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bioRxiv2022

Preparing future STEM faculty nationwide through flexible teaching professional development

We report on a five-year initiative that has prepared thousands of future STEM faculty around the world to adopt evidence-based instructional practices by participating in two massive open online courses (MOOCs) and facilitated in-person learning communities. This novel combination of asynchronous online and coordinated, structured face-to-face learning community experiences provides flexible options for STEM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to pursue teaching professional development, while leveraging the affordances of educational technologies and the geographically clustered nature of this target learner demographic. A total of 14,977 participants enrolled in seven offerings of the introductory course held 2014-2018, with 1,725 participants from approximately 60 countries completing at an average course completion rate of 13%. The preparation of future STEM faculty makes an important difference in establishing high-quality instruction that meets the diverse needs of all undergraduate students, and the initiative described here can serve as a model for increasing access to such preparation.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2025

Family matters! The influence of family, peers, mentors, and professors on STEM college students motivational beliefs and career decision making

Support from family, peers, mentors, and professors has a crucial role in the development of students motivational beliefs about learning. However, the relative importance of each of these social supports in affecting students motivation, and the precise processes through which these social factors motivate students, are not well understood at the college level. The present study examined how family, peers, mentors, and professors shaped science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) college students motivational beliefs for career decision making, defining motivational beliefs in accordance with situated expectancy-value theory. We collected survey and open-ended responses from a large sample of college students (n = 2,229) in 42 unique STEM courses at a large, public southeastern university in the United States. We examined how, why, and for whom different social supports influenced students task-value and/or competence related motivational beliefs for career-decision making. Results indicated that students most often selected interactions with family members as influencing their career decision-making, both in terms of overall influences and as the strongest influence, relative to interactions with peers, mentors, or professors. For all social influences, most students reported being attracted in a positive way towards certain careers as a result of social interactions, as opposed to socializers making students disenchanted with careers. Most students described how social supports influenced motivational beliefs related to task values, with comparatively fewer referencing social influences on competence-related beliefs. Findings highlight the important role of multiple social supports, particularly family, in shaping students motivational beliefs and career decision-making throughout emerging adulthood. Educational Impact and Implications StatementPreparing a qualified and diverse STEM workforce requires a robust understanding of the factors that influence college students motivational beliefs and decisions about their career paths. We examined how, why, and for whom support from family, peers, mentors, and professors impacted STEM college students career motivation and decision making, using both qualitative and quantitative data. Results suggest that family plays a particularly crucial role in shaping college students career motivation, especially by helping them see the positive value of particular career paths. Findings help illustrate the importance of different kinds of social support in guiding career choices throughout emerging adulthood.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2026

Community needs for FAIR pathogen data

BackgroundDatasets related to infectious diseases are essential for public health decision-making, yet their reuse remains limited by persistent barriers to data sharing and integration. Achieving data that are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) is widely recognized as essential for accelerating scientific discovery and enabling coordinated responses to emerging threats, but the needs of the global pathogen data community have not been systematically characterized. AimThis study, conducted by the Pathogen Data Network (PDN), aims to identify infrastructural and educational priorities among stakeholders working with infectious disease-related data in order to guide community-responsive support for data sharing and interoperability. MethodsA cross-sectional stakeholder survey was disseminated to a well-defined expert population within PDN networks and via open professional channels. A total of 136 responses from researchers, healthcare professionals, bioinformaticians, and educators were analyzed descriptively to identify prioritized barriers, training needs, and preferred support mechanisms. ResultsRespondents consistently identified structural constraints as the primary impediments to effective data use, including limited funding (74%), data-aggregation challenges (68%), and a shortage of skilled personnel (52%). Respondents identified bioinformatics for infectious disease research (68%) as the highest priority for training, followed by guidance on using the integrated pathogen data and tools portal provided by the PDN, the Pathogens Portal (51%). The Pathogens Portal was also ranked as the most essential PDN resource (72%). Preferred training formats included virtual short courses (68%) and webinars (66%). Notably, while researchers emphasized technical subjects like machine learning, educators prioritized foundational case studies. ConclusionThese findings provide an evidence-based diagnostic of community needs and suggest that barriers to FAIR pathogen data are predominantly systemic rather than purely technological. The survey framework and openly available dataset offer a reusable template for assessing needs in other communities and regions. By aligning training, infrastructure development, and outreach with empirically identified priorities, organizations supporting infectious disease research can strengthen the interoperability and reuse of data and establish a benchmark for future community-driven improvements.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2021

