LACDR introduces ‘Digital Labcoat’ for Biopharmaceutical Sciences students
Learn to program, gain knowledge of AI methods, or use it in a research project at the LACDR. With the introduction of the innovative digital learning environment ‘Digital Labcoat’, Biopharmaceutical Sciences bachelor students can further develop their computational skills.
The Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) has, under the leadership of Willem Jespers and Gerard van Westen, integrated the Noteable environment with the online learning platform Brightspace. Noteable is a cloud-based platform hosted by the University of Edinburgh, providing students access to coding environments such as Python and R, with Jupyter notebooks.
Donation by Chris Oomen
This innovation was supported by a donation from Chris Oomen through the Leiden University Fund and contributes to the development of the computational learning line in the bachelor’s programme. The system has been field-tested over the last two years.
Accessible for teachers and integration with courses
The Noteable environment is accessible for teachers and can be included into existing courses or newly developed courses. Importantly, as the service is cloud-based, users can access it on their own devices, whether it’s a windows laptop, Macbook, or Linux-based machine.
A low-threshold introduction
The Jupyter notebooks allow practical assignments to be created with text, images, and code blocks, providing a low-threshold introduction computational methods. Students can learn the basics of coding, apply AI methods, or use the system in their bachelor research assignment at one of the LACDR research divisions. The system even allows the docking of small molecule ligands into the three-dimensional structures of proteins.
Also accessible for other programmes at Leiden University
The environment is also available to other bachelor’s or master’s programmes within the Faculty of Science or Leiden University. In practice, integration involves adding a link to a Brightspace course, allowing users to seamlessly transfer to the service via single sign-on. Currently, talks are underway with various educational directors and within the context of SAILS to further expand the learning environment.
