A Central Support System Can Facilitate Implementation and Sustainability of a Classroom-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) in Genomics

INTRODUCTION

The Vision and Change report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) calls for all undergraduate students to have experience with research to understand the process of science (AAAS, 2011). A recent report to President Obama recommended replacing all standard science laboratory courses with discovery-based research courses (President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology [ PCAST], 2012). While there is ample evidence of the importance of research experiences in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education (e.g., Hunter et al., 2007; Lopatto, 2009; Laursen et al., 2010), these recommendations raise questions of feasibility in the minds of faculty and administrators alike (Healey and Jenkins, 2009). Most institutions cannot provide individual (or even small-group) mentored research experiences for all of their STEM students, given limitations in the number of available research mentors (faculty and others), supply budgets, physical facilities, and infrastructure support (Wood, 2003; Desai et al., 2008). Implementation of research-centered laboratory courses (classroom-based undergraduate research experiences, or CUREs), an attractive alternative, requires overcoming similar (although less severe) barriers, as well as overcoming entrenched academic practices (Rowlett et al., 2012). Deciding to change pedagogical traditions (e.g., scheduling patterns or allocations of class time) is not easy (Henderson and Dancy, 2007; Dancy and Henderson, 2008; Winningham et al., 2009). Science by its nature changes constantly, so maintaining up-to-date access to research tools, as well as finding time to develop suitable research curricula, is an intellectual and financial challenge (Spell et al., 2014). Our hypothesis is that collaborative, nationwide research projects can help to overcome some of these barriers and support “pioneer” faculty advocating for local change. To examine this hypothesis, we studied faculty reports of the incentives and barriers to successfully implementing a research-based laboratory in genomics. While the data examined here are confined to the Genomics Education Partnership (GEP), we note that national collaborative research projects have a long history of successfully engaging students (and other citizens) in science (e.g., Cornell Lab of Ornithology, www.birds.cornell.edu/page.aspx?pid=1664; NASA Citizen Scientists, http://science.nasa.gov/citizen-scientists). The availability of the Internet now makes it relatively easy to connect members of a nationwide partnership, making this a practical strategy.

The availability of new tools and large data sets in genomics has fostered a number of large-scale collaborative undergraduate research projects in genetics, evolution, and cell/molecular biology. These projects have facilitated access to technical resources, faculty training, scientific and technical expertise, and shared curriculum, as demonstrated by programs such as the Genome Consortium for Active Teaching (GCAT; Campbell et al., 2007), the GCAT NextGen Sequencing Group (GCAT-SEEK; Buonaccorsi et al., 2014), Phage Hunters Integrating Research and Education (PHIRE; Hatfull et al., 2006), and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Science Education Alliance Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) course (Jordan et al., 2014). Within this arena, using bioinformatics as the major platform for undergraduate research has several obvious advantages: the need for laboratory infrastructure is minimal (only computers and access to the Internet are required); there are no lab safety issues, allowing open access 24/7; there is a large pool of publicly available raw data for students to work with; and the approach lends itself to peer instruction, as many undergraduates quickly acquire the needed technical expertise. There are also some disadvantages: many faculty members lack training in bioinformatics approaches and tools; and some students, anticipating wet-bench labs or fieldwork, fail to see a computer-based project as research (Shaffer et al., 2014). However, the growing utilization of large data sets in all areas of biology, as well as growing awareness of the relevance of genomic information in health sciences, is increasing recognition by students and faculty alike of the need to bring bioinformatics into the biology curriculum. Several excellent genomics research projects for undergraduates with an emphasis on bioinformatics have recently been described (Banta et al., 2012; Ditty et al., 2010; Burnette and Wessler, 2013; Harris and Bellino, 2014).

