Problem-Oriented Programming in Medical Informatics

This is the home page for Problem-Oriented Programming in Medical Informatics (BIOINF 2012, ISSP 2062; 3 credits), a graduate course in object-oriented programming taught as part of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Biomedical Informatics medical informatics training program. The course description, rationale and grading policies are described below. Resources for the course including the schedule and assignments are listed in the sidebar to the right.

Course description

This course is designed to extend students' programming abilities through review of current program design and coding techniques, including fourth-generation languages, the Unified Modeling Language (UML), object-oriented programming and Extreme Programming. The course includes a strong practical programming component based on the Python language consisting of in-class laboratories, weekly practical programming problems, and an independent programming project. Programming assignments are drawn from areas relevant to medical informatics such as structured text and image processing, network communications, database management, natural language processing, expert systems, etc. Through the course, students learn to understand the programming process at a practical level and gain the ability to independently create useful software tools. Grading is based on weekly programming assignments, the independent programming project and participation in classroom and online discussions.

Why teach this course?

Goals, expectations and grading

Instructor:
James H. Harrison, Jr., M.D., Ph.D.

Days/Times:
Thursdays, 9:00 am to 12:00 noon

Location:
The UPMC Cancer Pavilion (Shadyside campus) 3rd Floor Computing Laboratory

Prerequisites:
One course in introductory programming, or equivalent experience

Recitations:
None

Expected class size:
8-16 students

The course is usually offered in the fall term. Special permission from the instructor is required to register for this course.