Establishing a master's degree programme in Bioinformatics: challenges and opportunities

Abstract

The development of the Bioinformatics MS degree program at the University of Illinois, the challenges and opportunities associated with such a process, and the current structure of the program is described. This program has departed from earlier University practice in significant ways. Despite the existence of several interdisciplinary programs at the University, a few of which grant degrees, this is the first interdisciplinary program that grants degrees and formally recognises departmental specialisation areas. The program, which is not owned by any particular department but by the Graduate College itself, is operated in a franchise-like fashion via several departmental concentrations. With four different colleges and many more departments involved in establishing and operating the program, the logistics of the operation are of considerable complexity but result in significant interactions across the entire campus.

Training for translation between disciplines: a philosophy for life and data sciences curricula

“…However, they do not allow detailed insight into organizational matters. Nonetheless, although in line with what we argue in this paper, a few further observations are noteworthy: Sahinidis et al (2005) (in Illinois, USA) describe their data-oriented programme, which is separated into a chemical biology and a computer science-oriented ‘concentration’. They emphasize the integration of teaching and research, and translation between the two, albeit they offer little concrete advice on how to achieve this.…”

“…We note that in the developing community of computational biology education, there seems to be the need to foster a culture of publishing about our education programmes. There are 1970 master programmes in bioinformatics and/or systems biology worldwide, but despite our best efforts we have been able to locate only a relative handful of descriptions of educational programmes in peer-reviewed literature ( Abeln et al , 2013 ; Alves et al , 2011 ; Cvijovic et al , 2016 ; Machanick and Tastan Bishop, 2015 ; Pattin et al , 2014 ; Sahinidis et al , 2005 ; Stefan et al , 2015 ; Via et al , 2013 ).…”

“… Sahinidis et al (2005) (in Illinois, USA) describe their data-oriented programme, which is separated into a chemical biology and a computer science-oriented ‘concentration’. They emphasize the integration of teaching and research, and translation between the two, albeit they offer little concrete advice on how to achieve this.…”

Characteristics of bioinformatics employment advertisements

“…Occasionally, library and information science departments are also involved. The approaches of these different programs and even their definitions of “bioinformatics” often differ greatly (Sahinidis, et al, 2005). The variety of educational programs available and the interdisciplinary nature of the field make it difficult to judge the skills and education most valued in the current employment environment.…”