The GEP is a consortium in which more than 100 colleges and universities (mostly primarily undergraduate institutions, or PUIs) have joined with Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) with the goal of providing undergraduates with a research experience in genomics (see http://gep.wustl.edu). The GEP is investigating the evolution of the Muller F element, a region of the Drosophila genome that exhibits both heterochromatic and euchromatic properties, and the evolution of the F element genes. Undergraduates are involved in both finishing (improving the quality of draft sequence) and annotating (creating hand-curated gene models based on all available evidence, mapping repeats, and identifying other features) designated regions of the Drosophila genome. They work on 40-kb “projects,” which, after quality control checks, are reassembled to generate large domains for analysis. GEP materials have been adapted to many different settings, from a short module in a first genetics course to the core of a semester-long laboratory course to an “independent study” research course. A common student assessment is carried out using the central website. Pre/postcourse quizzes demonstrate that GEP students do indeed improve their knowledge of genes and genomes through their research (Shaffer et al., 2010, 2014). Postcourse survey results from 2008 and 2010–2012 on science attitudes are consistent and show an overall pattern and numerical scores very similar to those of students in a dedicated summer research program (Lopatto, 2007; Lopatto et al., 2008; see especially Shaffer et al., 2014). All student projects are completed at least twice independently, and a reconciliation process is carried out by experienced students working at WUSTL during the summer. Student annotations are deposited in GenBank and form the core of our scientific publications, which analyze the reassembled regions as a whole (e.g., Leung et al., 2010). A paper based on comparative analysis of the F element of four Drosophila species, now in preparation, will have more than 1000 student and faculty coauthors. Thus, by both pedagogical and scientific measures, the GEP appears to have assembled a group of faculty who each have successfully developed a CURE on their campus.

While there have been sweeping calls for the development and use of CUREs (Karukstis, 2008; AAAS, 2011; Kloser, 2011; PCAST, 2012), there has been relatively little study of the practical and pedagogical issues faculty face in developing research-based courses or of the kinds of support systems/best practices that could help facilitate the change to a CURE-based STEM curriculum. These issues need to be explored if widespread adoption of this strategy is to be successful. Here, we utilize our collective experiences with the GEP to explore these issues, focusing on three questions:

1. What are the barriers for implementing a CURE in genomics? An examination of the types of support and resources needed, contrasted with their availability on campus, can potentially identify common barriers to CURE implementation.

2. How does the central core system help faculty and foster overall success of the GEP? We examine those features of the central GEP support system that help us overcome local barriers, looking in particular for correlations between faculty needs and the reported value of core resources and determining what program elements faculty members value.

3. What are the incentives for faculty members to create and sustain a research-based experience in genomics? We examine the reported incentives and rewards that drive faculty to take on the challenge to create and sustain a research-based laboratory course.

Our collective experience suggests that a collaborative network with core resources can effectively support faculty who want to provide a research experience for their students through their classroom teaching in genomics.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

GEP Members

Faculty members of the GEP were initially recruited through an email invitation using a list of PUI faculty maintained by the Washington University Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences and the list of GCAT members. Subsequent recruits were attracted by posters that the GEP presented at meetings of the American Society for Cell Biology, the Council on Undergraduate Research, the Drosophila Research Conference, the Association of Biology Laboratory Educators, and other venues; through the GEP website; or through conversation with a colleague. Interested faculty members join the GEP by attending a 3- to 5-d workshop at WUSTL to gain familiarity with the bioinformatics tools and curriculum used by the partnership. They can then claim 40-kb projects posted on the GEP website and submit the results of the finishing and/or annotation completed by their students. Students who complete projects are eligible to be coauthors on the resulting scientific paper that makes use of their analysis and may present their own work at on-campus, local, or national meetings. Faculty members are eligible to be coauthors on the scientific papers, on research papers analyzing educational issues, and on meeting presentations.

