# Online Courses for Navigating Research Mentoring Relationships

> **NIH NIH R25** · SCIENCE COMMUNICATION LAB, INC. · 2023 · $161,997

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
Research mentoring relationships are one of the most important means by which students acquire core
research competencies, develop a strong sense of self-identity as a scientist, and prepare for careers.
However, practical training for students in how to initiate and navigate these critical relationships is absent from
most biomedical research training programs. Training that empowers graduate students with the skills and
knowledge to be successful mentees is needed. In order to address this, the Science Communication Lab has
partnered with the authors of Entering Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to build, test, and
evaluate a program of online instruction. This project focuses on students at the critical undergraduate to
graduate transition, i.e., advanced research undergraduates, post-baccalaureate students, and first year
graduate students, and will provide instruction (online courses) that can be integrated into the curriculum of an
existing research training program or engaged with independently by individual students. These courses will
address challenges that students from diverse backgrounds face as they transition from undergraduate to
graduate school by (1) teaching them to cultivate mentoring relationships with intentionality and to leverage
those relationships to benefit their education, research, and careers, (2) building a national community of
students from diverse institutions and backgrounds to support their collective learning/training, (3) providing
access to free evidence-based, in depth, just-in-time instruction in their research training, and (4) highlighting
important cultural aspects of responsible conduct of research, reproducibility, and equity and inclusion. The
program is being evaluated using feedback from educational experts, as well as student testing of the courses.
As part of this project we developed and deployed the iBiology Courses Platform (ICP), a learning
management system (LMS), to deliver the online courses. Our goal in this grant supplement is to ready the ICP
software code for a robust open source release and to develop the documentation and resources needed for
adoption and further community development. We will refactor and genericize the ICP so it can be used for
implementations other than iBiology Courses. We will also document and release the ICP as open source
software for the broader community. The expected outcomes of this project are: (1) improved security, speed,
and accessibility of the ICP, resulting in a better user experience for all users; (2) a small, nimble, and
customizable open-source learning management system that can be easily adapted to meet the needs of a
variety of educational programs; (3) a vibrant community of developers and users who engage with this
uncomplicated e-Learning system – simple and comprehensible, straightforward to extend, easy to deploy and
manage – and are therefore motivated to contribute to the development and enhanc...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10837567
- **Project number:** 3R25GM139147-04S1
- **Recipient organization:** SCIENCE COMMUNICATION LAB, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Janet L Branchaw
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $161,997
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2020-08-03 → 2025-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10837567

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10837567, Online Courses for Navigating Research Mentoring Relationships (3R25GM139147-04S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10837567. Licensed CC0.

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