Syllabus
In the syllabus you find more information about the Learning Objectives, the Course Structure and Course Materials, and the Grading.
A summary of the most important points is given below.
Learning Objectives
After this course you will:
1. understand the need for sustainable innovation and how biotechnology and biobased production can contribute to this;
2. understand the global context of biobased production;
3. be acquainted with the biobased economy, from research to application and from raw materials to products;
4. have mastered the basics of industrial biotechnology;
5. be able to integrate scientific and technological knowledge on the use of bioprocesses for industrial products on the cell and process level;
6. be capable of developing and assessing the conditions for efficient and sustainable design of bioprocesses.
We know that some of you will simply audit the course because of time or other constraints. Our web lectures and readings will indeed give you the basic understandings. However, we still hope that you will join the discussions at any time. By collaborating with other students, by sharing your own reflections and by completing the assignments, you - and your fellow students! - will be able to gain the most from this course.
Grading
· After each lecture there will be a number of assignments. They are meant to reflect on your new knowledge and count for 35% of your grade. You will apply this knowledge in the “PDO Case” which counts for 50%. To finish the week you will watch a “Best Practice” with additional assignments, which will count, for 15% of your grade. The lowest result of each of these three parts will automatically be dropped after six weeks. If you scored higher than 55% you will earn an IB01x certificate!
· Many lectures have extra (non-graded) questions. These non-graded questions test relevant knowledge and are a valuable addition. So try them when you have the time! Non-graded questions are marked as EXTRA QUESTION and depicted in blue font.
· The closing lecture in week 7 does not contain assignments and is therefore not graded.
Prize
As in last year’s run, you have the chance to win a fully paid visit to the TU Delft to attend one of the advanced courses of 2016 by the Biotechnology School Delft Leiden (www.biotechnologycourses.nl). These courses offer interesting topics such as Bioprocess Design, Metabolomics and Downstream Processing. In June 2015, the winner of the 2014 MOOC, 21-year old Melissa Sanchez from Bogota, Colombia, joined the course ‘Environmental Biotechnology’.
Terminology
In the course, you will probably encounter new words, symbols and equations. That is why we have developed a terminology list as well as lists for symbols and equations used in the course.
You can also find these under the heading “course handouts” in the “course info” tab.
One important word is used in two different meanings, ‘biomass’. In week 1, the term ‘biomass’ refers to feedstock, plant material used as a source for a fermentation production process. From week 2, ‘biomass’ also refers to the cells of microorganisms in the fermenter.
Handouts with the lectures
Together with the videos, there are various downloadable handouts available in each lecture.
With this link you can download the video in 360p (low) quality
With this link you can download the video in 720p (moderate) quality.
With this link you can download the video in 1080p (high) quality.
You can also download the English subtitles in SRT format for offline viewing.
These are the slides used in the presentation in PDF format.
This is the transcript of the video in PDF format.