Do examinations prepare students for higher education? A lesson from the Covid-19 lockdown.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused severe disruption to education in the UK in 2020, with most of the school teaching moving online and national school examinations being cancelled. This was particularly disruptive for those taking end of school examinations in preparation for higher education. Biological science courses require students to absorb a lot of new vocabulary and concepts, with examinations traditionally focusing on content recall rather than reasoning. Students who had entered university in September 2019 were compared with those arriving in September 2020 with respect to their knowledge of bioscience vocabulary and understanding of key concepts. Results showed no significant difference between those who had gone through the examination process in 2019 relative to those who had not, in 2020. This suggests the cramming of information for examinations has no detectable effect on the knowledge and understanding of biology that students take with them to university.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2023

Fly-CURE, a Multi-institutional CURE using Drosophila, Increases Students' Confidence, Sense of Belonging, and Persistence in Research

The Fly-CURE is a genetics-focused multi-institutional Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) that provides undergraduate students with hands-on research experiences within a course. Through the Fly-CURE, undergraduate students at diverse types of higher education institutions across the United States map and characterize novel mutants isolated from a genetic screen in Drosophila melanogaster. To evaluate the impact of the Fly-CURE experience on students, we developed and validated assessment tools to identify students perceived research self-efficacy, sense of belonging in science, and intent to pursue additional research opportunities. Our data show gains in these metrics after completion of the Fly-CURE across all student subgroups analyzed, including comparisons of gender, academic status, racial and ethnic groups, and parents educational background. Importantly, our data also show differential gains in the areas of self-efficacy and interest in seeking additional research opportunities between Fly-CURE students with and without prior research experience, illustrating the positive impact of research exposure (dosage) on student outcomes. Altogether, our data indicate that the Fly-CURE experience has a significant impact on students efficacy with research methods, sense of belonging to the scientific community, and interest in pursuing additional research experiences.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2026

Cloud-Connected Pluripotent Stem Cell Platform Enhances Scientific Identity in Underrepresented Students

Stem cell research offers unique opportunities for authentic scientific engagement, yet infrastructure requirements have confined participation to elite institutions, perpetuating workforce disparities. We developed an integrated framework combining engineered biology, cloud-connected microscopy, and validated psychometric assessment to make pluripotent stem cell (PSC) experimentation widely accessible. The framework comprises three components: a doxycycline-inducible NGN2 mouse embryonic stem cell line for rapid neuronal specification, low-cost cloud microscopy for remote observation, and the validated Stem Cell Research Identity Scale (SCRIS) for quantifying educational outcomes. Implementation across a Title I high school and urban community college demonstrated significant increases in scientific identity. Students using differentiating PSCs showed broader science identity development than those using neuroblastoma cells, particularly in competence, research readiness, and recognition. High school students showed enhanced research competence gains compared to community college students despite equivalent intervention duration. Demographic analyses revealed enhanced effectiveness for Hispanic and first-generation college students. This framework provides a scalable model for broadening participation in advanced biomedical research.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2023

Optimizing Short-format Training: an International Consensus on Effective, Inclusive, and Career-spanning Professional Development in the Life Sciences and Beyond

