EMbaRC: designing training and e-learning materials for biological resource centres

Abstract

The European Consortium of Microbial Resource Centres (EMbaRC, www.embarc.eu) is a research infrastructure project gathering together major microbial Biological Resource Centres (BRCs) in Europe. These culture collections have a long and respected tradition in training people that are involved in microbial taxonomy, preservation and management. Advanced and bespoke courses on related topics add high value to the European educational community and create a knowledge-based training network. Under the framework of EMbaRC, the training programmes offered by the consortium were surveyed and schemes were proposed to establish an educational community to create a knowledge-based training network. This would implement lifelong educational and continuing professional development (CPD) schemes for those working within microbial resource centres (MiRC). In parallel, a European Masters Course on MiRC was designed to address the formal education path for strengthening competences in (1) Microbial Preservation Technologies, (2) MiRC: Organisation and Management, (3) QC Standards and International Regulations, (4) Microbial Biosafety and Biosecurity, and (5) IT Technologies and Database Management. Finally, to support these actions, materials for e-learning activities were developed such as videos related to microbial preservation techniques, the Gram-staining technique and, preparing microscopic slides of fungi. All activities developed under this EMbaRC task will support the MIRRI and other EU ESFRI-BMS and EMTRAIN projects.