Team:Paris Bettencourt/MOOC

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Introduction

iGEM started in 2004 as a course in the MIT. Then, it evolved to become a summer competition for college students. In 2011, iGEM High School was created. Although the college competition has become more successful over time, this is not the case for the High Shcool competition (FIGURE).

We are aware that many students would be interested in participating but do not know about the iGEM competition for Highs Schools or are not sure about how to start a team. There are some limitations that make it harder to participate in the contest. Teachers sometimes lack time and prefer not to integrate new tools in their course schedule. In many cases, High Schools do not have the appropriate lab facilities. Also, the expenses of the competition, such as the trip to Boston and lab material prevent most High Schools from participating.

To encourage more teams to participate in iGEM HS and spread Synthetic Biology, the iGEM Paris Bettencourt 2014 team has developed the platform MOOC iGEM High School.

MOOC iGEM HS is a multi-site platform that covers different topics necessary to create an iGEM High School team. As issues elated to organization, advice and support during the course are foreseen, we have developed a network to support High Schools.

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

The Massive Open Online Course is composed by texts covering different topics important when starting an iGEM team. They can be found in Genius.com, a collaborative annotating website. Audiovisual material in English with subtitles in French and Spanish is provided with each topic. So far, the MOOC includes 21 topics distributed over 4 different areas: Fundamental facts of synthetic Biology, Bioethics at iGEM, Science project at iGEM, and Human practices at iGEM.

MOOC iGEM HS network

Many iGEM Practices & Policy projects (former Human Practices) are not continued after the competition. We planned to create a tool meant to be used and improved by other iGEM teams in the future. Because of that, we raised a network of organizations, people, and institutions from all the world interested in helping and supporting high schools teams of their area. This will ensure the continuity of the support and development for MOOC iGEM HS.

Structure of the MOOC

The MOOC for high school aims to cover different topics that are necessary to create an iGEM group in a high school. We also foresee some problems related to organization, advice and support during the course so we aim to create a network to support those teams.

The MOOC has several tools to accomplish its objective:
1) Syllabus and topics: The MOOC has a syllabus, with text, documents, and audiovisual material that cover different general areas described below. There will be about 20 topics distributed over 4 different areas: Fundamental facts of synthetic Biology, Bioethics at iGEM, Science project at iGEM, and Human practices at iGEM.

2) Support and advice network: Several organizations have shown interest in participating in a network for helping and supporting high schools around the world that want to start an iGEM project. These organizations are: Andalusian Association of Biotechnologists (AsBAn), the Mexican Network for Synthetic Biology, iGEM team Göttingen (Germany), iGEM team Colombia, iGEM team Sevilla UPO (Spain), iGEM team Valencia UPV (Spain), iGEM team Gothenburg (Sweden), and iGEM team ETH (Switzerland).

The aim of the network is to provide contacts for: funding options in both public and private organizations, lab equipment, scientific advice and project design. For that purpose, we aim to involve enterprises, universities and student unions from all around the world with the support of local iGEM teams and Paris Bettencourt iGEM team members.

3) Reward system and course organization: the course will provide a reward system to the participants in order to encourage them to finish the course. More resources will be unlocked as the participant finishes the different modules and answers correctly the different tests or activities (for example, contacts to enterprises and laboratories interested in supporting iGEM teams). For each topic, there will be an explanatory video with the main points to take home, a text with online resources and links, and a tool to interact with the MOOC community or organizers to post the answer to the different activities or tests.

MOOC Course

The MOOC consists of videos of around 3 minutes of duration that explain these subjects:
1) Fundamental facts of Synthetic Biology:
1.1) What is Synthetic Biology and the Central Dogma of Biology: what do we call the Central Dogma of Biology.
1.2) Engineering parts and genetic devices: How a gene is regulated? How to create a genetic circuit?
1.3) DNA & biobricks design: How to use the biobrick database? Tricks and advice
1.4) A model organism: E. coli: How do you use your biological chassis?
1.5) Main basic techniques that are used in iGEM: How to go from in silico to a plasmid

2) Bioethics at iGEM
2.1) Quick summary of history of bioethics concern in Synthetic Biology: Where did all the concerns about Synthetic Biology come from?
2.2) Data collection and sharing with the public: How to manage a database and private information of people?
2.3) Informed consent: What is informed consent? When do you need it? How to write an informed consent form?
2.4) Patentability: Can you patent your designed parts and devices for iGEM? Is patenting good for science?
2.5) Open access to research outcomes and concerns of bioterrorism: What is Open Access and which consequences can it have in the society?
2.6) Open discussion and bioethics education: How to allow a open discussion on bioethics within the iGEM team?

