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Sat, Nov 8, 10:30 - 10:55, Pueblo A Paper (refereed)

Recommended Citation: Kortsarts, Y, R W Morris, and J M Utell. Interdisciplinary Introductory Course in Bioinformatics. In The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference 2008, v 25 (Phoenix): §3312. ISSN: 1542-7382. (A later version appears in Information Systems Education Journal 8(27). ISSN: 1545-679X.)

Interdisciplinary Introductory Course in Bioinformatics

Refereed

11 pages

Yana Kortsarts    [a1] [a2]
Computer Science Department
Widener University    [u1] [u2]
Chester, Pennsylvania, USA    [c1] [c2]

Robert W. Morris    [a1] [a2]
Biology Department
Widener University    [u1] [u2]
Chester, Pennsylvania, USA    [c1] [c2]

Janine M. Utell    [a1] [a2]
English Department
Widener University    [u1] [u2]
Chester, Pennsylvania, USA    [c1] [c2]

Bioinformatics is a relatively new interdisciplinary field that integrates computer science, mathematics, biology, and information technology to manage, analyze, and understand biological, biochemical and biophysical information. We present our experience in teaching an interdisciplinary course, Introduction to Bioinformatics, which was developed and taught by an interdisciplinary team of computer science and biology faculty. To integrate the “Ethics, Computing, and Genomics” component into the course curriculum, collaboration with an English faculty member was established. The course was designed as an upper-level elective for computer information systems and computer science majors and was open as a science elective for all science majors and for chemical engineering majors. We discuss the course curriculum, and a way to integrate the Python programming language in the UNIX environment will be presented. The integration of bioinformatics algorithms into the course curriculum will be emphasized.

Keywords: bioinformatics, pedagogy, interdisciplinary collaboration, computer science and information systems curriculum, Python, Biopython, ethics, genomics and computing

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