Science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) fields change rapidly and are increasingly interdisciplinary. Commonly, STEMM practitioners use short-format training (SFT) such as workshops and short courses for upskilling and reskilling, but unaddressed challenges limit SFTs effectiveness and inclusiveness. Prior work, including the NSF 2026 Reinventing Scientific Talent proposal, called for addressing SFT challenges, and a diverse international group of experts in education, accessibility, and life sciences came together to do so. This paper describes the phenomenography and content analyses that produced a set of 14 actionable recommendations to systematically strengthen SFT. Recommendations were derived from findings in the educational sciences and the experiences of several of the largest life science SFT programs. Recommendations cover the breadth of SFT contexts and stakeholder groups and include actions for instructors (e.g., make equity and inclusion an ethical obligation), programs (e.g., centralize infrastructure for assessment and evaluation), as well as organizations and funders (e.g., professionalize training SFT instructors; deploy SFT to counter inequity). Recommendations are aligned into a purpose-built framework-- "The Bicycle Principles"--that prioritizes evidenced-based teaching, inclusiveness, and equity, as well as the ability to scale, share, and sustain SFT. We also describe how the Bicycle Principles and recommendations are consistent with educational change theories and can overcome systemic barriers to delivering consistently effective, inclusive, and career-spanning SFT. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTSTEMM practitioners need sustained and customized professional development to keep up with innovations. Short-format training (SFT) such as workshops and short-courses are relied upon widely but have unaddressed limitations. This project generated principles and recommendations to make SFT consistently effective, inclusive, and career-spanning. Optimizing SFT could broaden participation in STEMM by preparing practitioners more equitably with transformative skills. Better SFT would also serve members of the STEMM workforce who have several decades of productivity ahead, but who may not benefit from education reforms that predominantly focus on undergraduate STEMM. The Bicycle Principles and accompanying recommendations apply to any SFT instruction and may be especially useful in rapidly evolving and multidisciplinary fields such as artificial intelligence, genomics, and precision medicine.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2018

crsra: A package for Cleaning and Analyzing Coursera Research Export Data

Due to the fundamental differences between traditional education and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and the ever-increasing popularity of MOOCs more research is needed to under- stand current and future trends in education. Although research in the field has rapidly grown in recent years, one of the main challenges facing researchers remains to be the complexity and messiness of the data. Therefore, it is imperative to provide tools that pave the way for more research on the new subject of MOOCs. This paper introduces a package called crsra based on the statistical software R to help clean and analyze massive loads of data provided by Coursera. The advantages of the package are as follows: a) faster loading and organizing data for analysis, b) an efficient method for combining data from multiple courses and even across institutions, and c) provision of a set of functions for analyzing student behaviors.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2022

Becoming metrics literate: An analysis of brief videos that teach about the h-index

IntroductionAcademia uses scholarly metrics, such as the h-index, to make hiring, promotion, and funding decisions. These high-stakes decisions require that those using scholarly metrics be able to recognize, interpret, critically assess and effectively and ethically use them. This study aimed to characterize educational videos about the h-index to understand available resources and provide recommendations for future educational initiatives. MethodsThe authors analyzed videos on the h-index posted to YouTube. Videos were identified by searching YouTube and were screened by two authors. To code the videos the authors created a coding sheet, which assessed content and presentation style with a focus on the videos educational quality based on Cognitive Load Theory. Two authors coded each video independently with discrepancies resolved by group consensus. ResultsThirty-one videos met inclusion criteria. Twenty-one videos (68%) were screencasts and seven used a "talking head" approach. Twenty-six videos defined the h-index (83%) and provided examples of how to calculate and find it. The importance of the h-index in high-stakes decisions was raised in 14 (45%) videos. Sixteen videos (52%) described caveats about using the h-index, with potential disadvantages to early researchers the most prevalent (n=7; 23%). All videos incorporated various educational approaches with potential impact on viewer cognitive load. Most videos (n=21; 68%) displayed amateurish production quality. DiscussionThe videos featured content with potential to enhance viewers metrics literacies such that many defined the h-index and described its calculation, providing viewers with skills to recognize and interpret the metric. However, less than half described the h-index as an author quality indicator, which has been contested, and caveats about h-index use were inconsistently presented, suggesting room for improvement. While most videos integrated practices to facilitate balancing viewers cognitive load, few (32%) were of professional production quality. Some videos missed opportunities to adopt particular practices that could benefit learning.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2022