Resources Provided by the Core System

The GEP central core support team at WUSTL (staffed by W.L., full-time; C.D.S., 35%; S.C.R.E., 10%; J.B., as needed; E.M. and professional staff of the Genome Institute, as needed) provides a range of IT, bioinformatics, and genomics expertise. The core team organizes and runs the introductory workshop to help new members learn the recommended workflow, gain familiarity with bioinformatics tools, and see firsthand the resources being used in the project. The workshop also provides opportunities for faculty to discuss ways to adapt this research project for their students at their institution with colleagues pursuing similar educational goals. Available training includes both genome annotation (done with J.B.) and sequence improvement (done with E.M. and staff of the Genome Institute). Faculty members may also have a student or colleague come to the same (or a subsequent) workshop, selecting a person who will assist in implementing their GEP course. (This addresses the initial need for a teaching assistant [TA] or peer instructor; it is anticipated that successful and enthusiastic students who took the course in a prior year will serve as TAs/peer instructors in following years.) Group concerns—discussion of ongoing implementation, design of assessment tools, improvements to the curriculum, preparation of joint publications—are addressed at annual alumni workshops, 2 - to 3-d meetings that all GEP faculty are eligible to attend (and approximately 50% do so in a given year). Alumni workshops also provide professional development opportunities in bioinformatics through lectures/labs with WUSTL faculty or guest lecturers. The progress and products of alumni discussions are posted on a private GEP wiki for initial dissemination to the group, comment, and revision. Ultimately, new curriculum is posted on the public website (http://gep.wustl.edu).

Beyond the workshops, the GEP support system is organized through the central website (as described in Shaffer et al., 2010), which provides members with access to the sequence improvement and annotation research projects for students and acts as a pipeline for submitting final project reports to WUSTL for quality control (carried out by experienced undergraduates) and final assembly into the complete domain of interest. Curricular materials, including background lectures on the research question, introductory walk-throughs of basic bioinformatics tools and database procedures, and practice problems, are continually updated by the core staff members and are augmented by new contributions from GEP faculty as well as staff. Video tours of the Genome Institute illustrating various sequencing technologies are also posted. The GEP core staff make all necessary changes in curriculum when the National Center for Biotechnology Information Basic Local Alignment Search Tool interface or University of California–Santa Cruz Genome Browser changes, databases are updated, or new operating systems appear, significantly reducing the load on faculty partners. GEP materials are freely available on the GEP website under a Creative Commons license. The website also contains various Help functions, including the custom software and connections to Web resources required for an efficient workflow for this annotation challenge. The core staff is available to assist individual faculty with issues ranging from software installation to tricky annotations via a website bulletin board, email, Skype, and telephone.

Anonymous Survey

The Faculty Survey (Supplemental Material S1 and S2) was written by subgroups of GEP faculty in attendance at the alumni workshops during the Summer of 2010 and was posted on the GEP private wiki for all GEP members to review; a revised final version was generated by GEP faculty during the summer of 2011 with input from D.L. and S.C.R.E. GEP faculty coauthorship ensures that the survey design covers all of the major barriers and incentives that the GEP faculty members themselves were able to identify, and the group discussion promoted a common understanding of the questions asked, improving the credibility of the instrument. Administration of the survey was approved by the Human Research Protection Office of Washington University in St. Louis (IRB ID 201104105; approval date 12 April 2012). The purpose of the survey was described in a preamble (Supplemental Material S1), and informed consent was given by moving from the preamble to the survey itself. Anonymity was maintained by stripping out identifiers before transmitting responses to D.L. and J.T. for analysis. Faculty members who had attended GEP workshops between June 2006 and January 2012 were invited by email to participate in the survey. (Six individuals who had previously left the project [deceased, left academia, or reassigned by their chair] were not contacted.) Telephone calls were made to a random subset of faculty to encourage participation in the survey. Items either asked participants to provide free-response comments in a text box or to indicate their feelings/responses on a numerical scale of 1–5.

Common barriers for implementing a CURE were first identified by using the responses to question 21 of the anonymous survey, which asked the faculty members to rank a list of factors that could be incentives or barriers for sustaining GEP curricula (Supplemental Material S2). For assessing the extent to which an item was considered to be a barrier, difference in the means between the participants’ rating of the item's “importance” and its “presence on their campus” were calculated. The structure of this new barriers’ scale was investigated using an exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation. SAS 9.2 statistical software was used for this process and subsequent analyses (except where noted below). In this and the following analyses, four respondents who did not complete any part of question 21 were excluded from the analysis.

