Presentations

During the quarter each student will be asked to give a presentation in one of the informatics sessions that generally occur on the Wednesday of each week. The total length of the presentation should be about 15 minutes.

Each student presentation should be in the form of a journal club reporting on one or more of the assigned informatics readings associated with a biological topic presented in the Monday session. The assigned reading to be presented will generally describe current informatics research related to the topic, and will be determined in consultation with the instructor.

In general the presentation should give an overview of the problem(s) the article is addressing, how the methods described in the article address this problem, the methods and results, what still needs to be done, and how the paper relates to the overall BHI core themes. Since all but the last of these topics generally reflect the organization of most articles, a reasonable presentation format is to follow the organization of the paper. In addition, most articles will address key information representation and management issues that arise out of the biological topic presented in the Monday session or in a previous biology session. Thus, the student should discuss the relevant biological issues this paper is addressing as part of the overview. The presentation should end with questions and topics for discussion by the class as a whole.

Following the student presentation (and possibly after some discussion) the instructor will open up the session to other students and guests, for discussion about the questions and issues raised in the presentation, and the questions to which students will have submitted written answers prior to class.

Following the overview on the first day of class students should list their top three choices for presentation topics. This list should be emailed to the instructor by the Monday class of the second week. I will then assign you to a specific topic based on your choices and the available class sessions.