For researchers of wildlife – biologists, ecologists, geographers and naturalists, a new mass online course "Computer technologies in biology" has been launched on the Internet. The online course is available to everyone for free in the catalog of the educational platform "Stepik" https://stepik.org/course/60859. The creation of the course was made possible thanks to the dedicated support of the V. Potanin Foundation and a key partnership with the global biodiversity system (GBIF). It should also be noted that consumers of raw empirical data on living objects – geographers, paleontologists, and applied mathematicians-may also be interested in the course.
The purpose of the course is to gain practical skills in using modern computer technologies and information achievements in relation to the processing, transmission and storage of biological data. The author of the course claims that the skills acquired during the full development of the course can be used to prepare a research project, a thesis, a master's thesis, and even a scientific article. Individual modules can even help you enrich your project activities at school.
The information in the course is clearly structured and presented in an accessible form, rich in video guides. At the end of the course, the user creates real cases, gets practical knowledge of working with free software packages (Diva-GIS, mesquit, Mega, Maxent), open global resources and specifications (gbif, Darwin Core, iNaturalist, GenBank (NCBI, EMBL-EBI), GeoJSON).
The online course was prepared at the Altai state University. Full-time master classes of the course authors are planned jointly with the al-Farabi Kazakh national University (Republic of Kazakhstan) within the framework of the current agreement on the implementation of master's programs of the University of the Shanghai cooperation organization. The course will help biologists of the University to learn new skills in the field of computer technology. The faculty of biology and biotechnology is a major innovative scientific and educational center where fundamental and applied research is conducted in many areas of modern biology, ecology, biotechnology and Biomedicine. An important Department of the faculty is the biological Museum, whose funds store more than 5 thousand copies of mass, endemic and rare species of animals and plants. This Depository is a unique repository of objects representing, among other things, the territory of the Altai mountain country (East Kazakhstan). The potential of al-Farabi Kazakh national University is of high interest in terms of exchange of experience, methods, international standards and biological information within the project.
The educational product is developed according to the principles of high demand for results in order to train specialists of global competitiveness, based on the best technological solutions and effective educational practices. The course content is consistent with the global agenda and is implemented in accordance with the principles of the research Protocol. The methodological aspect of the course is dictated by global trends, which in biology are most evident in General digitalization and genomic research. One of the experimental sites of the course is the territory of the Altai Mountain country, as an Ecoregion that includes a large number of biological objects inhabiting it and is declared by the UN ("Theglobal 200. Priority ecoregions for global conservation", 2012) is among the 200 ecoregions of the world, where up to 90% of all biodiversity is concentrated on 10% of the planet's territory.
The project's key partner, the global biodiversity information system (GBIF), promotes open access to data on the earth's biodiversity in order to ensure sustainable development. GBIF aims to bring together digital resources across the entire spectrum of life organization, from genes to ecosystems, and connect them to issues important to science and society through GIS tools. The Foundation works in partnership with other international organizations such as: Catalog of Life partnership, Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), International Barcode of Life project (iBOL), Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) and GEO. According to Donald Hoben, Executive Secretary of the GBIF (global biodiversity information system), the educational product "Computer technologies in biology" was the first to offer a University level of preparation of data on biodiversity on a regular basis in Russia (see the support letter inside the course).
The educational product is also aimed at increasing the motivational component of students, their personal and professional growth, as well as the formation of responsibility for their own career. Tangible for students results at the end of its development will be expressed in an increased percentage of cases (projects, papers, etc.) used modern methods of information technology, GIS, bioclimatic modeling, bioinformatics, and molecular biology; the growth in the number of presentations at scientific events and improving the methodological quality of the studies; enrichment bibliography master thesis; improving academic quality and expand personal network of scientific communication; training specialists for the global labor market with world-class professional competencies. The educational product is focused on the most practical way for students to master modern methods of biodiversity research used by the world's leading research laboratories (methods of the article level Q1, Q2).
Associate Professor Z.A. Inelova
Chair of biodiversity and bioresources
www.kaznu.kz