Other numerical responses used here are presented either as a table displaying the distribution of ratings (generally on a scale of 1–5) or by providing the means; errors are reported as SD. Free responses in the anonymous survey were generally very brief and were not evaluated in detail.

Open Survey

In addition to the anonymous survey, GEP faculty coauthors responded to three questions in an open format; these responses are given verbatim in Supplemental Material S3–S5. These responses were initially analyzed (by D.L.) by simply determining the frequency of keywords and phrases. We built groupings based on the various frequent keywords and phrases indicated. We included all similar phrases, variants, and synonyms thereof, for example, “independence,” “independent,” and “independently” were grouped together along with synonyms such as “freedom” or “on their own.” For a more in-depth analysis, the answers to each question were also analyzed separately by a person with no prior contact with the project (J.T.) using inductive content analysis (Elo and Kyngäs, 2008; Krippendorff, 2013). NVivo 10 software was used for the inductive content analysis. The documents were first open coded to identify themes that emerged from the text (Miles and Huberman, 1994). These initial codes were clustered into categories by constantly comparing data within and between codes (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). Labels and definitions for each category were then developed to produce a codebook; this codebook was then used to code the entire text for each question. Comments contributing to a particular theme are tagged with a common color in Supplemental Material S3–S5.

RESULTS

For evaluating the barriers, impact of core support, and incentives for the implementation of GEP-based student research, an anonymous survey was made available in late Spring 2012 to the 100 GEP faculty partners in the program who had joined before or during academic year 2011–2012. This survey asked respondents to evaluate on-campus conditions affecting the success of their efforts to teach genomics through a research project, the importance of various components of the GEP support system, and their reasons for remaining active in the GEP. GEP faculty members are from a very diverse group of schools from across the country (Supplemental Material S6), and this diversity is represented in the set of faculty completing the survey. Of the 92 faculty members who completed this survey, 64 (70%) remain active in the program, 25 (27%) described themselves as active in genomics education but not using GEP materials at present, and three (3%) described themselves as having left the program. Of the 25 who reported that they no longer use GEP materials, 14 provided reasons: one is retired, one left academia for a different career, nine had their teaching efforts redirected by their institution, and three found alternatives that were a better fit for their curricular needs. All faculty responses given were used in the following analysis; however, not all faculty responded to all items in the survey.

What Are Common Barriers to Implementing a CURE? The Discrepancies between Faculty Needs and Campus Resources

Regarding implementing and sustaining an undergraduate research course (CURE) in genomics, respondents were asked to evaluate the importance of 25 items and the presence of each item on their campus (Figure 1 and Supplemental Material S7). The largest gaps between the mean importance score and mean presence score occurred for “acceptance of genomics in the curriculum,” “availability of teaching assistants,” “a reasonable teaching load,” “expertise in genome-related topics,” “quality of computer resources,” “quality of IT support,” “acceptance of research in the curriculum,” and “availability of computing facilities.”

Similar themes emerged from a keyword analysis of faculty responses to one of the questions in the open survey: “What do you perceive as the most significant barrier opposing your efforts to teach genomics by engaging students in research?” (68 comments; Figure 2 and Supplemental Material S3). The most common theme concerned the difficulty of fitting the GEP material into the home institution's schedule. A related challenge was attempting to provide sufficient time within an established course for the genomics work. Other commonly cited barriers included the problem of cultivating capable teaching assistants and holding down class size. Less frequently cited barriers included problems with technology, student preparation, keeping up with pedagogy, and lack of colleague support. An independent inductive content analysis of the responses to this question identified the same top two concerns: the “fit” of the course within the wider curriculum and the availability of TA support (Table 1 and Supplemental Material S3). Other factors identified by inductive content analysis mimicked those above, although not in the same order. The consistency in results from three sources (anonymous survey checklist and analyses of the open comments by two independent evaluators [D.L. and J.T.]) supports the credibility of the assessment.

