Developing a Supplementary Professional Program “Bioinformatics in Agriculture”

In our thesis we are developing an innovative program "Bioinformatics in agriculture". The first step in the process of developing program is choosing a design methodology. Two foreign and two Russian approaches to developing of educational programs are described in the thesis. Based on the comparative analysis of their specific characteristics, we decided to use the design methodology of Tomsk Polytechnic University. This technology has been modernized according to the format and specifics of the designed program. According to the chosen methodology, the first step in developing a program is pre-project research. At this stage we carried out such activities as description characteristics of the potential target audience, analysis of their needs based on interviewing and content analysis, determining whether the identified needs correspond with national and international trends in the agricultural sector, analysis of the key international and national qualification frameworks, professional and educational standards, review of the current market of educational programs in bioinformatics. The results of the pre-project research were used to develop the program. The project of our educational program includes the goals of the program, learning outcomes, description of the type and structure of the program and content of the disciplines. In addition, we determined the key limitations of our thesis and of the designed program, provided recommendations for its promotion. The thesis is done in the project format, so it is important to identify the applied results. Besides the program itself, the applied results of the thesis are the modernized algorithm for developing supplementary professional programs and the analytics of an educational intensive course "SmartAgro" implemented by the Skolkovo Open University.