Explain the workshop labels (100, 200, 500)

[csoneson]

(raised by Mike Smith on slack (bioc2020-workshops channel)). Some description of these different labels was provided in the 2018 workshop book. Could we include something similar this year, to avoid confusion?

[mdozmorov]

Suggested explanation:

Workshops are approximately grouped by the level of complexity/skills, loosely mirroring the 100/200/500 sections introduced in the 2018 workshop book.

• 100 Level Workshops - contains material for beginning users of R and Bioconductor. However, even experienced users may find something new here.

• 200 Level Workshops - contains workshops emphasizing use of Bioconductor for common tasks, e.g., RNA-seq differential expression, single-cell analysis and visualization, ATAC-seq analysis, gene set enrichment, and more.

• 500 Level Workshops - contains workshops to help expert users hone their skills on domain-specific tasks.

[grimbough]

I think the descriptions are good and definitely clarify the groupings for me.

A couple of things strike me:

1) Why are the levels 100, 200, 500? Why not 1, 2, 3? Maybe there's a good reason for that, but it just seems odd to me. Is a level 500 2.5 times harder than level 200? I think part of the problem is that somehow the word 'level' makes me think the number is important - that's why I prefer 'series' from the 2018 book which seem more categorical.

2) I also find 'N level' strange to parse grammatically. I guess that's because you see 'Level 100' all the time, but '100 Level Workshops' makes me think we're describing many levels there are. It's a pretty minor point, but I find it jarring and it probably adds to my confusion.