Training Videos Archives

Course Overview

You need mentors to succeed in your graduate training and beyond. Mentors can support you, give advice, introduce you to others, share essential information, and ask good questions to help you to clarify your thinking and progress along your scientific research journey in school and future career path.

Build Your Research Community is a FREE, 5-module course (with a bonus 6th module!) that will guide you through the steps of identifying mentors and building and maintaining mentoring relationships. Scientists from a variety of backgrounds give concrete steps and strategies to help you build a mentoring network to be successful.

At the end of this course you will be able to…

Use your understanding of the academic research environment to develop your individual pathway to success in graduate school.
Find a research advisor & research group that matches your mentorship needs.
Build a healthy relationship with your research advisor based upon communication and aligning expectations.
Develop a community of mentorship from your thesis committee, peers, research colleagues, academic staff, and supporters outside of academe.

A course for anyone starting or already in graduate school

This course is designed for anyone who is thinking about, planning to go to, or already in graduate school in biological research. This list also includes (but is not limited) to advanced undergraduate and early graduate students in the life sciences. While most of the instructors have a background in the life sciences, the lessons are broadly applicable to other disciplines.

Includes 5 comprehensive modules and an optional IDP plan

Module 1, UNDERSTANDING GRADUATE RESEARCH TRAINING: This module introduces you to the academic research training environment, and the roles and responsibilities of your primary research advisor(s). This module will also help you understand imposter phenomenon and become a more confident researcher.
Module 2, FINDING YOUR GRADUATE RESEARCH LAB: This module presents strategies to help you create a plan of action for choosing a research advisor and lab. This module will also help you identify your preferred mentoring styles.
Module 3, ESTABLISHING A POSITIVE MENTORING RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR RESEARCH ADVISOR: In this module, you will learn strategies for cultivating healthy and productive professional relationships with your research advisor(s). This module will also help you assess your preferred communication styles, practice strategies of effective communication, and align expectations for your research training experience.
Module 4, YOUR MENTORING NETWORK: This module will help you understand the importance of mentors. You will create a plan to build your mentoring community to support your research, professional development, career goals, and health and wellness.
Module 5, EXPANDING YOUR MENTORING NETWORK: Some tips and best practices on communicating and building professional relationships with prospective mentors, including your thesis committee.
Module 6, OPTIONAL IDP ACTIVITY: This optional module is to identify your career and long-term goals and create an Individual Development Plan (IDP).

Built with your schedule in mind

You have lots of things to do, so we built this course to focus on concepts and activities that directly apply to your life as a scientist. Each of the 6 modules in the course averages 3 brief videos per module and takes about 2 to 4 hours of work.

Requirements

There are no requirements needed to take this class.

Course Format & Certification

Build Your Research Community is an on-demand, self-paced course. This means that, as soon as you enroll (and the course has started), all course content is available to you and may be consumed at your own pace. At the end of the course, you can apply to receive a a digital badge and Certificate of Completion to share and keep for your records. Passing requires that you complete all of the required activities for the course, which equals 64% of the total activities.

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List to the Companion Podcast

The Trainee Podcast: Build Your Research Community is a companion follow-up podcast to this course. This seven-episode podcast dives deeper into advanced mentor-mentee dynamics, offering insights from 12 diverse experts to help you collaborate more effectively with your Principal Investigator (PI). Through thoughtful conversations, it provides concrete strategies for navigating career transitions, exploring career paths with your advisor, receiving and responding to feedback, resolving conflicts, and aligning expectations—empowering you to build a strong, productive research partnership.

Episode Guide

This podcast covers advanced topics in mentor-mentee relationships so that you can work with your PI in the most effective way possible. There are 7 episodes and 12 experts on mentor-mentee relationships. Click on the episode titles to listen to it on Spotify.

Episode 1: Building Bridges: Finding Your “Ideal” Mentor-Mentee Relationship
Episode 2: Crossroads Ahead: Strategies to Successfully Transition Through Career Stages
Episode 3: Exploring Careers with Your Advisor: From Interests to Action
Episode 4: Receiving and Responding to Feedback on Your Research
Episode 5: Finding Common Ground: Resolving Conflicts with Your Advisor
Episode 6: Communicating to Align Expectations and Self-Advocate
Episode 7: Advisor Insights: What are they thinking?