To further explore the faculty data, we attempted to organize the information in the 25 items by using the differences between “importance” and “presence” as an index of a barrier. The differences between the importance and presence responses were taken, and the new variable served as material for an exploratory factor analysis (same data set as used to construct Figure 1, given in numerical form in Supplemental Material S7). The best model from this analysis contains five factors. There were three survey items (appreciation from undergraduates, positive publicity, and experience with Drosophila) that did not load strongly on any of the five factors. Only the 22 survey items that did load strongly were used in the subsequent analysis. The five factors identified were conceptualized as follows: 1) items relating to the expertise and experience of the individual faculty member (referred to in the text below as “teaching/mentoring experience”); 2) items related to introducing genomics into the curriculum (familiarity with genomics); 3) administrative support for teaching activities (administrative teaching support); 4) support for computer-based activities (computing support); and 5) direct teaching support expressed in terms of faculty teaching load and the presence of TAs (teaching support). (See Supplemental Material S8 for a list of survey items and factor loadings associated with each factor.) Overall, the results of this exploratory factor analysis suggest that the majority of items proposed by the GEP members for the survey did identify underlying variables reflective of five different types of barriers to the implementation and sustainability of GEP activities.

As a further exploration, the items in each subscale were summed, yielding five scores for each faculty respondent. We then used the five subscales as data for exploratory analyses of the possible influence of institutional characteristics (small college vs. research university, etc.; see Supplemental Material S8) but found no pattern of differences. The lack of differences does not mean that there are none, as our analyses lacked effective statistical power. Although we believe that the support provided by the GEP enables faculty to overcome barriers and successfully implement a genomics-based CURE at diverse institutions (based on anecdotal reports), we have no strong statistical evidence to support that belief based on our analysis.

How Can a Central Core System Help? Program Elements That Support Implementation and Sustainability

Given the barriers to implementation of CURE curriculum, what program elements do faculty members value most? Program features that influenced the faculty members’ introduction and maintenance of genomics research in their courses were evaluated using an importance scale of 1–5 (Figure 3 and Tables 2 and 3). Not surprisingly, the introductory workshop was critical for initiating the program. Several centralized features of the program, including setting up the projects, maintaining curriculum, and follow-up staff support, received high marks for importance in both the decision to initiate and the ability to sustain the program, with a modal response of 5 (very important). While alumni workshops were ranked of less importance on average, and some faculty have not participated in this feature, many faculty do see these as important for staying current with the latest bioinformatics tools, ensuring progress toward publication, incorporating new pedagogical innovations, and maintaining a truly collaborative approach to both the research and curriculum (see comments in Supplemental Material S4). Wiki and bulletin board features, on the other hand, were rated very important by fewer than 20% of the respondents, even though there were 45 discussion threads on the bulletin board this past year. This low rating might be due to the willingness of GEP staff to respond to email and telephone queries (∼2/d).

Faculty responses to the open survey question “Is a central support system (i.e., a centrally organized research project, shared training curriculum, central IT support) of continuing importance for your teaching genomics?” showed a strong consensus in favor of having a central organization (97%). Sixty-three respondents made 68 comments, many of which used terms such as “crucial” and “essential” to describe the role of the central support system in sustaining their efforts (keyword analysis, Figure 4 and Supplemental Material S4). Reasons cited included the support for troubleshooting, the economical use of resources, and the reliance on the central system for community. Several respondents indicated that, without the central support system, they would not be able to sustain the program at their institution. Inductive content analysis of the open responses to this question identified themes of access to significant research, teaching resources, scientific expertise, technical support, and community (Table 4 and Supplemental Material S4).

What Are the Incentives for Faculty? Why Do They Persist in Maintaining a CURE?

