The Role of Documentation & Training in a National Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid System
Eugene R Kraus MA; Karmanos Cancer Institute;
Content:
The primary mission of Documentation and Training (D&T) is to support the creation and dissemination of documentation and training materials, provide general training opportunities and support and distribute community-wide resources. By doing this, we facilitate widespread adoption, dissemination, and use of caBIG" interoperable tools, standards, and data sets within the larger cancer and biomedical communities.
Technology:
Information access is through an Internet Training Portal hosted by the National Cancer Institute. Web based content, document storage and retrieval and project registration occur utilizing a Learning Management System (LMS) developed by the Training Workspace.
Design:
The Documentation & Training Workspace of the National Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG") project has created educational materials about the caBIG" program, including the caBIG" Primer which provides a high level overview of the informatics grid program, the caBIG" Tools Landing Pages, and a Learning Management System which serves as a central source for information on training programs, registering for classes, tracking progress and staying informed of new class offerings. D&T hosts a Tools Inventory webpage containing a compendium of applications, software tools, database technologies, and Web-based applications in the areas of: clinical trials management, biospecimens, imaging, genome annotation, proteomics, microarrays, pathways, data analysis and statistical tools, data sharing, infrastructure, vocabularies, and translational research. Documentation & Training also supports a program wide Mentoring program to work with tool/application developers and adopters to assist with their preparation of compliant documentation and to guide them through various training formats dependant on the needs of the target audience.
Results:
A proactive approach to documentation and training is key to achieving the goals of the caBIG program. D&T defines guidelines, processes, templates and tools for developing consistent software documentation and training materials and fosters mentoring activities throughout the caBIG" program.
Conclusion:
Through these efforts we hope to increase application usability and ease of adoption, ensure a common look and feel across caBIG" and create robust documentation and training for projects.