Course Overview

Giving a research talk (say, at a conference, to your department or in your research group meeting) is a really important part of a scientist’s career. But, putting together and delivering a talk can be a nerve-wracking struggle. Maybe you have little to no experience giving research talks. Or maybe you’ve been doing it for a while, but feel like there is room for improvement. Either way, this course is for you!

Share Your Research is a FREE 5-week course that will guide you through the steps of creating and delivering a good research talk.

By the end of this course, you will have:

A detailed outline plan for your research talk.
Techniques and strategies for delivering an engaging and effective talk.
Approaches for finding and refining your preferred speaking style.
Strategies for practicing and receiving feedback on your talk.

A course for anyone who needs to give research talks

We designed this course for anyone who will be giving research-based scientific talks in the future. This list includes (but is not limited) to advanced undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, as well as early-career or well-established researchers who are interested in learning more about giving a good scientific talk. While most of our instructors have a background in the life sciences, the lessons included in the course are broadly applicable to other disciplines.

Includes 4 modules and a plan for your research talk

Module 1, FRAMING YOUR TALK: This module introduces you to a framework to help you define the foundations of an effective talk: who is the audience, what are your goals and what is your core message. This module will also offer advice to help you discover your speaking style.
Module 2, START BUILDING YOUR TALK: This module presents strategies to help you outline and structure your talk and engage your audience. This module will also get you started with defining the content of the body of your talk.
Module 3, ROUNDING OUT YOUR TALK: In this module, you will continue working on the structure and content of your talk, focusing on the introduction and ending. The module also discusses more strategies for audience engagement and talk titles.
Module 4, GIVING YOUR TALK: This module provides tips and best practices to deliver an effective talk: from strategies for practicing and receiving feedback, to lessening the nerves and dealing with the Q&A.
MY RESEARCH TALK PLAN: As you work through the course, you will be prompted to apply what you’re learning to your own presentation by completing a series of assessments. The responses to these exercises will be captured in a downloadable document called “My Talk Plan”, which is essentially an outline for your research talk. It is organized in a way so that relevant sections may be easily applied to the creation and delivery of future talks.

Built with your schedule in mind

We know you have lots of things to do, so we designed this 5-week course to take 1.5 to 3 hours per week. There are an average of 7 videos per module; each video is 2 to 6 minutes in length.

Requirements

There are no requirements needed to take this class.

How to do Good Science

Share Your Research is the third and final course in the “How to Do Good Science” series from iBiology Courses. Make sure to check out the two other courses in the series to complete your research training!

Planning Your Scientific Journey teaches you how to ask scientific questions and build a research plan.
Let’s Experiment: A Guide for Scientists Working at the Bench teaches you about experimental design in biological research.
Share Your Research guides you through the steps of creating and delivering a good research talk.

Course Format & Certification

This is an on-demand, self-paced course. This means that, as soon as you enroll, all course content is available to you and may be consumed at your own pace. At the end of the course, you can apply to receive a a digital badge and Certificate of Completion to share and keep for your records. Passing requires that you complete all of the required activities for the course, which equals 50% of the total activities.

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Course Overview

Before you step into the lab to do an experiment, you have a long list of questions: How do I design an experiment that will give a clear answer to my question? What model system should I use? What are my controls? What’s an ideal sample size? How can I tell if the experiment worked?

It is overwhelming and easy to feel lost, especially with no guide in sight.

This FREE course tackles the above questions head-on. Scientists from a variety of backgrounds give concrete steps and advice to help you build a framework for how to design experiments in biological research. We use case studies to make the abstract more tangible. In science, there is often no simple right answer. However, with this course, you can develop a general approach to experimental design and understand what you are getting into before you begin.

We will guide you through the steps of planning a well-designed experiment, so by the end of this course, you will have:

A detailed plan for your experiment(s) that you can discuss with a mentor.
A flowchart for how to prioritize experiments.
Tips and best practices for how to get started with an experiment.
A lab notebook template that is so impressively organized, it will make your colleagues envious.
A framework to do rigorous, reproducible research.