What are the incentives that drive faculty to take on the challenge of creating and maintaining a research-based lab course? In response to the question “What do you perceive as the most significant incentive for sustaining your efforts to teach genomics by engaging students in research?” 66 faculty members made 98 comments (Supplemental Material S5). Keyword analysis (Figure 5) indicated that the most frequent comments were about research opportunities for students, particularly involving “high-profile” or “prestigious” research, followed by comments about the value of active learning. Less-frequent but still common responses included the value for both students and faculty of being involved with potential publications (e.g., “The ability to coauthor various publications is a strong incentive”), the value of forming a community of scholars (e.g., “My main incentive has been to connect to a larger community of scientists”), and the value to faculty members of continuing their development as instructors and researchers (e.g., “This forum provides an opportunity for me to grow professionally and network with other scientists”). Inductive content analysis, done independently (by J.T.), identified the same two themes as most important (“participation in real research” and “increases student learning”), as well as the opportunity to contribute to the field and to participate in a scientific community (Table 5). Interestingly, many faculty members find they are motivated by observing “student learning” that goes beyond the student simply gaining factual knowledge but instead indicates that the students’ relationship with knowledge has changed. Examples include “Student enthusiasm and success keep me motivated,” “I am primarily motivated by the awareness of the depth of insight students can gain,” and “The students in my classes become so engaged in science research, with frustration and then elation upon finding a solution, that I, myself, get excited.” Similar rewards (a sense of participating in significant research, gains in understanding from hands-on work) have been cited by GEP students surveyed 1–5 yr after taking a GEP-affiliated course (Shaffer et al., 2014).

Faculty members rated their reasons for continuing as a GEP member among a set of options posed on the anonymous survey using a 5-point scale of importance (Figure 6 and Table 6). The most important reason selected for remaining an active member was “I find that this approach enhances student learning,” followed by “need to keep this material in our curriculum,” and “need to maintain research opportunities in our curriculum.” Other reasons, including “availability of community support” and “GEP membership supports my scholarly interests,” were rated more modestly, and “My institution encourages me to continue to participate” received a considerably lower rating than all other items. We infer from these ratings that GEP faculty members are motivated by their belief that genomics and active research should be a part of their curricula, but that these goals receive only modest support from their home institutions. However, several faculty members indicated in their open responses that they thought GEP participation had contributed to positive promotion and tenure decisions (e.g., “It has helped to advance my career”).

DISCUSSION

Our overall hypothesis is that collaborative research projects can help overcome the present barriers to establishing research-based undergraduate science curricula. The growth of the GEP is an example of the effectiveness of this approach. The GEP joins a growing number of collaborative programs; these include GCAT, GCAT-SEEK, PHIRE, and SEA-PHAGES. We further investigated the barriers and incentives for GEP members by soliciting both anonymous and attributed responses from the GEP faculty cohort. We have identified the most common barriers to implementing a genomics-based classroom research program by identifying the gap between perceived importance and current presence of a number of teaching resources. We found support through both faculty ratings and faculty reports for the central core model that the GEP represents. Finally, we identified the incentives reported by faculty as being instrumental in their continued engagement with the partnership.

Barriers to science education reform, particularly the change to active-learning strategies, have been previously identified (Henderson and Dancy, 2007; Dancy and Henderson, 2008; Spell et al., 2014). Henderson and Dancy (2007), for example, interviewed physics instructors and found reports of many of the difficulties frequently mentioned by GEP faculty members—problems with scheduling, class size, and time structure (Figure 2 and Table 1). While some of these factors are tied to financial constraints (e.g., class size), others have more to do with attitudes that presumably could be addressed at an administrative/community level on each campus. We (and our curricular committees) need to recognize that research-based laboratories frequently require larger blocks of time and greater flexibility in scheduling than is the norm (Shaffer et al., 2014), and that we will need to adjust our scheduling systems accordingly if we wish to change our pedagogical approach. However, despite the enthusiasm of national groups interested in better STEM education for greater utilization of CUREs (AAAS, 2011; PCAST, 2012; Jordan et al., 2014), it is notable that a lack of “acceptance of research within the curriculum” remains a significant barrier at the grassroots level (Figure 1). For example, one response on the anonymous survey stated “Basically, most faculty are not convinced that students can master content and learn more in a ‘research in the classroom’ based approach. The criticism I hear is that it may be true at other institutions, but not at our institution with the students we typically attract.” Such sentiments are generally not expressed in public, but our findings suggest they are widespread and need to be addressed by continuing research to establish the efficacy of this approach. Most of the data arguing that research experiences enhance learning and retention in the sciences have been obtained from studies of students engaged in individual or small-group mentored research in a faculty lab (Hunter et al., 2007; Lopatto, 2007, 2009; Locks and Gregerman, 2008; Laursen et al., 2010). However, there is increasing evidence and documentation of positive learning outcomes using CUREs (Campbell et al., 2007; Lopatto et al., 2008; Shaffer et al., 2010, 2014; Burnette and Wessler, 2013; Jordan et al., 2014). Nonetheless, there is no doubt that more work is needed to assess CUREs, to understand the process and optimize results for students (Auchincloss et al., 2014).