Factors that affected the qualification of standardized residency training of internal medicine: a prospective longitudinal study

IntroductionSince the standardized residency training (SRT) was launched in 2014, there were very few data on evaluation of the factors that could influence the residents competency in China. MethodsAll residents who started their SRT programme from September 2015 to September 2018 were enrolled in this study. During the following years, they finished the programme and took examinations. The demographic information and exam scores of each subject were collected and analyzed. ResultsWe found that the qualification rates of SRT programme differed significantly annually. Age, gender, the highest medical education degree, residents from different places, training duration and years of medical school study were also different significantly year by year. According to the scores of examinations, residents were divided into two groups: the qualified group and the non-qualified group. Age, the highest medical education degree, residents from different places, training duration, years of medical school study and prior medical work experience differed significantly between the two groups. Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed the residents from different places and the training duration were factors that affected the qualification rate of SRT programme independently (P = 0.000 and 0.005, respectively). DiscussionThe "homogeneity" of SRT had been achieved regardless of the individual discrepancy, while the resident from different places and the training duration were obstacles we need to overcome further. Therefore, we should further advance the process of the transition from "Unit Persons" to "Society Persons". And extending training duration will facilitate their qualification and be benefit to improve their competency.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2021

Applying And Promoting Open Science In Ecology - Surveyed Drivers And Challenges

Open Science (OS) comprises a variety of practices and principles that are broadly intended to improve the quality and transparency of research, and the concept is gaining traction. Since OS has multiple facets and still lacks a unifying definition, it may be interpreted quite differently among practitioners. Moreover, successfully implementing OS broadly throughout science requires a better understanding of the conditions that facilitate or hinder OS engagement, and in particular, how practitioners learn OS in the first place. We addressed these issues by surveying OS practitioners that attended a workshop hosted by the Living Norway Ecological Data Network in 2020. The survey contained scaled-response and open-ended questions, allowing for a mixed-methods approach. Out of 128 registered participants we obtained survey responses from 60 individuals. Responses indicated usage and sharing of data and code, as well as open access publications, as the OS aspects most frequently engaged with. Men and those affiliated with academic institutions reported more frequent engagement with OS than women and those with other affiliations. When it came to learning OS practices, only a minority of respondents reported having encountered OS in their own formal education. Consistent with this, a majority of respondents viewed OS as less important in their teaching than in their research and supervision. Even so, many of the respondents suggestions for what would help or hinder individual OS engagement included more knowledge, guidelines, resource availability and social and structural support; indicating that formal instruction can facilitate individual OS engagement. We suggest that the time is ripe to incorporate OS in teaching and learning, as this can yield substantial benefits to OS practitioners, student learning, and ultimately, the objectives advanced by the OS movement.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2019

Towards a bottom-up understanding of antimicrobial use and resistance on the farm: A knowledge, attitudes, and practices survey across livestock systems in five African countries

