BISC 413, Advanced Genetics Laboratory

Section 010

Tuesdays, 2-4:50 p.m.
Thursdays, 2-4 p.m.

021 McKinly Hall

Instructor: John McDonald
322 Wolf Hall (office)
E-mail: mcdonald@udel.edu
Phone: 831-2007 (I rarely check messages, so e-mail is better)
Class web page: http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/geneticssyllabus.html

Schedule

This schedule has links to the online lab manual for the course. The web pages will be revised throughout the semester, up until the morning of each lab, so don't print them out ahead of time.

Overall plan

The first week will be a short exercise in cat coat genetics, which you will work on in pairs. After that, you will work in a team of five students on five semester-long projects. Each of you will be the team leader for one of your team's projects. Everyone will share the work on all five projects; the team leader will write up the project and give a presentation on it.

There will also be some short exercises scattered throughout the semester, designed to teach you to use various bioinformatic tools (downloading DNA sequences from public databases and analyzing them in various ways, mostly).

Office hours

There are no fixed office hours. You can make an appointment by talking to me before or after class, or by e-mailing me.

Textbook

We will not use a textbook or printed lab manual this fall. The individual labs for each week will be linked from this web page. The topics for each lab may change at the last minute, so don't print out the labs ahead of time.

Attendance

You will not be penalized for absences, but you must make up the work you miss. If you know in advance that you will miss a lab, please talk to me so we may make arrangements for you to do the work at another time. If you have an unplanned absence, please e-mail me as soon as you can so we may make arrangements.

Grading

Your grade will be based on the following:

• 5%: Cat lab report. The first week will include a short exercise in cat coat genetics. You must turn in a lab report on this at the following lab.
• 15%: Other lab reports. There will be several bioinformatic projects throughout the semester, and each will have a lab report. I haven't decided yet how many projects or when the reports will be due.
• 10%: Lab notebook. On Sept. 11 and Oct. 30, you must turn in your lab notebooks (you'll get them back at the following class). Your notebook must be a clearly organized, legible record of what you've done in the lab. It must be a separate notebook, not a section in a larger notebook, but otherwise it can be whatever format you want (bound, spiral, loose-leaf). The entries for each lab must record what you've done in sufficient detail that you could repeat it. You must turn in the original notebook that you use in lab; do not take scribbled notes and then copy them over into a nice neat notebook. The Sept. 11 grading is worth 3% and is primarily to see that you're on the right track; the Oct. 30 grading is worth 7%.
• 10%: Proposal. You must turn in a project proposal on Tuesday, Sept. 18. It should basically be a draft of the introduction and methods sections of your term paper. The introduction should summarize the relevant literature on your topic, making clear what is already known and what the unanswered question is that you're going to address. The methods section should describe the project you plan to have your team do. It should include logistical details, such as the source and cost of any chemicals or equipment you'll need. It should include a literature cited section, in the format shown below.
• 35%: Term paper on the project you lead. On Tuesday, Dec. 4, you must turn in a term paper on the project you are team leader for. See the instructions.
• 15%: Presentation on the project you lead. On Nov. 29 or Dec. 4, you must give a 15-minute presentation about the project you are team leader for. You should use presentation software, such as Powerpoint or Keynote. I'll have more details about this later in the semester.
• 10%: Teamwork. You must participate in all five of your team's projects, even though you will only be writing and presenting the one you are team leader for. You will provide a confidential assessment of the other members of your team, and your teamwork grade will be based on your teammates' assessments of you and on what I observe during lab.

The grades will not be curved. There are no extra credit projects. The points from the assignments will be combined and converted to letter grades as follows:

A 93-100; A- 90-92.9; B+ 87-89.9; B 83-86.9; B- 80-82.9; C+ 77-79.9; C 73-76.9; C- 70-72.9; D+ 67-69.9; D 63-66.9; D- 60-62.9; F 0-59.9.

Students who are less than 3 points below the minimum grade needed for their program (such as an undergraduate biology major with 67 to 69.9 points) will be given the opportunity to take an incomplete grade and complete an extra credit project. This project will be a lot of work, such as writing a 15-page term paper on a topic of my choice. Upon satisfactory completion of the project, you'll get the minimum grade needed for your program (such as C- for undergraduate biology majors). There will be no other extra credit.

Return to John McDonald's home page

This page was last revised November 25, 2012. Its URL is http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/geneticssyllabus.html