For students and practitioners of experimental biology

We designed this course for graduate students participating in experimental biological research. Advanced undergraduate students may also find this course very helpful, as well as postdocs and staff scientists looking for guidance on these topics.

Includes 5 comprehensive modules and 1 experimental plan

Module 1 – AN INTRODUCTION TO EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: So you have an experiment in mind? This module shows you how to get started.
Module 2 – KEY ELEMENTS OF EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: How to think carefully through key features of an experiment, such as variables, controls, sample size, and replication.
Module 3 – ACCOUNT FOR YOUR OWN BIAS: How to identify your own bias as an experimenter and safeguard your experiment from that bias through rigor and transparency.
Module 4 – GEAR UP TO DO THE EXPERIMENT: Some tips and best practices on how to familiarize yourself with a protocol, validate key reagents, and keep a good lab notebook.
Module 5 – GETTING THE EXPERIMENT TO WORK: Some tips and best practices on how to pilot, troubleshoot, and optimize an experiment.
MY EXPERIMENTAL PLAN: As you work through the course, you will be prompted to apply what you’re learning to your own research. Responses to these exercises will be captured in the downloadable document called “My Experimental Plan.” It is organized in a way so that relevant sections may be integrated into your lab notebook.

Built with your schedule in mind

We know you have lots of things to do, so you can take this course as quickly or as slowly as works for you. There are 5 modules in the course and each take about 1.5 to 3 hours of work. There are an average of 7 videos per module; each video is 2 to 6 minutes in length.

This is not a statistics course

We introduce you to some basic statistics concepts that are relevant to the experimental design concepts we teach. However, we don’t dive deeper than that. If you want to learn more, we provide you with some links to outside resources to help get you started.

Without further ado, let’s experiment!

Requirements

There are no requirements necessary to take this class.

How To Do Good Science

Let’s Experiment is the second course in the “How to Do Good Science” series from iBiology Courses. If you haven’t yet, we recommend that you take the first course in this series, called Planning Your Scientific Journey to round out your research training.

Planning Your Scientific Journey teaches you how to ask scientific questions and build a research plan.
Let’s Experiment: A Guide for Scientists Working at the Bench teaches you about experimental design in biological research.
Share Your Research guides you through the steps of creating and delivering a good research talk.

Course Format & Certification

Let’s Experiment is an on-demand, self-paced course. This means that, as soon as you enroll, all course content is available to you and may be consumed at your own pace. For your reference, it took students 6 weeks to complete the whole course in a hosted, synchronized format. They spent on average 1.5-3 hours on the course per week. This includes time spent watching videos, reading text, and doing assessments.

At the end of the course, you can apply to receive a a digital badge and Certificate of Completion to share and keep for your records. Passing requires that you complete all of the required activities for the course, which equals 50% of the total activities.

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Course Overview

Being successful as a scientist requires more than acquiring knowledge and developing experimental skills. It also requires: (1) asking a good scientific question, (2) establishing a clear plan of action, and (3) seeking advice along the way. These three topics are the focus of this course “Planning Your Scientific Journey,” which is aimed primarily at life science graduate and undergraduate students, but also useful for postdocs, staff scientists, and others who could benefit from learning or reviewing these topics.

By the end of the course, you will have:

Criteria to evaluate a research question.
A plan for how to approach your scientific question and other research goals.
An agenda for a meeting with your mentor to get feedback on your plan.

Planning Your Scientific Journey is an innovative online course.

Engaging videos, along with reflective exercises, offer concrete tools and practical advice to help you navigate the most challenging aspects of developing and planning a research project. Instruction is led by a diverse group of leading scientists, such as Nobel Laureates, accomplished faculty, and junior scientists, who think about different aspects scientific training in deep and meaningful ways.

Whether you have yet to decide on a research question or are well-immersed in a project, this course will help to crystallize your research ideas and goals. So, take charge of your training and enroll in this course now!

If you have any problem starting and using this course, or just want to comment on your experience or offer a suggestion, please email us. And if you’re interested, you can read more about the creation of Planning Your Scientific Journey in this blog post on iBiology.

