Their is not enough explanation for the algorithms found in the video and code

Pseudo codes are not well explained

The information presented in the course was very helpful; however, much of the presentation on Stepik was difficult to parse and required several reads through in order to understand what was being said. For some later explanations, I didn't understand the lesson until after I had created a working program. I also had to rely heavily on past user comments to clarify particularly difficult explanations.

The course was divided into a regular section and the "hacker track" honors section and only the latter of which requires programming. In theory, this means the course can be completed without knowing how to program since the final project doesn't require you to write code. In practice, the lessons seemed geared towards getting you to write working code. I think I would have been very hard-pressed to understand the course if I was not translating the lessons into working programs. I certainly would not have been able to get any good feedback on if I was doing it right since only programs were graded.

I have no plans at this point to continue the specialization. I want to learn more bioinformatics techniques, but I worry that the rest of the courses will be as frustrating as this one and so I will likely look elsewhere.

Instructions are often not clear and require you to read the comments to even grasp what the problems are asking for. Also the format for teaching is to teach you a bad way to solve a problem then go "well that didn't work out, lets try a different way." I felt these were a waste of my time as I sat around trying to understand why I was being asked to solve a problem in such an inefficient manner.

Despite getting 100% in Week1 and Week2 quiz as well as passing Hacker's Track requirements, I got stuck in Week3 and could not proceed from there. The pseudocode for few of the algorithms is impossible to translate into workable code. And once you get stuck there's no help. Solutions are posted in comments but it's no use copying other learners' code to pass the course!

Childish, pandering to idiots. The comics are mediocre and the professors don't take anything seriously. I cannot fathom how anyone would understand the standards of professionalism required of someone working in the Bioinformatics industry through this lecture series.

Terrible. Absolutely terrible.

This course is not for beginners. Should have mentioned that one needs some understanding of a coding language to understand the text included. You will need to know how to write codes and apply them before staring this course.

It is a good course if you know some programming, the problem comes if you do not know programming, or you are a beginner in programming.

I found the explanations poor and if you are a beginner, I do not recommend it.

The course is basically abandoned. The figures in the interactive text don't show up and the are very few people available who can grade your assignment. There's no support left in case you're stuck.

Development of the honors track material was extremely shoddy. I was spending way more time hacking their hack job than learning the material.

This course was so confusing. I would appreciate to see a solved exercise rather than just giving a clue. It would help to learn better fast.

Los cuestionarios no pueden resolverse con lo que se enseña en el curso, deberían acoplarse mejor a lo que se explica en el curso.

Tutorials are not well explained. Not for beginners!

You must have vast knowledge of programming and algorithm beforehand!

The course is not for beginners, different from what is in the description, it requires at least a knowledge of Biology.

They say you dont need any coding knwoledge but that is just not true, please learn python basics at the very least.

This is really painful for people without a computational background...it is not friendly at all for a biologist

Problems have very unclear directions. It takes longer to figure out what the question wants than to solve it.

Some of the algorithms are pretty cool but overall the course is not worth it. The material is pretty weak.

Not simple and require pre-knowledge of a programming language (best to be python)

I am not able to understand quiz questions.

it's not suitable for a non-programmer.

The professors of this course are very off-base on the amount of time each lesson will take each student. While suggesting the first lesson will take 10 minutes to complete, it in fact takes several hours and the comments on each chapter of the lesson shows that this is experienced by dozens of students who take the course. Additionally, the success rate of the "quizzes" in this course should be an indicator to the professors as to whether they are teaching the course in a beneficial or poor manner. A 28% pass rate on the quiz in the first lesson displays a failure of the professors to properly pass over the material to the students. What's more disappointing is that the professors seem to not check in whatsoever on this course: if they did, they would have immediately noticed that in the comments throughout the chapters many students are lost, and those that aren't are cleaning up the professors' mess and breaking down the material for the students who may look to the comments in the future for help. This course is awful.

Main concepts are not explained well. Biological mechanisms behind problems lack depth and paid little attention to. Problems to solve are no explained clearly, many lack examples. Datasets for debuging code are no accessible through the links. There are a lot of implied knowledge for coding. Coding examples are given not in actual code, but in pseudocode, whereas the solutions have to be provided in actual working code. There is no explanation of examples of working code or code modules for solution of proposed problems, the only solutions which exist are from the community. Many problems and the expected answers and their formats on the Stepik platform are badly formulated.

Very bad course. No videos, just an interactive textbook. The course states all you need is "high school level biology" yet you require coding knowledge for the very first quiz. there are side questions on the first week like does this algorithm runs in O(k * l * x^2) or O(xllogk) without ANY explanation. I guess you can find much much better book about bioinformatics, and as this course is nothing more then a book i recommend a better one.

I spent more time finding out on the internet the information, than in the course. It doesn’t goes to the point (Week 1 and 2). And it doesn’t gives enough elements to be able to present the quiz without researching in other places. As a note, I didn’t purchase the “optional” book. Perhaps the incomplete information is intended to entice people to buy it...