PRINCIPLES OF PROTEIN STRUCTURE ------------------------------- A free, self-paced, interactive course on the biological WWW Sponsored by Birkbeck College, London, UK and the Virtual School of Natural Sciences of the Globewide Network Academy Summary ------- We are developing a course on Protein Structure to be offered in January 1995 and available to anyone on the Web. This course will break completely new ground in education and training as it uses tools and ideas that have only become possible with the development of the Internet and multimedia. Leading protein structure groups have freely offered their services as consultants to help develop it. The course (which carries no accreditation) breaks the traditional mould of 'teacher' and 'student' and offers several different methods of *learning*. It is designed for many types of people including professional biologists in other disciplines who wish to learn more about this essential aspect of modern biology. We are seeking additional consultants now and will be starting to register students in November 1994. Much course material is in place and the rest will be generated by the end of the year (but we'd be delighted to be offered any additional material). The course will use several radically new methods of learning including interactive sessions in the virtual environment at BioMOO and (free) software for molecular visualisation and self-assessment. Students will have an important role in helping to create course material while they learn and we intend that there will be scope for project work. Essential Information --------------------- Please do not mail us at present to enquire about registration as a student, course details, or technology as this will be automated through the WWW CGI-forms technology. The course has a HOME PAGE at: http://www.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/PPS/index.html which we intend to mirror at various sites. The minimum equipment required to take the course will be a modern machine (PC, Mac or UNIX) connected to WWW and capable of running forms and graphics browsers (e.g. Mosaic, MacWeb, XEmacs). You (or your local sysperson) should be able to install simple packages (e.g. RasMol, Kinemage) on the machine. Offers of consultancy or material should be posted to: vsns-pps-offers@tsun.desy.de (MARCUS - IS THIS OK?? bounce it to Alan M and Me) Additional information (for greater detail see the WWW pages) ------------------------------------------------------------- Course Content: - - - - - - - - The course has three components, all of which will be partly self-paced: - Technology of the biological Web (databases, programs, BioMOO) - Principles of protein structure (basic chemistry and biology, primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary). These two will run in parallel and will have objectives which will help students measure their progress. - Protein structure and function. This will concentrate on a number of key structural families (e.g. proteases, immunoglobulins, membrane proteins, etc). The course will *not* cover some of the areas which interact with protein structure such as molecular evolution, protein folding, reaction mechanisms, drug design, protein engineering. However we shall have a series of electronic discussion groups and it is possible for course members to branch out into areas like these on a 'self-help' basis. Students: - - - - - The course is designed for 'virtual' students, who may never meet any of the other course members in real life (IRL). Students are expected to 'pay' for this course by contributing in some way such as producing material,helping with technology, or leading electronic discussions. Since feedback is vital for the consultants we shall require that all students are prepared to contribute in some way and this will be part of the basis of selection. We need to set a limit to student numbers as this limits the e-mail pressure on consultants and the load on BioMOO and other servers. There will be a selection proceedure which will encourage: - commitment to the course - diversity of disciplines - geographical and cultural diversity We also anticipate that there may be RL students who work close to a consultant. These may or may not be on a formal accrediated course, but it is not intended that they get special attention; the main benefit is added feedback for the consultants. Downloading the course: - - - - - - - - - - - - We intend to make the course downloadable for personal use (although this may take a little time). Anyone who wishes to use the course material for teaching or training should consult us beforehand. Timescale and Flexibility: - - - - - - - - - - - - - Two of us were involved in the first virtual course on the Internet (on C++) and are using experience there to plan the timescale. 15 weeks seems about right, with a weekly commitment from students of at least 5 hours/week. The course will, however, have a great deal of flexibility since some things will work better than others, and there will also be more resources on the Web when we start! Because of this we are quite prepared to change direction and no-one who wants a quiet life need apply! We are also very receptive to suggestions from course members. Course organisers ----------------- Consultants have offered their services from Birkbeck, UCL, Manchester, Daresbury, Glaxo, Aarhus, Uppsala, DESY, Duke, Columbia, Brookhaven, BioMOO and elsewhere (see WWW pages). Please don't mail them about the course - they will only have to bounce it to us! The administrative aspects of the course are being run by: Marcus Speh (DESY/Berlin, DE) for the VSNS and GNA Alan Mills (Crystallography, Birkbeck College, UK) and me Peter Murray-Rust (Glaxo and Birkbeck, UK) We expect a heavy load of mail so please limit it at present to: vsns-pps-offers@tsun.desy.de and wait until further information appears on the WWW pages. There is also a comments form which we'd like you to use rather than mail where possible: http://seqnet.dl.ac.uk:8000/vsns-pps/comments.html