Month: September 2014

For many online programs, an asynchronous mode of delivery is ideal, allowing students to complete course work on their own schedule while easily accessing quality course content and engaging with instructors and peers. However, fully online programs do not have to be asynchronous in order to be successful. This is the case for Mason’s online Graduate Certificate and Master’s in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology programs.

Intensive collaboration among peers is vital for students in these programs to connect with and manipulate the challenging content of the field. Rather than rely upon discussion feeds or blogging alone to encourage productive interaction, the bioinformatics faculty have implemented synchronous online instruction. “Students don’t have to drive to campus but get the same lecture and interactions,” explains Dr. Iosef Vaisman, Associate Director of the School of Systems Biology. “Now that the master’s is fully online, it is even possible for students outside of the local area to complete these programs.”

A Flexible, Interactive Environment

As most students in these programs are working professionals, the ability to complete course work and attend lectures from anywhere is essential. With synchronous delivery, students have the advantage of completing assignments and reviewing lectures in their own time while participating in scheduled online meetings, which typically occur once a week in the late afternoon or evening. Dr. Vaisman suggests, “About 25% of the programs’ students regularly enroll in the distance learning sections, though this number is often larger in some courses.”

Utilizing online platforms such as Blackboard Collaborate, Adobe Connect, and GoToMeeting, the Bioinformatics faculty achieve live interaction with their students and foster a collaborative learning environment that is crucial for students to master complex concepts. “Direct interactivity can be captured through online sections with real faculty presence, though it may be on a screen,” says Dr. Dmitri Klimov, who is currently piloting BINF 641 as a fully online course. “Students tend to be more enclosed when online, so we encourage them to discuss and interact to prevent passive learning.”

An Innovative Curriculum

Mason’s Bioinformatics and Computational Biology programs have a history of innovation. “We were the first PhD program in the world with no competition for several years, and our master’s was the first in the region,” expresses Dr. Vaisman. “At one time, Bioinformatics was the only [College of Science] program offering distance learning courses.” Given this rich background, the programs have continued to grow and transform to fit the needs and discoveries of the field.

Through a combination of biological analysis and high-performance computation, students receive the most up-to-date advanced bioinformatics education available in the region. With a flexible degree structure, they are also able to connect with faculty and custom design a curriculum that best suits their professional interests and goals. Furthermore, the integrated research component encourages students to make significant impacts in the field with critical contributions in diverse areas such as disease detection, drug design, forensics, agriculture, and environmental sciences.

A Dynamic Faculty

So why choose Mason? Competing universities have similar online bioinformatics programs, which are often delivered asynchronously and compressed into short programs with no research component. But such programs omit the most valuable aspect that is offered by Mason – true and consistent interaction with an unparalleled full-time faculty. The individuals supporting, building, and delivering these courses have made extraordinary contributions to their respective fields and continue to shape the academic and professional realms of bioinformatics and computational biology. In 2012, Dr. Donald Seto uncovered the secrets of a highly contagious microbe called the “uncommon cold virus,” changing the way human adenoviruses are studied. Earlier this year, Dr. Klimov began a partnership with Parabon Computation Inc., developing a new computational tool to study the mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease through molecular simulations.

Mason’s online bioinformatics programs are ideal for working professionals as they are flexible, interactive, and innovative. But regular contact with some of the field’s leading contributors is an incredible opportunity often only found in large, full-time programs. As Graduate Student Services Coordinator, Diane St. Germain interacts regularly with current and prospective students and tries to promote the exclusive experience available at Mason. “Our program is geared toward working professionals,” she notes, “and I’ve heard from so many students that they’ve been able to complete their degrees part-time thanks to these distance education sections!”

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Meet the Online Bioinformatics Team

Dr. Donald Seto, coordinator for the Master’s program, has extensive experience in bioinformatics, genome analysis, genomics, and biochemistry. His research focuses on unraveling the molecular evolution and emergence of new pathogens by using genomics and bioinformatics analysis of the human adenovirus. This semster, Dr. Seto is teaching a distance learning section of BINF 631: Molecular Cell Biology.

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Associate Director of the School of Systems Biology Dr. Iosif Vaisman specializes in protein structure analysis, protein function analysis, and computational mutagenesis. Dr. Vaisman’s main research areas include computational geometry of protein structure and structure-function relationships. This semster, Dr. Vaisman is teaching a distance learning section of BINF 731: Protein Structure Analysis.

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Dr. Dmitri Klimov is an expert in computer simulations of biomolecular systems and the assembly and growth of amyloid fibrils. He is currently developing a new computational tool to study the mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease through molecular simulations. This semster, Dr. Klimov is teaching distance learning sections of BINF 641: Biomolecular Modeling and BINF 690: Numerical Method for Bioinformatics.

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Dr. Saleet Jafri specializes in the use of computational models to understand the molecular and cellular basis of cell function and disease. His research interests include cellular signalling, cardiac physiology, protein structure, and high-performance computing. This semster, Dr. Jafri is teaching a distance learning section of BINF 701: Systems Biology.

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A George Mason University alumni, Dr. Jeffrey Solka focuses on statistical data mining as applied to bioinformatics data with particular interest in dimensionality reduction and text data mining. This semster, Dr. Solka is teaching distance learning sections of BINF 634: Bioinformatics Programming and BINF 704: Colloquium in Bioinformatics.

