Further vocational training program on big data in biology finished at the Center for Professional Retraining and Further Training of AltSU

The further vocational training program "Big Data in Biology" finished at the Center for Professional Retraining and Further Training under the guidance of Aleksey Vaganov, Candidate of Biological Sciences, a leading researcher of the South Siberian Botanical Garden.

63 students were scientific pedagogical workers from Russian universities, researchers from the Research Institute of Biology, Botanical Institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, federal scientific centers for agroecology, integrated reclamation and protective afforestation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, representing 45 educational organizations of higher education, research and other institutions.

The program is unique in its content, as it presents the research experience of extracting knowledge from a large data array in biology, transforming a data array into knowledge, which has been formed over the years by scientists and teachers of AltSU. Its uniqueness also lies in the fact that for the first time in the history of FVE of Altai State University, in the process of teaching students, our teachers used elements of the technology of virtual reality. Thus, the additional professional programs of the Center for Professional Retraining and Further Training have reached a qualitatively new level, opening up further prospects for the development of the system of additional professional education of AltSU.

The interdisciplinary nature of the program allowed its participants to master the tools of applied informatics to improve design and research activities in biology at the intersection of data sciences and biodiversity; gain practical skills in the use of modern methods and approaches to characterize the vegetation cover; to enrich the methodological base for project research and educational activities, the presentation of scientific results such as "Data Paper".

Author's materials presented by biologists from AltSU during the program implementation were highly appreciated by the audience.