2011 survey results
12 Jan 2012
Here are the summarized results of the student surveys. Thanks to everyone who responded with feedback to help us improve BIOMOD.
Question 1: What aspects of BIOMOD did you enjoy and think we should keep the same in future years?
- well-organized (6)
- awesome hotel (5)
- judging criteria in general / nice balance between wiki/video/talk (5)
- youtube video requirement (3)
- presentation length (3)
- projected wall timer (2)
- good food (2)
- prize money (2)
- single-day event (1)
- after party (1)
- Autodesk seminar (1)
- frequent facebook updates (1)
- light emphasis on ‘execution’ (1)
- limited focus to biomolecular design (1)
- open-ended project (1)
- useful quickguide (1)
Question 2: What are your recommendations for improving BIOMOD?
Social:
- more time for socializing/networking (5)
- official party / sponsored event (2)
- assigned seating at lunch to intersperse teams (1)
Deadlines:
- earlier wiki freeze (3)
- longer presentations (2)
- summer date (2)
- different date from igem (1)
Scoring:
- assign less weight to presentation (3)
- presentations should be scored differently (1)
- completely revise scoring system (1)
- teams should get more direct feedback from judges (1)
Score reporting:
- publish all judging scores (1)
- publish scores for top 5–10 teams (1)
- publish scores directly to teams so they can improve (1)
Rules:
- more detailed guidelines for wiki/video/presentation content (2)
- more deadlines/checkpoints through the summer (1)
- require project topic approval (1)
- have students send identification to verify they are undergraduates (1)
- limit team size (1)
Jamboree format:
- add poster session (2)
- add more tutorials / workshops / lectures by professors (1)
- top finalists should give encore presentations (1)
- longer jamboree (1)
- transportation between hotel and event (1)
Awards:
- add prize category for scientific impact/relevance (1)
- add prize category for computational work (1)
- encourage non-DNA-origami projects via prize categories (1)
- more award categories (1)
- popular vote prize (1)