Online course on biofilms

University of Copenhegan, Denmark is announcing an online course on Biofilms; Bacterial Biofilms and Their Role in Chronic Infections. PhD students and Masters students can attend the course. The course is scheduled for the Fall 2011 flanking 10 weeks. The dates are not yet announced, but the registration is open.

For the non-English speakers, they demand IELTS/TOFEL scores. Its understandable but if I think about India, its a kind of expensive to take the tests. I myself avoided to take the tests 'coz it was expensive when I was doing my Masters. But I think one could convince the course coordinator by some how prove his/her English competence, may be try communication to them over phone or providing evidence for being studied in schools and/or colleges through English as the medium of education etc,. To me it looks like they shall not be stubborn.

Other than that the participant should have the basic computer skills, experience with MS-office, pdf, reaching out in internet etc... which in most cases, is not an issue.

Coming to the online-teaching, with my experiences with the online courses, they are really good for computer based courses. I took a course on bioinformatics during my first year PhD studies and now doing a course in statistics using 'R'. Both are kind of practical courses where you need to listern to the lectures and work in your PC, upload solutions, and interact with others and discuss issues. Thats a brilliant idea. But if I think about biofilms, its about a lot of theory and there will be almost no room for practicals, so am a bit worried about how the teachers are going to keep the participants up on running all through the 10 weeks. But am sure it will be more interactive than the regular distance learning regimes.

So I would like to encourage more people who are interested in biofilms could go to http://biofilmcourse.ku.dk/ and sign-up. If I were in my first or second year, I would have first signed up before writhing this post! And if some one is going to participate, I would love to hear their experience about the course.

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