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 Postgraduate Course: Introduction to scientific programming for MSc in Drug Discovery & Translational Biology (PGBI11039)
Course Outline
| School | School of Biological Sciences | College | College of Science and Engineering |  
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) | Availability | Not available to visiting students |  
| SCQF Credits | 10 | ECTS Credits | 5 |  
 
| Summary | This course which is specifically designed for taught MSc students in Drug Discovery and Translational Biology, will provide through lectures and tutorial exercises a basic knowledge of computer programming. The course will give the students the ability to write simple programs to manipulate digital and text data, and to perform simple mathematical transformations. 
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| Course description | The lectures will try and cover the following areas; however topics covered will be coupled with progress in the practical exercises. 
 - How programming is done
 - Introduction to general concepts
 - Input and Output
 - Using data structures
 - A typical program for the analysis of a protein data bank file
 - Advanced topics (object orientated programming, parallel programming)
 - After the initial introductory session all exercises will be in Java
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |  | Co-requisites |  |  
| Prohibited Combinations |  | Other requirements | This course is an introductory programming course and therefore NOT recommended for any students with a programming background. |  
| Additional Costs | Recommended course book(s). |  
Course Delivery Information
|  |  
| Academic year 2017/18, Not available to visiting students (SS1) | Quota:  None |  | Course Start | Semester 1 |  | Course Start Date | 18/09/2017 |  Timetable | Timetable | 
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) | Total Hours:
100
(
 Lecture Hours 20,
 Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
78 ) |  
| Assessment (Further Info) | Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 % |  
 
| Additional Information (Assessment) | 6 assessed practical exercises 
 1.	Modification of simple programs (15%)
 2.	A program to perform a simple mathematical calculation (12%)
 3.	Write a program to read and interpret a common chemoinformatics format using an external library (12%).
 4.	Develop a class to read protein databank format files and use it in a simple file reading program (12%)
 5.	Develop and test extensively a program to reformat text input files (13%)
 6.	A multi session practical to develop and test a program to compute molecular similarity (36%).
 
 
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| Feedback | Feedback will be provided for each practical in the form of marks given for each section (Functionality of Code, readability, comments in code and documentation) and  some comments about which sections need improvement. |  
| No Exam Information |  
Learning Outcomes 
| On completion of this course, the student will be able to: 
        Describe how computer programmes to carry out simple data selection, data processing and data comparison work.Interpret and summarise the function of JAVA codeCompose simple command line programs in the JAVA languageDiagnose compilation and runtime faults in JAVA code. |  
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills | Not entered |  
| Keywords | IntroSciProg |  
Contacts 
| Course organiser | Dr Paul Taylor Tel: (0131 6)50 7058
 Email:
 | Course secretary | Miss Vicky Mactaggart Tel: (0131 6)51 7052
 Email:
 |   |  © Copyright 2017 The University of Edinburgh -  6 February 2017 8:53 pm |