Another common challenge is that research-based active-learning environments often benefit from having a lower number of students per instructor than is needed for lectures or traditional labs. We find it advantageous to have one knowledgeable person present for every six to seven novices (Shaffer et al., 2010). In the case of GEP, this challenge is addressed by a modest investment in support of peer instructors, as undergraduates who have done well in a GEP course are generally excellent facilitators. The strategy of recruiting top students from a given year to serve as TAs/peer instructors the following year works well at many schools but can collapse if the GEP-affiliated course is offered only every other year; the lack of “availability of teaching assistants” is a frequently cited barrier (Figures 1 and 2, Table 1, and Supplemental Material S3). How far a strategy of peer mentoring could be extended is an important question that remains to be explored. Given a bioinformatics platform, which reduces infrastructure needs and safety concerns, the need for trained TAs may be the limiting factor in our desire to reach larger numbers of students. Our present experience suggests that using a CURE can allow a faculty member to provide research experiences for two- to 10-fold more students than by traditional means (a faculty member who might have two to six students in his/her lab may have four to 40 students in a GEP-based CURE), but whether this project could be managed to provide a research experience for hundreds of students at one site is unknown. Other CUREs have experienced difficulty in scaling up to that level (Brownell et al., 2013).

Other barriers, including technology issues and the need for expertise in the research area, appear to be offset by the support provided by the central core system (Supplemental Material S3 and S5; contrast results in Table 1 with Figure 4). Further, it is possible that the support provided by the GEP community (see Table 5) may offset the lack of administrative support that can occur on campus. Analyses of the reported faculty incentives for sustaining a CURE (Table 5 and Figure 6) indicate strong personal commitment on the part of the faculty to providing research experiences for students, grounded in faculty observations that this approach enhances student learning. The evidence indicates that a central core can help faculty members overcome the many barriers to achieve this outcome. While some of the lessons learned from our survey on the utility of a collaborative research project supported by a core system are specific to managing a research project utilizing a bioinformatics approach, most are broadly applicable.

Using bioinformatics as the platform for undergraduate research simplifies the need for lab infrastructure, as it requires only computers and Internet access. Furthermore, the use of a computer-based bioinformatics approach minimizes supply costs. At a cost of less than $200 per college student (this includes all wet-bench work, all technical support, infrastructure maintenance/development, and travel and expenses for new faculty/TA training and continuing GEP faculty workshops), this project has developed a cost-effective strategy for providing research experiences for more college students. Equally important, students are learning the analytical skills they will need in the coming years as sequencing becomes less expensive and the ability to handle large data sets is deemed essential (Shaffer et al., 2010, 2014). Similar success by other consortia using bioinformatics supports this conclusion (Hatfull et al., 2006; Campbell et al., 2007; Ditty et al., 2010; Banta et al., 2012; Jordan et al., 2014). The GEP's inclusion of undergraduates in hypothesis-driven experiential research directly addresses the recommendations of the PCAST (2012) and is producing novel insights into the regulation of chromatin structure by employing comparative genomics (Leung et al., 2010, unpublished data). The project has brought together faculty whose members share common interests in genetics/genomics research and pedagogy. Given the diverse topics encompassed within a contemporary biology department, our results suggest that national research projects that bring together other groups of faculty members with shared interests in a biology subfield may be one of the most practical means of supporting large-scale pedagogical change to embrace research-based laboratory experiences.

FOOTNOTES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

REFERENCES