The nutritional and economic potentials of livestock systems are compromised by the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance. A major driver of resistance is the misuse and abuse of antimicrobial drugs. The likelihood of misuse may be elevated in low- and middle-income countries where limited professional veterinary services and laissez faire access to drugs are assumed to promote non-prudent practices (e.g., self-administration of drugs). The extent of these practices, as well as the knowledge and attitudes motivating them, are largely unknown within most agricultural communities in low- and middle-income countries. The main objective of this study was to document dimensions of knowledge, attitudes and practices related to antimicrobial use and antimicrobial resistance in livestock systems and identify the livelihood factors associated with these dimensions. A mixed-methods ethnographic approach was used to survey households keeping layers in Ghana (N=110) and Kenya (N=76), pastoralists keeping cattle, sheep, and goats in Tanzania (N=195), and broiler farmers in Zambia (N=198), and Zimbabwe (N=298). Across countries, we find that it is individuals who live or work at the farm who draw upon their knowledge and experiences to make decisions regarding antimicrobial use and related practices. Input from animal health professionals is rare and antimicrobials are sourced at local, privately owned agrovet drug shops. We also find that knowledge, attitudes, and particularly practices significantly varied across countries, with poultry farmers holding more knowledge, desirable attitudes, and prudent practices compared to pastoralists households. Multivariate models showed that variation is related to several factors, including education, disease dynamics on the farm, and sources of animal health information. Study results emphasize that interventions to limit antimicrobial resistance must be founded upon a bottom-up understanding of antimicrobial use at the farm-level given limited input from animal health professionals and under-resourced regulatory capacities within most low- and middle-income countries. Establishing this bottom-up understanding across cultures and production systems will inform the development and implementation of the behavioral change interventions to combat AMR globally.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2023

The Preprint Club - A cross-institutional, community-based approach to peer reviewing

The academic community has been increasingly using preprints to disseminate their latest research findings quickly and openly. This early and open access of non-peer reviewed research warrants new means from the scientific community to efficiently assess and provide feedback to preprints. Yet, most peer review of scientific studies performed today are still managed by journals, each having their own peer review policy and transparency. However, approaches to uncouple the peer review process from journal publication are emerging. Additionally, formal education of early career researchers (ECRs) in peer reviewing is rarely available, hampering the quality of peer review feedback. Here, we introduce the Preprint Club, a cross-institutional, community-based approach to peer reviewing, founded by ECRs from the University of Oxford, Karolinska Institutet and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Over the past two years and using the collaborative setting of the Preprint Club, we have been discussing, assessing, and providing feedback on recent preprints in the field of immunology. In this article, we provide a blueprint of the Preprint Club basic structure, demonstrate its effectiveness, and detail the lessons we learned on its impact on peer review training and preprint authors perception.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2022

The U.S. academic job market survives the SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic

PurposeThis paper aims to identify the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the academic job market and the ways in which faculty job applicants altered their applications in response to a changing academia. Design/methodology/approachThe data presented here is the portion relevant to COVID-19 collected in a survey of faculty job applicants at the end of the 2019-2020 job cycle in North America (spring 2020). An additional "mid-pandemic" survey was used in fall 2020 for applicants participating in the following job search cycle to inquire about how they were adapting their application materials. A portion of data from the 2020-2022 job cycle surveys was used to represent the "late-pandemic". Job posting data from the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC) is also used to study job availability. FindingsExamination of faculty job postings from 2018 through 2022 found that while they decreased in 2020, the market recovered in 2021 and beyond. While the market recovered, approximately 10% of the faculty job offers reported by 2019-20 survey respondents were rescinded. Respondents also reported altering their application documents in response to the pandemic as well as delaying or even abandoning their faculty job search. OriginalityThis paper provides a longitudinal perspective with quantitative data on how the academic job market changed through the major events of the COVID-19 pandemic in North America, a subject of intense discussion and stress, particularly amongst early career researchers.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2024

More than a token photo: humanizing scientists enhances student engagement

Highlighting scientists from historically excluded groups in educational materials increases student engagement in STEM. However, which specific elements of these educational materials maximize their impact remains untested, leaving educators guessing how to best highlight counter-stereotypical scientists in their classrooms. We tested the effects of including visual and humanizing descriptions of scientists featured in quantitative biology activities on over 3,700 students across 36 undergraduate institutions. We found that including humanizing information about counter-stereotypical scientists increased the extent to which students related to those scientists, which in turn translated to higher student engagement. Students who shared one or more excluded identity(s) with the featured scientists related most strongly. Our findings demonstrate the importance of humanizing counter-stereotypical scientists in classrooms, beyond simply adding a photo to increase representation.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2019