Requirements

There are no requirements necessary to take this class.

How To Do Good Science

Planning Your Scientific Journey is the first course in the “How to Do Good Science” series from iBiology Courses. Make sure to check out the two other courses in the series to complete your research training!

Planning Your Scientific Journey teaches you how to ask scientific questions and build a research plan.
Let’s Experiment: A Guide for Scientists Working at the Bench teaches you about experimental design in biological research.
Share Your Research guides you through the steps of creating and delivering a good research talk.

Course Format & Certification

Planning Your Scientific Journey is an on-demand, self-paced course. This means that, as soon as you enroll, all course content is available to you and may be consumed at your own pace. For your reference, it took students 6 weeks to complete the whole course in a hosted, synchronized format. They spent on average 2-3.5 hours on the course per week. This includes time spent watching videos, reading text, and doing assessments.

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Course Overview

A goal without a plan is just a dream. Luckily, career planning is a skill you can learn. This course helps scientists plan and prepare for their career journey. After taking this course, you will feel empowered to take ownership of your future by creating effective and achievable goals, timelines, and strategies. As a scientist, career planning is a skill that you will call upon again and again, and we are excited to start this journey with you!

Career Planning for Early Career Scientists is a FREE, 3-week course that will guide you through fundamental principles, skills, and strategies to prepare you for the next steps in your career. This course uses the Individual Development Plan (IDP) as a framework for career planning. Whether you are an undergraduate, a graduate student, or a postdoc, this course is for you!

Learn Valuable Career Planning Skills

This course was designed with early career scientists in mind. However, the learnings in this course are applicable to anyone interested in creating effective goals and taking control of their career planning. We discuss why you should start your career planning process as early as possible and provide strategies to execute your goals one step at a time. You will learn the importance of leveraging your networks as you plan your future and how to effectively create a community of mentors that will enrich your career. We also cover how to plan and execute your goals to prepare you for the next steps of your career, and the importance of reflection and iteration as you grow as a scientist.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Learn how to use the Individual Development Plan for your career planning
Engage in self-assessment and career exploration
Learn how to set and execute SMART goals
Utilize your mentoring network for career planning
Revise and update your plan at each step of your career

Course Structure

The course includes 3 modules with activities, reflection questions, readings, and additional resources to help you ideate, plan, and work toward your career goals.

Module 0: Getting Started: Outlines the structure of the course and covers the importance of career planning, how to engage with other participants, and how to successfully complete this course.
Module 1: Starting to Build an Individual Development Plan: Self-assessment and Career Exploration: Introduces the Individual Development Plan as a framework to use in career planning and provides skills for intentional reflection, career exploration, and decision-making.
Module 2: Strategies to Create and Execute Your IDP: Provides strategies to create and execute an effective career plan to achieve your career goals.

Built with Your Schedule in Mind

We built this course for busy students, researchers, or professionals like you! The modules are meant to be completed in about three weeks, allowing you to do course activities while attending to other responsibilities. Each module takes about 1 to 3 hours of work to complete.

Requirements

There are no requirements needed to take this course.

Format & Certification

Career Planning for Early Career Scientists is a self-paced online course. Once you pass the course, you can apply to receive a digital badge and Certificate of Completion to share and keep for your records. Passing requires you to complete all the required activities for the course, which equals 60% of the total activities.

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Course Overview

Mentoring Up: Strengthening and Expanding Mentor-Mentee Relationships is a FREE, 3-week course designed to help trainees like you with strategies and practical tips to develop and maintain effective mentoring relationships. This course centers on the concept of Mentoring Up, which encourages mentees to take ownership of their mentoring relationships by understanding their own needs and goals, communicating effectively, and working collaboratively with mentors toward a shared purpose. While the content of this course is focused on the experience of doctoral trainees in science, the concepts and strategies it includes can be applied to other academic stages and disciplines.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Develop self-awareness, communication, and conflict resolution skills to strengthen your mentoring relationship with your research advisor
Evaluate gaps in your mentoring needs
Create a plan to develop a mentor network to support your career development
Address challenges in mentoring relationships

Course Structure

The course includes 3 modules with activities, reflection questions, readings, and additional resources.

