About THE COURSE

COURSE OVERVIEW

In the present century, exceptional advancements in computational power and numerical optimization routines have turned quantitative methods to be critically important for solving biological problems. This course lays a basic foundation of model thinking and provides an exposure to quantitative treatments of various biological processes.

During this course the students will learn several key quantitative biology techniques, including solving ODEs, phase plane analysis, stability analysis, steady-state analysis, quantifying chaos and population stability, through active participation in the class. Upon completion, the students will appreciate the rationale, principles and methodology of constructing and analysing models in various fields biology, inter alia, population dynamics, microbiology, enzyme kinetic, epidemiology, and evolution.

Primary focus of this course will be on the graphical interpretations and hands-on training sessions. The amount of mathematics involved will be minimal. Basic knowledge of coding in any computational programming language will be helpful for this course.

COMMUNICATION

Language of instruction is English. However, if you feel the necessity of language diversity, please inform me.

Beside the classroom sessions I will use this website and Slack for announcements and doubt clarifications. All students are highly encourage in taking part in the discussions in the comment sections herein and in Slack. Engagement in proper spirit will be counted as your class-participation points.

GRADING SCHEME

There are four grading components. Their relative weightages are given below.

1. Exam: 40%

2. Classroom assignments 30%

3. DIY Project: 20%

4. Class participation: 10%

Number to grade conversion:

I will use absolute numbers for grading.

90 - 100 A; 80 – 89 A-; 75 – 79 B+; 70 – 74 B; 65 – 69 C+; 60 – 64 C; 55 –59 C-; 50 – 54 D+; 45 – 49 D; 40 – 44 D-; & <40 F.

Additionally, scoring >=95 awards an Outstanding Grade (O). Students who receive an Outstanding Grade are featured on the Outstanding Board on the course website, and have the chance to assist me in teaching the course as an assistant instructor the next time the course is offered.

Feedback on grading scheme is welcome.

Exams:

There will be three exams. Exact dates will be communicated in the class one week prior. I will consider best two scores for the final grade.

Classroom assignments:

Assignments will be used as tools for learning in this course. Thus most of the assignments need to be submitted during the class. There will be a few take-home assignments as well.

DIY Project:

You are expected to take part in a team activity, and conduct a computational/mathematical modeling exercise on any Biological phenomenon. The project can be done singly or two students can collaborate to conduct the project. You need to report the outcome, and present the insights obtained in front of the class through a short presentation.

Details of the format for the report and presentation, and corresponding relevant dates will be announced in the class and this website closer to the date.

Novel ideas, thorough work, and clear articulation of the results and implications will attract higher grades.

Class participation:

Active participation is strongly encouraged and recommended. The course and the website is structured in a way that enables students to engage in discussions, asking relevant questions, and answering questions posed by others in class and the comment section of this website, all these will count towards class participation.

ATTENDANCE POLICIES

1. Attending classes is not mandatory.

2. If you decide to attend a class you should maintain general online classroom meeting norms.

3. Be respectful to others in your posts in the course website. Dissenting opinions and healthy discussions welcome, but no indecency will be tolerated.

4. If you have a genuine reason to miss one of the exams (with approval from OAA), inform me at the earliest so that I can schedule a makeup exam.

5. If you copy or cheat in some other way during exam, you will receive ‘F’ for the course, without any further discussion.

6. For the classroom assignments and DIY project, you are allowed to take help from your colleagues or other authentic resources on the web and write in your own language with appropriate acknowledgement of the source. Copy-pasting an answer will incur negative impact on your score.