Kursteilnehmer-Bewertung und -Feedback für Introduction to Systems Biology von Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Good overview of systems biology, but the graded tests are somewhat difficult to understand for someone without a biology background such as myself.

Really interesting content, but could use a rework on formatting, style, and clarity.

Could give more basic information about systems theory

The lectures were somehow chaotic.

Tough and brain storming

Let me start by saying that I appreciate that Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Prof. Ravi Iyengar & colleagues and Coursera’s tried to provide a course on such a potentially interesting topics. However, this course is a disaster. There are problems with the target audience of the course, the pedagogy, the technical aspects of the realisation, the quizzes… everything. To quote Prof. Iyengar, it is ‘a sort of kind of’ inconclusive and confusing. Let me try to be more specific.

First of all, it says it’s an introductory level course: Well, before this course I have refreshed genetics, physiology, biology, neurology, anatomy, network theory, etc. None of that prepared me for this course. I did not manage to consolidate a single new concept besides those I already knew. This, despite passing the quizzes. I really fail to see which audience the course is supposed to target. Perhaps, if you have previous undergraduate (or graduate?) education in molecular biology, and a deep understanding of how cell biological systems work, the course may be adapted to you, but I am not sure. It’s all jargon, acronyms, mechanisms that you are supposed to be familiar with, mentioned in a quick way, without a clear path.

Second (and main problem): The pedagogical approach. It’s not a course. It literally explains nothing from the ground up. It is more like a series of informal seminars given to peers, who needs refreshing a specific topic. You get the impression of superficially reading the abstracts of a series of articles on a specialised journal. The coherence between chapters is very loose. If it aimed at being a bird's eye view of systems biology, it failed since it lacks clarity, coherence, and purpose. An alternative and very effective pedagogical approach would have been to limit the scope to covering one or a few aspects in some depth, e.g. discuss a paradigmatic system from a general biology approach, a traditional physiological approach, and compare that with a systems biology study approach, explaining step by step the modelling via a set of ordinary differential equations or a simple network. That would have given a concrete example of what’s the ‘added value’ of the discipline. An experienced researcher would not benefit from it either: She would learn nothing concrete that can be used in her research. None of the mathematical techniques mentioned are explained in a constructive approach. Hours are dedicated to list websites where to retrieve data, for instance, or to name techniques and concepts never explained (microarrays, phosphorylation, endless kinases…). Knowledge is not transmitted by simply naming things, that's pedagogy 101...

The more you follow, if you manage to keep going, the more it turns into a “review of handpicked literature" whose rationale to understand basic concepts of system biology(but do they exist, one is left wondering?) is not manifest.

The technical aspects: Shooting in what appears to be a basement, giving the impression that somebody has kidnapped the Professor, with the noise of a truck passing by once every other lecture covering the monotonous and slow tone. Looks like a B-movie.

Miscellanea: At least two thirds of the quizzes are concerning details of papers sometimes barely mentioned in the lectures, rather than big concepts. Slides are hard to read (diagrams too small, for instance, most of the acronyms left for the student to figure out…). No mentor intervention in the forums. Ever. It’s a first course in a specialization whose capstone is not accessible anymore, bordering a hoax…

I thought that Systems Biology was at the intersection of Physiology with Biophysics, with an approach based on mathematical modelling and focused on capturing quantitatively the dynamics of the object of study, via numerical techniques and exploiting big data. Now, not so sure anymore. Perhaps it is, but I fail to see how researchers in this field could form their competences based on such types of courses. I definitely did not find the course helpful and would not really recommend it to anyone. It’s in the lowest 10% of the courses I have followed on Coursera (close to ~100).

Two stars, only to have made most articles (as well as the slides) available.

The explanations in the course are extremely superficial and do not add anything to the PowerPoint presented in each course. In addition, most of the articles presented in the lectures are hardly discussed which makes it difficult to understand for a beginner in this field.

Course material was not presented in a matter that flowed naturally. Completing the course didn't lend greatly to my overall understanding in the area though I understand certain aspects very well.

I found that the lectures didn't guide me enough. I download the articles and read extra material. I will look for another course to learn more of this part of the specialization.

It is a good introductory course, but it relies too much on networks and could be confusing and demoralizing if you intend to pursue a career in systems biology.

The course is too specific and advanced. It´s not an introduction.

Boring voice. A lot of overcomplicated terms, where you can describe your idea in a much more simple way. In result i feel that lector read this material not to teach people, but just to read it. Disgusting.

I could not understand instructor. Using subtitles didn't help either as many words came up unintelligible.

The material is very randomized, and the instructor presents it in an overly complex way.

the course/ lecture session doesnt highlight half the stuff that pops up in the exams

i want to cancel mt subscription in this course

muy malo, no lo recomiendo, para nada

too boring