Module 0: Getting Started: Outlines the structure of the course and how to successfully complete this course.
Module 1: Building a Good Mentoring Relationship with Your Research Advisor: Explains the concept of Mentoring Up and presents strategies to develop and strengthen your mentoring relationship with your research advisor.
Module 2: Expanding Your Mentor Network: Helps you identify gaps in your mentor network and provides strategies to strengthen it to aid your academic success.

Built with Your Schedule in Mind

We built this course for busy students, researchers, or professionals like you! Each module takes between 1 to 3 hours to complete and can be done in a self-paced fashion in about three weeks, allowing you to attend to other responsibilities.

Requirements

There are no requirements needed to take this course.

Format & Certification

Mentoring Up is a self-paced course. Once you pass the course, you can apply to receive a Courses Certificate of Completion and a digital badge that you can share on social media. Passing requires you to complete 60% of ALL of the activities in the course.

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Course Overview

Public engagement is the practice of establishing intentional and meaningful interactions between scholars and different publics for the purpose of mutual learning or other social benefits. Although public engagement utilizes many of the same principles, skills, and formats as outreach or communication, one key difference is that public engagement prioritizes building partnerships with the audience to create societal impact.

Strategies for Effective Public Engagement is a FREE, 3-week course that will guide you through fundamental principles, skills, and strategies to succeed in your public engagement projects. Whether you are new to public engagement or simply want to improve upon what you have already accomplished, this course is for you!

A Course for Anyone Interested in Public Engagement

This course is designed for anyone who is interested in, planning, or executing a public engagement project. We discuss why you should get involved with public engagement and how it can enhance your personal and professional development. We also cover how to plan and execute a public engagement project and ultimately, how to assess and iterate on your work to continue to improve and grow.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Understand the benefits of public engagement
Reflect on your personal and professional motivations for public engagement
Define public engagement and describe how to do it well and ethically
Apply communication skills, like listening and receiving, to public engagement
Define your goals and desired impacts
Apply strategies to plan, execute, and assess public engagement projects

Course Structure

The course includes 3 modules with activities, reflection questions, readings, and additional resources to help you ideate, plan, and execute public engagement activities.

Module 0 – Getting Started: Outlines the structure of the course, how to engage with other participants, and how to successfully complete this course.
Module 1 – Public Engagement: Skills, Strategies, and Considerations: Focuses on why and how you should get involved in public engagement and key skills needed to be successful.
Module 2 – Starting, Executing, and Assessing a Public Engagement Project: Reviews the steps to plan, execute, and assess a public engagement project.

Built with Your Schedule in Mind

We built this course for busy scholars, researchers, or practitioners like you! The modules are meant to be completed in about three weeks, allowing you to do course activities while attending to other responsibilities. Each module consists of 1-6 brief videos and takes about 1 to 3 hours of work to complete.

Requirements

There are no requirements needed to take this course.

Format & Certification

Strategies for Effective Public Engagement is a self-paced online course. Once you pass the course, you can apply to receive a digital badge and Certificate of Completion to share and keep for your records. Passing requires you to complete all the required activities for the course, which equals 60% of the total activities.

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Course Overview

The process of completing your PhD and securing your next position can be stressful and the guidelines on how to do this are not very clear. The Strategic Postdoc is a FREE, 3-week course designed to help trainees like you create a plan to complete their PhD training while applying for postdoctoral positions. This course allows you to evaluate different positions and opportunities while thinking about your personal and professional goals. While the content of this course is focused on the PhD-to-postdoc transition, the concepts and strategies in this course can be applied to other professional transitions after a PhD.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Understand if a postdoc is the right next step for you
Reverse-engineer your postdoc search based on your needs, preferences, and values
Create a game plan to apply for a postdoc
Interview, negotiate, and choose a postdoc lab
Strategize finishing your PhD and moving on

Course Structure

The course includes 3 modules with activities, reflection questions, readings, and additional resources to guide you through your postdoctoral search:

Module 0: Getting Started: Outlines the structure of the course and how to successfully complete this course.
Module 1: Positioning Yourself for the Postdoc: This module will help you identify your needs, preferences, and values (NPVs) to reverse-engineer your postdoc search, should it be the best next step for you. Using videos, case studies, worksheets and reflection questions, you will build a game plan to finish your PhD and secure your ideal postdoc.
Module 2: Applying for the Postdoc: This module will guide you through the process of finding, interviewing for, and choosing a postdoc lab that is a good fit for you. You will also learn how to apply effective negotiation strategies to help you smoothly transition out of your PhD lab and into the next stage of your career journey.

