculum, signaling high interest in and need for education and support in these areas.
HARNESSING THE POWER OF REDCAP
In FY20, Becker Library began teaching a series of workshops on Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) – a secure, web-based application for building and managing online databases and surveys that is commonly used in clinical research – that were developed in collaboration with the Institute for Informatics.
REDCap trainings were extremely popular and consultation services saw steady demand.
EMPOWERING YOU WITH RESEARCH COMPUTING BASICS
Basic programming skills are becoming increasingly necessary for biomedical research. In response, Becker Library continues to partner with the Center for High Performance Computing and the Institute for Informatics to organize and teach hands-on workshops on an array of R and Python topics. Becker Library also began collaborations with Washington University Libraries on similar programming this year.
CONNECTING YOU WITH THE TOOLS YOU NEED
In response to several researcher requests, Becker Library has been working with the WashU IT software licensing group to investigate university licensing of BioRender, a software tool for making professional science figures and graphics. The team is currently in the implementation phase and plans to finalize licensing in early FY21.
This developing partnership between Becker Library and WashU IT increases efficiencies in campus software licensing efforts and provides more opportunities for researcher cost savings across the university.
HELPING YOU MAKE THE MOST OF RESOURCES
Free seminars and workshops in support of the library’s site-licensed software are ongoing. Topics are chosen according to researchers’ expressed interests.
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