The massive open online course of Al-Farabi KazNU was included in the list of the 100 most popular out of 2,900 online courses launched in 2021 on educational platforms of the world, according to the popular online course search engine Class Central.

The founder and CEO of Class Central, Mr. Dhawal Shah, announced this in his congratulatory letter.

For the university, this is the first online course published on the world's largest provider of educational courses, Coursera, with the support of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU).

Work on the course lasted more than a year, the launch of which took place on January 2, 2021.

Instructor and course developer - Deputy Head of the Department for Scientific and Innovative Work and International Relations, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, PhD Aizhan Zhusupova (Fulbright laureate, 2011-2012, British Council Researcher Links, 2016, participated in 10 projects of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 3 international projects, author of 12 teaching aids). Assistants - Head of the Department, Candidate of Biological Sciences Zhazira Zhunusbaeva, Senior Lecturer, PhD Izat Smekenov.

The development of the pedagogical design of the course, video filming and editing of promo and lectures was carried out under the leadership of the director of the Institute of New Educational Technologies of Al-Farabi KazNU Asel Musinova and the director of the MOOC Center Marzhan Atabayeva.

Director of the Center for Open Education of SPbPU Svetlana Kalmykova, Deputy Director Artem Koshkin and employee of the center Fanil Bakhtiyarov provided organizational, consulting and technical support in the work on the pedagogical design of the course and the publication of teaching materials for the course on the platform.

Molecular biology is one of the most interesting sciences, in which new discoveries are made every day. She studies the structure and properties of proteins and nucleic acids, as well as the various molecular mechanisms underlying biological processes and life itself. This interdisciplinary course will be of interest to students and specialists in the field of chemistry, ecology, mathematics, physics, medicine and legal sciences, as well as to a wider audience, as it reveals various aspects of molecular biology and its methodological tools in an interesting and accessible way.

As of November 30, 2021, 9,575 students were registered for the course, the course rating is 4.5 out of 5 or 97%.

Press service of Al-Farabi KazNU