Learning Outcomes

• Intended learning outcomes and associated assessment
  At the end of the course, students are expected to be able to:
  
• Demonstrate a sophisticated understanding and evaluation of experimental design,
  methodology and data in the field of molecular biology (assessment tasks: research project reports and final exam)
  
• Understand and critically evaluate scientific methods (assessment task: final exam)
  
• Independently perform DNA sequence alignment, execute tests to select models of nucleotide substitution, perform Bayesian phylogenetic analyses, and use the results of these analyses to test evolutionary hypotheses (assessment task: research project report)
  
• Discuss the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of different phylogeny reconstruction methods (assessment task: final exam)
  
• Explain the most important parameters that are relevant in DNA sequence alignment and selecting models of nucleotide substitution (assessment task: final exam)
  
• Independently perform DNA analysis using online tools and repositories including “Blast” and “GenBank” (assessment task: research project report)
  
• Interpretation and discussion of false positive and false negative results (assessment tasks: research project reports and final exam)
  
  Skills register
  The following skills are developed in this course:
  
• Ability to manage team work. Most jobs require interactions with others to accomplish a task to a particular standard and on time.
  
• Independent and self-motivated learning. A life-skill that is important in any career.
  
• Finding, understanding and using information in primary literature and on the internet. These are very general skills that are essential in many careers.
  
• Written and oral communication. Many employers require employees to have good communication skills.
  
• Interpretation of phylogenetic trees and reconstructing evolutionary relationships. Important in fields of evolutionary biology such as genetics, bioinformatics, systematics, molecular ecology.
  
• Scientifically sound experimentation and proper controls to investigate gene functionality. Important in fields such as molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry.

Prerequisites

Restrictions

Equivalent Courses

Recommended Preparation

For further information see School of Biological Sciences .