MOOC can accelerate Indian Life science students career

Imagine you could attend from the comfort of your house classes offered by elite colleges like Stanford, Oxford, and that also for free….. that’s MOOC explained in a line. MOOC was introduced in 2008 and emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012.

MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses. This platform offers several world class courses which an Indian life science student can attend from the comfort of his home. Courses include topics like Bioinformatics, Data science, Epidemiology, System biology and many more offered by Stanford, John Hopkins, Mount sinai, SanDiego etc.

Benefits of MOOC:

• They offer  large number of students the opportunity to study high quality courses online with prestigious universities, often at no cost.
• They are ideal for independent study and students can select courses from any institution offering them.
• They offer video lectures and provide interaction through peer review and group collaboration or automated feedback through objective, online assessments (including quizzes and exams).
• Best option to top up skills and competences.

Top 4 MOOCs:

Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/

 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/

 Udacity: https://in.udacity.com/

EdX: https://www.edx.org/

There is lot in store for life science students. Quickly making a list of top 6 courses which would benefit life science students.

1. Introduction to Biomedical imaging:

This is a self paced course offered by Queensland university through edX. This medical imaging course provides an introduction to biomedical imaging and modern imaging modalities. The course also covers the basic scientific principles behind each modality, and introduces some of the key applications, from neurological diseases to cancers.

https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-biomedical-imaging-uqx-bioimg101x-2#!

2. Introduction to Bioconductor: Annotation and Analysis of Genomes and Genomic Assays

This is a self paced course offered by Harvard through Stanford university through edX. This course is a great help for any life science student who want to learn basics of Data analysis. This course introduces one to R and Bioconductor packages.

https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-bioconductor-annotation-harvardx-ph525-5x#!

3. Epidemiology: The basic science of public health

Though epidemiology is an important topic very few universities in India covers it in depth. This course is offered by University of North Carolina through Coursera. This course explores public health issues like cardiovascular and infectious diseases – both locally and globally – through the lens of epidemiology.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/epidemiology

4. Genomic Data science Specialization

Do you want to become an NGS expert. You don’t need to go for big paid courses but could attend the specialization course offered by John Hopkins through Coursera. It teaches the most common tools used in genomic data science including how to use the command line, Python, R, Bioconductor, and Galaxy.

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/genomic-data-science

5. Bioinformatics

Learn everything about sequencing, tracing evolution, finding mutation etc through specialization course offered by UC SanDiego through coursera, that also at a price of 25000 Rs.

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/bioinformatics

6. System Biology and Biotechnology

This course offered by Mount Sinai through Coursera gives you complete overview about system biology. The Systems Biology Specialization covers the concepts and methodologies used in systems-level analysis of biomedical systems. Successful participants will learn how to use experimental, computational and mathematical methods in systems biology and how to design practical systems-level frameworks to address questions in a variety of biomedical fields. The course comes at a small cost of 11000 Rs.

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/systems-biology