Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
Bioinformatics. 2017 Oct 15;33(20):3296-3298. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btx447.
Bioinformatics is a rapidly growing field that has emerged from the synergy of computer science, statistics and biology. Given the interdisciplinary nature of bioinformatics, many students from diverse fields struggle with grasping bioinformatic concepts only from classroom lectures. Interactive tools for helping students reinforce their learning would be thus desirable. Here, we present an interactive online educational tool called TeachEnG (acronym for Teaching Engine for Genomics) for reinforcing key concepts in sequence alignment and phylogenetic tree reconstruction. Our instructional games allow students to align sequences by hand, fill out the dynamic programming matrix in the Needleman-Wunsch global sequence alignment algorithm, and reconstruct phylogenetic trees via the maximum parsimony, Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic mean (UPGMA) and Neighbor-Joining algorithms. With an easily accessible interface and instant visual feedback, TeachEnG will help promote active learning in bioinformatics.
TeachEnG is freely available at http://teacheng.illinois.edu. The source code is available from https://github.com/KnowEnG/TeachEnG under the Artistic License 2.0. It is written in JavaScript and compatible with Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Microsoft Edge.
生物信息学是一个快速发展的领域，它是计算机科学、统计学和生物学协同作用的结果。鉴于生物信息学的跨学科性质，许多来自不同领域的学生仅通过课堂讲座来掌握生物信息学概念存在困难。因此，需要交互式工具来帮助学生加强学习。在这里，我们介绍了一个名为 TeachEnG（代表基因组学教学引擎）的交互式在线教育工具，用于加强序列比对和系统发育树重建中的关键概念。我们的教学游戏允许学生手动对齐序列，填写 Needleman-Wunsch 全局序列比对算法中的动态规划矩阵，并通过最大简约法、非加权对组平均法（UPGMA）和邻接法重建系统发育树。TeachEnG 具有易于访问的界面和即时的视觉反馈，将有助于促进生物信息学中的主动学习。
TeachEnG 可在 http://teacheng.illinois.edu 免费获得。源代码可从 https://github.com/KnowEnG/TeachEnG 获得，根据 2.0 版艺术许可协议发布。它是用 JavaScript 编写的，与 Firefox、Safari、Chrome 和 Microsoft Edge 兼容。
