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Team:Paris Bettencourt/MOOC
From 2014.igem.org
| BACKGROUND Although an iGEM competition for High Schools exists, there is low involvement around the world. We are aware that many students would be interested in participating but do not know that the competition exists or are not sure about how to start an iGEM team. |
AIMS
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ACHIEVEMENTS
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Achievements
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Introduction
iGEM started in 2004 as a course to teach students synthetic biology at MIT. It has since evolved into a summer competition for college students and in 2011 a iGEM High School division was created. Although the college competition has become more successful over time, this is not the case for the High Shcool competition (FIGURE).
Many students would be interested in participating but do not know about the iGEM competition for Highs Schools or how to start a team at their school. There are limitations that make it harder to participate in the competition, such as the expense of consumables and registration fees or the lack of time or the appropriate lab facilities.
To encourage more teams to participate in iGEM HS and spread Synthetic Biology, the iGEM Paris Bettencourt 2014 team has developed the MOOC iGEM High School.
What is MOOC iGEM HS?
MOOC iGEM HS is a platform that covers the topics necessary to create an iGEM High School team. We have developed a network to support High Schools with advice and support for common issues such as organization. Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) The Massive Open Online Course is composed by texts covering important topics for starting an iGEM team. They can be found at Genius.com, a collaborative annotating website. Audiovisual material in French and Spanish is provided for 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 plan for this tool to be used and improved by other iGEM teams in the future. For this aim, we have built a network of organizations, people and institutions from all around the world interested in helping and supporting high schools teams of their area.
Structure of the MOOC
The MOOC has several tools to help teach students the skills needed to start their own synthetic biology project:
1) Syllabus: including text, documents and audiovisual material.
2) Topics: Fundamental facts of synthetic Biology, Bioethics at iGEM, Science project at iGEM and Human practices.
3) Reward system: 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.
4) Course organization: for each topic, there is a video to explain the main points, 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 3 minute videos 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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MOOC Network
Many of our efforts were focused on developing a solid network of users ready to continue the project after iGEM Jamboree 2014 is over (Fig. X). High school work Our prototipe is based thanks to the Lycée du Valée de la Chevreuse: the Biobuilder program will start there next year and the MOOC iGEM HS is going to complement their Synthetic Biology classes. More than 15 high school teachers are currently working to include MOOC High School in their curiculum. Before launching the MOOC, we tested the platform with four classes (FIGURE). We recieved feedback from students and teacher about how to improve our course (FIGURE). Becasue iGEM is an international competition, our MOOC is multilingual. This has allowed us to contact high schools around the world (Fig. X). Especially, we made several workshops in October to reach a total of 90 high school students in Seville during the "Week of Science" fair in the University Pablo Olavide. Student network and biohack spaces In order to continue this project, we have created a student association in the CRI (Paris) Thanks to biohack spaces and specially to the start-up Bento lab, we would be able 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 (Fig. X).
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