3) Science project managment at iGEM
3.1) Building a team: Human resources: How to build an iGEM team, where to find motivated people and how to select them?
3.2) Brainstorming: when ideas appear: How to brainstorm efficiently and select new ideas?
3.3) Choosing the project: from ideas to experiments: How build a good project?
3.4) Organizing the iGEM team: How to organize work and divide the tasks?
3.5) Funding options for iGEM teams: How to estimate the funding? What are the funding options? How to approach the potential funders?
3.6) The iGEM project wiki: What is a wiki? What should be in my wiki?

4) Human practices at iGEM
4.1) Advertising your iGEM project to the general public: How to advertise our iGEM project? What is the most effective way?
4.2) Measuring public opinion about your project: How can I conduct a survey measuring public concern regarding synthetic biology?
4.3) Science vulgarisation: presentations and meetings: How should I present my iGEM project to the general public?
4.4) Giving back to the community: As an iGEM team, what activities can we make to help the society?
4.5) Collaborations between iGEM teams

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Highschool Work

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MOOC Network

We intend to have an impact on future teams and release the MOOC iGEM HS to the Synthetic Biology community so that they can continue its development. Many of our efforts were focused on developing a solid network of users ready to continue the project after iGEM Jamboree 2014 is over. High school work In order to created the adequate contents we realized the importance of working closely to high schoolers during the development of the platform. We had a close collaboration to Lycée du Valée de la Chevreuse thanks to the Savanturiers team at CRI (Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity, Paris, France). Lycée du Valée de la Chevreuse is a French high school specialized in the teaching of biotechnology, and it is located in the suburbs of Paris. They are going to start the Biobuilder program next year, and the MOOC iGEM HS is going to complement the teaching of synthetic biology. More than 15 high school teachers are currently working to include MOOC High School in their classes. Before starting with the MOOC in february, we tested the platform with 4 classes (FIGURE). The feedback was really positive and helped us to improve the course content and making it friendly and easy to use (FIGURE). Keeping in mind the language difficulties for many high schoolers in non English-speaking countries, the MOOC is multilingual. Thanks to this, we contacted University Pablo de Olavide (Seville, Spain) to develop a network in the area. We collaborated with them, supporting the stand of AsBAn (Andalusian Association of Biotechnologists) in the Science Fair of Seville. We will also make several workshops on October 13th to reach a total of 90 high schoolers of the area during “Week of Science” evenements. Student network and other initiatives In addition, we received budget and support from the CRI to create a new student club, named Science School, devoted to continue supporting MOOC iGEM HS. For that purpose, we seek to continue working to involve enterprises, universities and student unions from all around the world with the support of local iGEM teams and Paris Bettencourt iGEM team members. The student club Science School has as one of its objectives the organization of an European HS Science Fair in June 2015. UCL London iGEM team and AUC_TURKEY iGEM HS team will support the event and will participate sending member and collaborating in the organization. Students from UCL academy (UK), AUC_TURKEY iGEM HS (Turkey) team and lycée du Valée de la Chevreuse (France) will probably participated in the event, hosted and partially funded by the CRI (France). Natalie Kuldell from Biobuilder Foundation agreed to meet us in Boston during the Jamboree and gave to us useful feedback. We intend to collaborate more closely and develop content together next year. Moreover, thanks to biohack spaces and specially to the start-up Bento lab, we would like also to provide basic lab material for high schools that have no access to research labs. Many other iGEM teams and synthetic biology organizations have expressed their support to MOOC iGEM HS and committed to participate in its development during the following year. These organizations are: Andalusian Association of Biotechnologists (AsBAn), the Mexican Network for Synthetic Biology, iGEM team Göttingen (Germany), iGEM team Colombia, iGEM team Sevilla UPO (Spain), iGEM team Valencia UPV (Spain), iGEM team Imperial (UK), iGEM team Gothenburg (Sweden), and iGEM team ETH (Switzerland). The aim of the network is to provide contacts for: funding options in both public and private organizations, lab equipment, scientific advice and project design. (FIGURE)

Conclusions

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