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Harnessing MOOCs for the Practice of Science
Cell Systems
Editorial Harnessing MOOCs for the Practice of Science In 2016, 58 million people worldwide signed up to take a MOOC (massively open online class), up from 35 million the previous year according to Class Central, an online catalog for MOOCs. Among the most popular offerings—termed micromasters, nanodegrees, certifications, and specializations—are collections of new courses that provide practical, narrowly focused curricula relevant to specific lines of work. Often, these have been developed in partnership with companies and promise career advancement or a smoother path to employment upon completion. Focused offerings may be a new trend in MOOCs, but they can be viewed as the technologically fueled evolution of the practices of continuing education and professional development, which themselves have a long history—from Benjamin Franklin’s Junto, a weekly ‘‘club of mutual improvement’’ for merchants and craftsmen, to the Chautauqua movement in America. Continuing education is required in many professions today. For doctors in the United States, each state mandates continuing education requirements, ranging from 20 hours a year to 200 hours over 4 years. Emergency medical technicians must complete a refresher course or 24 hours of continuing education every 2 years. The Association of Certified Public Accountants requires that its members complete 120 hours of continuing education every 3 years. Similarly, lawyers, teachers, laboratory pathologists, firefighters, and police are also required to demonstrate skills mastery and evidence of professional development on a regular basis. In a Commentary in this issue, David Gomez-Cabrero, Jesper Tegne´r, and colleagues describe their experiences developing a series of short courses on systems biology and systems medicine (Gomez-Cabrero et al., Cell Systems 5, 168–175). In contrast to the new masters programs or undergraduate majors tailored to systems biology and systems medicine being offered by many universities, these short courses fulfill a distinct need and cater to professionals, such as clinicians, principal investigators, or senior postdocs in academia or industry. Thus far,
much of the focus of these courses has been on learning technical topics, such as data integration, statistics and machine learning, modeling, and data access. However, the scope for professional development for life science research professionals is potentially much wider than the learning of new technical skills. Early career researchers routinely highlight the need for more training and mentoring in the logistics of running a lab, managing people, and obtaining funding. In a recent survey by Nature, in which 90% of 1,576 respondents felt there was a ‘‘significant’’ or ‘‘slight’’ reproducibility crisis in science, the most promising solutions to reproducibility challenges were a better understanding of statistics, better mentoring and supervision, more robust study designs, and better teaching (http://www.nature.com/news/ 1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-reproducibility-1.19970). Sounds ripe for a microdegree in ‘‘Reproducible Research’’?! Indeed, a group of researchers recently highlighted the need for senior as well as junior researchers to receive continuing methodological education in order to improve reproducibility (Munafo` et al, Nature Human Behaviour 1, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ s41562-016-0021). It’s time to take professional development in life sciences research more seriously. There is evidence of supply, particularly for learning topics related to data science, systems biology, and systems medicine. There is evidence of demand, for example, to address the root-cause issues that currently manifest as concerns about reproducibility. There is evidence that new models of education are rapidly maturing to enable scalable, efficient, and targeted dissemination of knowledge. The research community should leverage these online-, micro-, nano-, and blended-learning tools to benefit the practice of science and, by extension, its impact on the world.
H. Craig Mak Editor, Cell Systems http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2017.09.007
Cell Systems 5, September 27, 2017 ª 2017 Published by Elsevier Inc. 157
Editorial Harnessing MOOCs for the Practice of Science In 2016, 58 million people worldwide signed up to take a MOOC (massively open online class), up from 35 million the previous year according to Class Central, an online catalog for MOOCs. Among the most popular offerings—termed micromasters, nanodegrees, certifications, and specializations—are collections of new courses that provide practical, narrowly focused curricula relevant to specific lines of work. Often, these have been developed in partnership with companies and promise career advancement or a smoother path to employment upon completion. Focused offerings may be a new trend in MOOCs, but they can be viewed as the technologically fueled evolution of the practices of continuing education and professional development, which themselves have a long history—from Benjamin Franklin’s Junto, a weekly ‘‘club of mutual improvement’’ for merchants and craftsmen, to the Chautauqua movement in America. Continuing education is required in many professions today. For doctors in the United States, each state mandates continuing education requirements, ranging from 20 hours a year to 200 hours over 4 years. Emergency medical technicians must complete a refresher course or 24 hours of continuing education every 2 years. The Association of Certified Public Accountants requires that its members complete 120 hours of continuing education every 3 years. Similarly, lawyers, teachers, laboratory pathologists, firefighters, and police are also required to demonstrate skills mastery and evidence of professional development on a regular basis. In a Commentary in this issue, David Gomez-Cabrero, Jesper Tegne´r, and colleagues describe their experiences developing a series of short courses on systems biology and systems medicine (Gomez-Cabrero et al., Cell Systems 5, 168–175). In contrast to the new masters programs or undergraduate majors tailored to systems biology and systems medicine being offered by many universities, these short courses fulfill a distinct need and cater to professionals, such as clinicians, principal investigators, or senior postdocs in academia or industry. Thus far,
much of the focus of these courses has been on learning technical topics, such as data integration, statistics and machine learning, modeling, and data access. However, the scope for professional development for life science research professionals is potentially much wider than the learning of new technical skills. Early career researchers routinely highlight the need for more training and mentoring in the logistics of running a lab, managing people, and obtaining funding. In a recent survey by Nature, in which 90% of 1,576 respondents felt there was a ‘‘significant’’ or ‘‘slight’’ reproducibility crisis in science, the most promising solutions to reproducibility challenges were a better understanding of statistics, better mentoring and supervision, more robust study designs, and better teaching (http://www.nature.com/news/ 1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-reproducibility-1.19970). Sounds ripe for a microdegree in ‘‘Reproducible Research’’?! Indeed, a group of researchers recently highlighted the need for senior as well as junior researchers to receive continuing methodological education in order to improve reproducibility (Munafo` et al, Nature Human Behaviour 1, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ s41562-016-0021). It’s time to take professional development in life sciences research more seriously. There is evidence of supply, particularly for learning topics related to data science, systems biology, and systems medicine. There is evidence of demand, for example, to address the root-cause issues that currently manifest as concerns about reproducibility. There is evidence that new models of education are rapidly maturing to enable scalable, efficient, and targeted dissemination of knowledge. The research community should leverage these online-, micro-, nano-, and blended-learning tools to benefit the practice of science and, by extension, its impact on the world.
H. Craig Mak Editor, Cell Systems http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2017.09.007
Cell Systems 5, September 27, 2017 ª 2017 Published by Elsevier Inc. 157