Spring 2027

Introduction to Bioinformatics

Introduction to Bioinformatics covering algorithms for molecular biology problems including genome sequencing, sequence alignment, phylogenetic trees, and gene-expression data analysis.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 7

Past student reviews · Colin Dewey

Workload included weekly notebooks and homework that students found tedious and hard. Exams were described as long but not unfair, requiring consistent effort to succeed.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Explain the biology and significance of the most commonly measured molecules in molecular biology.

  • Identify the primary computational problems associated with each type of biological data.

  • Explain the major algorithms and approaches used to address the computational problems.

  • Implement efficient algorithms for bioinformatic tasks through the use of the discussed approaches.

  • Apply the discussed algorithms to novel but closely-related tasks.

  • Understand the methods covered such that parts of the methods sections of published biological papers are interpretable.

  • Begin to gain the qualifications of a bioinformatician.

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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Prerequisites

Course map

(COMP SCI 320 or 400) and MATH 222, graduate/professional standing, or declared in the Capstone Certificate in Computer Sciences for Professionals

BMI/COMPSCI 576

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

COLIN DEWEY is recorded teaching in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

SUSHMITA ROY is recorded teaching in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Colin Dewey

Students described a well-organized course using a flipped format with pre-recorded lectures and weekly jupyter notebooks. Exams comprised 30% of the grade, with the rest based on quizzes, notebooks, and homework.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.33 GPA, 65.9% A/AB (n=41 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.37 GPA, 72.1% A/AB (n=68 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.18 GPA, 52.6% A/AB (n=57 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Colin Dewey

Workload included weekly notebooks and homework that students found tedious and hard. Exams were described as long but not unfair, requiring consistent effort to succeed.

Past student reviews · Colin Dewey

Students noted the course was extremely organized with sufficient office hours, though they found the monotone pre-recorded lectures difficult to engage with. Resources for success were readily available, though some found the delivery style boring.

Topics

  • Genome sequencing and mapping
  • Pairwise and multiple sequence alignment
  • Modeling sequence classes and features
  • Phylogenetic tree construction
  • Gene-expression data analysis

Skills

  • Explain major algorithms and approaches for computational biology problems
  • Implement efficient algorithms for bioinformatic tasks
  • Apply discussed algorithms to novel but closely-related tasks

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
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Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1316 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
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Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "615564d9509ffe4309ff9f1b2acb46e0caa8654968789d542cbeedd4b23db5ef",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}