Enhancing senior high school student engagement and academic performance using an inclusive and scalable inquiry-based program

The multi-disciplinary nature of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers often renders difficulty for high school students navigating from classroom knowledge to post-secondary pursuits. Discrepancies between the knowledge-based high school learning approach and the experiential approach of undergraduate studies leaves some students disillusioned by STEM. We present Discovery, a semester-long inquiry-focused learning model delivered by STEM graduate students in collaboration with high school educators, in the context of biomedical engineering. Entire classes of high school STEM students representing diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds engaged in iterative, problem-based learning designed to emphasize critical thinking concomitantly within the secondary school and university environments. Assessment of grades and survey data suggested positive impact of this learning model on students STEM pursuits, notably in under-performing cohorts, as well as repeating cohorts that engage in the program on more than one occasion. Discovery presents a scalable platform blurring the divide between secondary and post-secondary learning, providing valuable learning opportunities and capturing cohorts of students that might otherwise be under-engaged in STEM.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2025

The Intergenerational Classroom: A Case Study Integrating Undergraduate and Lifelong Learning Curricula for Biology Education

According to the US Census Bureau (2019) there are approximately 95 million people in the US 55 years of age and older, and that number is expected to increase dramatically in the next decade. This growing population results in an increasing need for STEM learning opportunities for older adults. This need is partially met by lifelong learning communities across the country that offer non-degree programs on a broad range of topics. While many of these programs are located on a college campus, there are few opportunities for interaction between lifelong learners and students in degree-oriented programs. To improve access to STEM education for lifelong learners, we generated an intergenerational classroom composed of lifelong learners and undergraduate students. The semester-long course focused on the biography and medical writings of the late neurologist Oliver Sacks. Our analysis revealed a high level of satisfaction from both undergraduate students and lifelong learners. Both groups overwhelmingly found the intergenerational format beneficial to learning. Furthermore, self-assessments revealed that students felt more positively about intergenerational interactions following completion of the course. Overall, this course provides a framework for increasing access to STEM for the growing older adult population and fostering positive intergenerational interactions. This model could be readily implemented across the country given the abundance of lifelong learning programs currently affiliated with colleges and universities.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2024

Enhancing student comprehension of paternity assignment in molecular primatology: a pilot study using a Shiny web application in Kenya

Kinship is a major determinant of affiliative and mating behavior in primates. In field studies, identifying kin typically relies in part on genetic analysis, especially for discriminating paternal relationships. Such analyses assume knowledge of Mendelian inheritance, genotyping technologies, and basic statistical inference. Consequently, they can be difficult for students to grasp, particularly through traditional lecture formats. Here, we investigate whether integrating an additional active learning approach--interaction with a Shiny web application, DadApp, which implements a popular paternity inference approach in an accessible graphical user interface--improves student understanding of genetic kinship analysis in molecular primatology. We do so in the context of a non-traditional learning environment in Kenya, a developing nation in which students have limited access to technology, and where the efficacy of educational Shiny apps has never been assessed. Twenty-eight (28) participants with diverse educational backgrounds attended an introductory lecture on genetics and paternity inference, completed a pre-test, interacted with DadApp via a structured set of exercises and questions, and then completed a post-test and survey about their experience and subjective understanding. Post-test scores significantly improved relative to pre-test scores (p-value=3.75 x 10-6 . Further, student interest and confidence in the subject matter significantly increased after the practical session with DadApp. Our results suggest that Shiny web app-based active learning approaches have potential benefits in communicating complex topics in molecular primatology, including in resource-limited settings where such methods have not yet experienced high penetrance. Graphical Abstract*Images in the graphical abstract are courtesy of publicdomainpictures.net O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=111 SRC="FIGDIR/small/610690v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (19K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@5ce036org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@18429a0org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1c8d997org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1456624_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

scientific communication and education↗