Rosalind - online platform for learning bioinformatics

[Northern_Gull]

Rosalind is a new educational resource for learning bioinformatics through problem solving and programming. Rosalind allows its users to learn bioinformatics concepts through a problem tree that builds up biological, algorithmic, and programming knowledge concurrently.

Rosalind is also designed to help bioinformatics professors manage the programming assignments in their classes via its software system for automated homework testing. The Rosalind site has already subscribed over 4000 active users and counting. As of today, it contains 90 published problems.

It can be checked out at http://www.rosalind.info

[gsgs]

any independent,trustworthy reviews from people
who say what they really think ?

[Northern_Gull]

There are some links with comments/discussions about the platform:

http://www.metafilter.com/122684/The...-actually-used
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/...ioinformatics/

http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/10/03/162256/rosalind-an-addictive-bioinformatics-learning-site?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed

http://www.homolog.us/blogs/2012/11/06/congratulations-to-rayan-chikhi/

[gsgs]

they compare it with project Euler, which I found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Euler

how much time is needed

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I remember, I enjoyed these programming contests,
where they keep a list of tasks and programs and
user statistics.
E.g. Uni, Danzig(SO??), Valladoloid
I haven't checked since long
is it similar ?

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can you create your own Rosalind discussion forum, please ?

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it was : http://www.spoj.com/
found with google via

http://cplus.about.com/od/glossary/a/ten-contests.htm

maybe you can make them add Rosalind

Valladolid was here: http://acm.uva.es/contest/

[Northern_Gull]

Yes, it is often referred as Project Euler for Bioinformatics. However, it is not 100% similar to programming contexts, as its primary aim is education (learning bioinformatics). In other words, it is in between coding competitions and online education.

Do I undertand correctly that you are asking not to post here, at http://seqanswers.com/forum?

Thanx for the links!

[krespim]

any independent,trustworthy reviews from people
who say what they really think ?

I have been solving some of problems on and off and like it because these problems, although very simple in the beginning, are similar to some that might be encountered on day-to-day analysis - and thus the code snippets that I create can be re-used later.

They also have a small introduction of the biological aspects of the problem. This is not so useful for me as a Biologists, but it might be good for computationally minded people that knows little about Biology.

Where it fails, IMO, is that it does not give provide coding training/tips. The user needs to know hot to code before hand. In my case I do it in parallel using the problems to learn python.

Overall a good tool.

[gsgs]

> Do I undertand correctly that you are asking not to post here,
> at http://seqanswers.com/forum?

no, how could I ? I'm not affiliated with this forum.
I meant a discussion especially about the Rosalind-problems
would be fine. As I saw it with the other programming contests,
also solving problems in groups, sharing ideas -
that's what motivated the people.

[phcompeau]

Where it fails, IMO, is that it does not give provide coding training/tips. The user needs to know hot to code before hand. In my case I do it in parallel using the problems to learn python.

Thank you for the feedback! We already have a very basic collection of tutorial problems here: http://rosalind.info/problems/list-v...python-village
and we will be working on expanding our coding education in 2013.

[krespim]

Thank you for the feedback! We already have a very basic collection of tutorial problems here: http://rosalind.info/problems/list-v...python-village
and we will be working on expanding our coding education in 2013.

Thanks for the info. I've missed those tutorials.