Built with Your Schedule in Mind

We built this course for busy students, researchers, or professionals like you! Each module takes about 1 to 3 hours of work to complete and they can be completed in a leisurely fashion in about three weeks, allowing you to do course activities while attending to other responsibilities.

Requirements

There are no requirements needed to take this course.

Format & Certification

The Strategic Postdoc is a self-paced online course. Once you pass the course, you can apply to receive a digital badge and Certificate of Completion to share and keep for your records. Passing requires you to complete all the required activities for the course, which equals 50% of the total activities.

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Course Overview

The purpose of the Business Concepts for Life Scientists course is to enhance PhD scientists’ understanding of foundational business concepts. This business coursework is unique because it is designed to prepare scientists for career transitions into both academic and non-academic settings. The course comprises a series of three modules – Business Strategy, Finance and Business Development.

This course is designed for graduate students, postdocs and junior faculty who wish to gain a basic understanding of business fundamentals. The goal is to impact participants’ career readiness by helping prepare scientists who want to start their own labs, and inform scientists who want to go into industry.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

Explain key terms used in the business and financial management of scientific enterprises.
Apply foundational concepts to your own research planning.
Develop increased confidence in using business terminology during interviews or networking events.
Identify knowledge areas within business for further study.

This course includes lecture videos, podcasts, and assessment questions to help you learn basic concepts in business strategy, business development and finance. There are two assessment tracks in the course, an “Analyze a Company” track and a “My Strategic Plan” track. In the “Analyze a Company” track you will choose an existing company to investigate as a case study to apply the business concepts you are learning in the course. In the “My Strategic Plan” track you will apply the business concepts in the course to yourself and your own research plans. The assessments of each track are compiled into a final document that you can print and save for yourself. The “My Strategic Plan” track will empower you to think about and take ownership of your short- and long-term research goals. For individuals interested in pursuing business-related science careers, the “Analyze a Company” track will provide a starting point from which to learn business vocabulary and gain confidence to engage professionals and alumni in professional settings (e.g., networking and interviewing conversations).

To pass this course and get a certificate of completion, you only need to answer enough questions to complete one of the assessment tracks. However, to get the full benefit of the course, we strongly encourage course participants to complete both tracks.

There are no requirements necessary to take this class.

Course topics

Business Strategy

This module provides information about how scientific enterprises develop strategy and how organizational context impacts resource allocation. Participants will learn and apply basic concepts of business strategy (e.g. value proposition, identifying stakeholders and vision) to academic and industry settings.

Business Development

This module presents an overview how business development contributes to a scientific enterprise’s vision and goals, and deal types. Participants will learn and apply basic concepts of business development (e.g. deal structure, deal funding, and collaborations) in academic and industry settings.

Strategic Collaborations

This module presents an overview of how scientific enterprises engage in collaborations. Participants will learn the nuts and bolts of what each side seeks to achieve, and the partnering process for Academic-Biopharma collaborations. Participants will also learn the soft skills needed to collaborate successfully in the video “On Being Collaborative and Influential”.

Strategy Toolkits

This module presents an overview of tools used to develop and assess strategy. Participants will learn and apply frameworks such as SWOT or PEST analyses to evaluate an operating environment including competitors, stakeholders, supplies, and economic, regulatory or technology trends. Participants will also learn about tools to help set, generate, and prioritize an enterprise’s goals.

Finance

This module presents an overview of financial statements and concepts in financial planning. Participants will learn and apply basic concepts of business finance (e.g. calculating burn rate, opportunity cost, and net present value) to academic and industry settings.

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