6 EC
Semester 2, period 4, 5
5234CIID6Y
Whether you continue your career in scientific research or in any other field (business, politics, communication, teaching, entrepreneurship), you will continuously come into contact with new scientific discoveries. In this day and age, many of those are related to various aspects of developmental biology (think about aging research and regenerative medicine, for instance). Having been trained as a scientist, you will be expected to be able to critically evaluate the claims that you hear or read in the news. For this, it is crucial that you are able to go beyond the tweet, newspaper article or blogpost and back to the original source: the scientific publication.
Students will get the opportunity to broadly sample the recent (i.e. mostly published in the last 2 years) developmental biology literature. Papers will be discussed in a 'journal club' style setting. Class size will intentionally be kept small, to stimulate and interactive exchanges of ideas and opinions.
Hand-outs and papers, posted on Canvas + Links provided via Google Docs
Weekly group sessions ('journal club' style) under the guidance of dr. Renée van Amerongen and dr. Frank Jacobs. At least one guest speaker will be invited whose paper will be discussed in class.
Students are expected to show up to class prepared, having read the paper to be discussed and to actively take part in the in class discussions.
|
Activity |
Number of hours |
|
Journal Club |
30 |
|
Zelfstudie |
132 |
|
Total 6 EC x 28 hours |
168 |
Requirements of the programme concerning attendance (OER-B):
Additional requirements for this course:
Students can miss one class without any repercussions, but they do need to communicate this in advance with the course coordinators. Students are expected to show up prepared and to actively participate in the in class discussions. The setting is optimal for an interactive exchange of ideas and offers a safe environment to practice and improve scientific discussion skills.
| Item and weight | Details |
|
Final grade |
The final grade will be calculated based on the in class participation (active participation in discussion: 30%, presentation(s) 15%), quality of the questions submitted prior to each class (15%), and written assignments (20% "News and Views", 20% critical review report).
Note that we are frequently facing last minute drop outs/changes in final student numbers signed up for this course, which means that we will have to tweak details on presentations and assignments based on the group size. This may include changing from individual to group writing assignments and/or changing the order of the guest lecture around.
Please also not that with the introduction of an 'onderwijsvrije week' in period 5, fewer meetings have been scheduled than in previous years.
Contact the course coordinator to make an appointment for inspection.
You will write a short critique of the paper that you discussed during the class. This critique should be a synthesis of the in-class discussion and your own opinion of the paper. It should thus incorporate the points that were brought up during class, so make sure to collect these/write them down on ‘your’ evening!
(critical review report, 20%)
Follow the format of a Nature style News and Views article
(20%)
Submit these via Canvas assignments
(15%)
Presentation of journal club article, knowledge of technical detail, critical notes
(15%)
Speaking up, raising points, formulating questions and/or criticism, participation in a scientific discussion
(30%)
Details on the grading and % of the final grade will be made available via Canvas.
The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl
Week 1
Introduction
Week 2
Self study (at home)
Week 3
Guest lecture
Week 4-11
In class journal club discussions
Week 12
Writing/Assignment preparation
Note that we are frequently facing last minute drop outs/changes in final student numbers signed up for this course, which means that we will have to tweak details on presentations and assignments based on the group size. This may include changing from individual to group writing assignments and/or changing the order of the guest lecture around.
Please also not that with the introduction of an 'onderwijsvrije week' in period 5, fewer meetings have been scheduled than in previous years.
The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.
Last minute changes will be communicated by e-mail via Canvas.
Prior to/At the start of the course all students will receive a PDF file with the course syllabus, which contains all of the details about the course.