The pioneering course gathered 1,653 applicants, 57 of them managed to complete more than 60% of all tasks. Those are actually good results — according to Anastasia Ivanova, supervisor of the project, usually only 3−7% of those who follow the course to its end, and only about 20−30% do as much as start completing the tasks at all.
"Our statistics shows that 355 people have done at least one task. We’ve estimated the participants' involvement by analyzing their activity on the forum. There were 393 messages, while the average level of activity is usually about 100−150 messages," says the expert.
Ms. Ivanova also noted that among participants, there were various people like students who are interested in science, actual researchers and skilled science communication experts. They focused more on journalistic tasks rather than PR ones. The organizers think that the reason is that journalistic activities are more evident and well-known — public relations issues are less straightforward.
According to Egor Zadereev, biologist, academic secretary at the "Institute of Biophysics Siberian Branch of RAS," sci pop expert and science blog writer, this project was challenging both for organizers and students. The most difficult task faced by applicants was to write a longread in a short period of time. As a lecturer, Mr. Zadereev worked hard to divide materials for his course into small pieces so as to present them on lectures. The expert also added that it would be a good idea to put information on communication models and particular communication strategies into the next course.
Alexanra Borisova, head of "Cherdak" popular science project [Gatter -Ed.] and founder of the press center of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, believes that the course was successful, though there are some changes to be made in the future.
"The only thing I expected was making contact with its participants. Our students were wonderful — they interacted with the organizers and with each other. The project has become not only an educational platform, but also a networking area. I really appreciate this!"
Furthermore, ITMO University has been developing open education projects for the last several years. Its courses are presented at such online platforms as edx.org (watch How to Win Coding Competitions: Secrets of Champions), open.edu and ITMOcourses.
