Undergraduate Research in Bioinformatics - The CONNJUR project

The involvement of undergraduate students in scholarship of discovery has many benefits including increased excitement and motivation on the part of the student, a richer academic experience, preparation for graduate work, and the potential establishment of a foundation for life-long learning. However, undergraduate involvement in research also suffers from the drawbacks of lack of student skills, multiple demands on student time, and short time-frame for research efforts. When the area of research is bioinformatics, specifically the study of protein structure using nuclear magnetic resonance, the breadth of background required to carry out research is a further roadblock to undergraduate participation. The Connecticut NMR joint university research project is an effort to construct an NMR data analysis framework that includes a common data store and integrates current NMR analysis tools. This paper reports on the challenges faced and approach used to incorporate undergraduate students into a multi-institutional team of faculty and graduate students designing and developing the data analysis framework