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Graduate Student Services Coordinator Diane St. Germain helps coordinate these online programs, interacting directly with prospective and current students, maintaining degree requirements, processing applications, and managing class schedules. Her dedication and genuine interest in the success of the programs, students, and faculty members have led to her selection as a Mason Employee of the Month.

Designed and delivered by a talented and accomplished faculty with years of distance education experience, Mason’s online Spanish courses would be well worth your elective credits for a semester or two. Thanks to the collaborative efforts of Drs. Esperanza Román-Mendoza, Monica Mulholland, Alexía Vikis, and Prof. Cristina Hernández Gil de Lamadrid, two intermediate level courses have been fully online since Spring 2012. SPAN 210: Intermediate Spanish is offered every semester, including summer, and SPAN 115: Review of Elementary Spanish is available every spring and fall. This year, Professor Almudena Soto Villalba joined the dynamic team and teaches online sections of 210.

“There are many benefits to developing an online course as a team as it is a very time-consuming and detailed task. Two or three instructors reading the syllabus and the online materials definitely ensures the quality such an endeavor requires,” shares the group. “We enjoy working together and are able to produce better work, especially with regard to improving the courses. Overall these courses benefit significantly from our team-planning.”

With the popularity of the courses rising each semester, the team is also in the process of adding a few new courses to the online repertoire. Both piloting for the first time this past summer, SPAN 101: Elementary Spanish I and SPAN 102: Elementary Spanish II offer online opportunities for beginners. For advanced students, another online course to keep an eye out for is SPAN 370: Spanish Writing and Stylistics.

A Favorable Teaching and Learning Environment

Perhaps the most noted benefit of an online course is the flexibility that it affords. For Sharon Parillon, who enrolled in Dr. Román-Mendoza’s pilot of SPAN 101 and immediately followed with Dr. Vikis’ pilot of SPAN 102, the ability to learn Spanish outside of a constrained classroom allows her to pursue academic endeavors despite a demanding schedule. She indicates, “I actually prefer taking online classes rather than face-to-face. I am a full-time worker and sometimes work more than 40 hours, so online classes are more convenient.” In addition, courses centered in Blackboard Learn^TM are accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. Announcements, assignments, discussion forums – even Kaltura – are all available directly within the course. With Respondus Test Creator, LockDown Browser, and Monitor, instructors can also create and proctor assessments completely online. “If you have good time management skills, Distance Education classes are a great way to make your schedule more flexible. I appreciated the ability to do my classwork whenever and wherever I wanted,” says Heather Gonyeau, who completed SPAN 370 online with Dr. Román-Mendoza this past spring.

As the faculty suggests, teaching online also assures that all students have an opportunity to improve their language skills at their own pace. Whereas face-to-face discussions often pivot around the strong voices in a class, the online environment engages all students. “I had interaction equivalent to that of a face-to-face course through online blogs and responses but did not have to endure any of the stage fright experienced when put on the spot in a traditional class setting,” shares Patricia Crawford, who has taken both SPAN 115 and 210 online with Dr. Mulholland. “The interactive practices and video blogs were always interesting, helpful, and challenging enough to keep me on my toes.”

Tools to Overcome the Virtual Language Barrier

As the ability to communicate in another language hinges upon reading, writing, and speaking skills, the most challenging aspect of learning a foreign language online is often the oral component. While reading and writing are easily facilitated, and perhaps more accommodating, in an online classroom, honing verbal skills requires active communication. ”In a face-to-face situation, students use their oral skills constantly as classes are mostly geared towards communication. In the online environment, however, this is more difficult,” explains the team. “Learning online is a very difficult endeavor that requires a lot of discipline and motivation from students and teachers.”

To meet this challenge, the faculty integrates an oral project allowing students to demonstrate their proficiency with the material and encouraging them to interact with peers. “Kaltura and VoiceThread have proven very useful, and the students appreciate the fact that they can interact with their peers,” notes the team. “The classroom-like atmosphere that we strive to create in terms of collaboration is enhanced.” Parillon, who admits that the audio exercises were her biggest challenge, enjoyed that the online setting allowed her to replay messages to improve her listening skills. “I have taken several online classes and will continue to take them whenever there is an option,” she says. “I love taking my courses online.”

A Personal Touch to Education

Because working 100% online requires a dedicated effort from all, the student-instructor relationship can either suffer or flourish. Luckily, the online Spanish faculty members at Mason know exactly how to inspire academic interaction. With evaluations based on weekly discussions, homework exercises, written compositions, and oral presentations, students are encouraged to reach out to the instructor as well as peers. “One of the factors in making Spanish work well online is the fact that online students get more time individually from the instructor than traditional classroom students,” suggests the team. “We really enjoy the relationship that we develop with the students. You do feel that you know your online students better.”

To strengthen the online learning community, Drs. Román-Mendoza, Mulholland, Vikis, and Profs. Hernández Gil de Lamadrid and Soto Villalba remain an active team dedicated to maintaining an impressive set of quality online courses. They even utilize Twitter to engage with students and help build personal learning environments. Brooke Jones, who completed SPAN 115 online with Dr. Román-Mendoza, notes that online classes, while challenging, can be very rewarding. She says, “It is easy to forget that the class exists, and the workload tends to be more abundant. But online classes, like other classes, are what you put into it. If you put in a lot of inspiring energy, then the experience will be fulfilling.”

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Interested in taking an online Spanish course? Check out the course listing to see what’s available.