You may attend all three of the classes in this series, or any combination. Classes are free, but you must sign up.

Entrez Programming Utilities are web services that provide programmatic access to the NCBI databases. This class will focus on the basic syntax of E-Utility URLs in order to place requests. We will begin with the core Entrez Utilities, which are applicable to all residing NCBI databases, and continue with the Entrez History Server, where specific requests can be stored and processed further. We will end with an overview of the Entrez database requests, EInfo (which retrieves general database information) and EFetch (which retrieves detailed descriptions of specific data). The course is intended for individuals interested in accessing NCBI data in an automated fashion.

This class will focus on building pipelines with E-Utility functions. We will begin with the process of building pipes and continue with the NCBI E-Utilities Perl module, NCBI_PowerScripting.pm, which simplifies the use and integration of pipes in your own programs. We will look at several of the modules' subroutines, including uploading and downloading data, as well as the four basic pipes used to request and retrieve information.

This class will focus on the ELink E-Utility, which integrates information from varied databases, both within and outside of NCBI. We will look at several subroutines in the NCBI Perl module, NCBI_PowerScripting.pm, in relation to the ELink utility in order to facilitate its use for our own purpose.