Introduction to Health Informatics

I actually really enjoyed the lectures for this course which were a highlight for me. Dr. Duke was able to bring together aspects of healthcare with technology rather seamlessly. I have a biology background, so this portion of the course was a welcome surprise.

As others have said, this course can be divided into 2 halves. Lectures, quizzes, and labs in the first half and a group project in the second half. I enjoyed the lectures so I had no issues with the quizzes. The labs were pretty straightforward and for some of the labs you were completely guided through them by the TA's. Keep in mind though, that for some labs most of the time will be needed in setting up the proper environments which can be a pretty big headache for some people. But overall, I cant say I learned too much from them.

The group project, as always has a lot to be desired. I was proactive and tried getting a group early on but was still left with teammates who did jack. Throughout the program, group projects have been my biggest gripe and one of my main sources of frustration. I don't understand how some of these people have jobs at FAANG or other giants and end up contributing so little.

Anyways, I was able to get a high A but to say I learned a lot would be an overstatement. I enjoyed the healthcare aspect of this course way more than the technology aspect so there's some bias on my end. For the first half, I was on Ed discussion constantly but for the second half, I maybe went on once or twice a week.

The TA's were great, some of the best in the program. They were quick to answer any questions and provide good guidance if needed.

So the class was better than I thought it was going to be based on previous reviews but still not the best.

Lectures: 5/5 Labs: 2/5 TAs:5/5 Project: 1/5

Finished the course with an A, achieving a 102.88 %

Background: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from a university ranked #350-400 out of 436 National Universities in U.S. News English is my second language (TOEFL score: 95/120) 1 year of experience as a full-stack developer and 6 months of experience in data analytics

Overall: This class is fairly easy, especially if you have experience with full-stack development or have built applications before. If you’re interested in working in the healthcare industry, this course provides an entry-level introduction to using REST APIs and interacting with a testing server. You can be as creative as you want with the project and even try out new tech stacks you’ve never used before. As long as you put in reasonable effort and build something enjoyable, getting a good grade is very achievable.

Labs (39.07 / 35%): There are six labs plus two extra credit labs, and as long as you follow the instructions, you should get full credit. Some students on the forum complained that the setup instructions didn’t work in their environment. If you’re going to graduate from OMSCS, you should understand that no single setup works perfectly for everyone. Read the error messages and debug your environment yourself.

Quizzes (19.31 / 20%): The quiz questions mainly test whether you watched the lectures. They’re pretty challenging, but you get two attempts, so overall it’s fair. I’m a horrible test taker(Check Digital Marketing Review).

Practicum Project (34.5/ 35%): You can form your own group, and finding teammates who match your working style is ideal. It’s pretty easy to earn a high score, and the workload can feel either very light or very heavy depending on your group dynamics. Overall, the points are easy to earn.

Other (6 / 6%): These are survey points—easy to earn.

Participation (5 / 5%): These points are also easy. Try to complete them early so you don’t have to worry about them later in the semester.

Fall 2025

First half of the course with labs, quizzes and lecture videos were great. My average time spent was about 5 hours/week

Second half of the course with the group project was a disaster because my teammates were not familiar with git and web development plus not willing to spend the time to learn them. Ended up doing the group project myself entirely. I heard that other people enjoyed their group project because they had amazing teammates. Your group project experience really depends on your teammates.

The course would have been a lot better if I had better teammates. Doing the course project as a solo was prohibited. Choose your teammates wisely. Pick those who have actually web dev/full-stack experience. No amount of gatech courses taken would be a sufficient substitute of that experience. I have heard horror stories of group projects in gatech previously. This time I am the survivor who experienced it first hand.

Fall 2025.

I found the content to be pretty interesting, and I enjoyed touching some tech that I've never used at work. Assignments are released early after the first week, which is nice if you need some more flexibility to work ahead. Time commitment is mostly low--around 5-7 hours per week until you start working on the group project, at which point it can either increase or decrease depending on your group & project.

Grade is made up of labs, quizzes, and the final group project. Of those three, the quizzes and labs are mostly gimme's. The quizzes are open-book, and the actual coding in the labs is incredibly trivial. Lab set-up can definitely be annoying, but to be honest, ChatGPT now makes troubleshooting the problems so easy, I don't really consider them to be real obstacles anymore.

The group project is a typical group project with vague specifications; I recommend choosing a topic that solves a problem to make framing your project easier. Find a decent team early on with a spread of experience in backend, front-end, and DevOps to help with deployment. As always, be very clear about Git workflow rules if you don't want to be stuck on Git clean-up duty later on.

Overall, class is not as bad as all the bellyaching might have you believe. I learned something new without having to lose too much sleep!

This course felt like two distinct halves. There are the lectures, labs, and quizzes in the first half and the group project in the second.

The lectures were pretty good, some guest lectures were great. The course leader Jon Dukes sole input seems to be in the lectures. Some of the lectures are a bit hard to listen to as they are recorded in some noisy environment with someone furiously typing in the background and Slack and email notifications constantly going off.

The labs were alright content wise. They get you coding using some of the stuff the course talks about e.g FHIR resources and SNOMED codes etc. The main issue is some of them hadn’t been tested before the semester started, meaning dependencies were out of date and the bulk of the time taken was just getting setup to even think about looking for answers to the questions. At least you get unlimited attempts on the autograder.

The quizzes were frustrating. The bulk of the questions were easy, but some of them were just logically or grammatically incorrect, especially with broken English. You only get two attempts at the quiz and you are not allowed to discuss what the answers were after the submission date has passed, which is counterproductive for learning.

The head TA had some personal issues meaning that the start of the group project and being assigned a mentor was delayed by a week or two. I feel like Jon Duke should have shouldered some of this load to help the TAs out. They said not to worry, but no allowances were made at the other end for the delay.

Grading was slow, which was a bit annoying.

What you actually need to do for the group project is ambiguous and never really explained. The mentors mostly seem unengaged, except a couple who are quite active on the forum.

You can’t do the project solo, there is a minimum group size of two. It’s pretty amazing that in a graduate level course there are some people who are so disorganized that after the group forming deadline had passed which is graded they are posting on the forum looking for a group.

A group project also means you will get the inevitable free riders. There is no leverage to make them do work, except reporting it, which is barely a remedy.

The extra credit labs were released with deadlines in the last few weeks of the project. but you will be busy with the project most likely.

This course could be a lot better if Jon Duke took a more visible hand in running it. If the labs were actually checked and updated. If the materials were released on time and things were promptly graded, and if the expectations for the project were clearly defined. I speed ran the lectures labs and quizzes so there was a big lull waiting for the mentors to be assigned etc where I could have completed the project ahead of time.

CS6440 - HI - is a big waste of time. I got fooled by the positive reviews below. I honestly haven't learned anything besides the very basics of FHIR. There are about 10 "required" ~30 min PowerPoint lectures that you will get open book untimed MC quized on and no exams. There are 6 "required" assignments which vary between a) fighting with Docker to get a completed project to run and following step by step instructions "click here, enter this, etc..." to type up a few one-line answers in English, and b) fighting with the IDE of the week to get skeleton code to compile and then researching documentation so that you can fill out a handful of functions with about 2 lines of code each and pass the test cases. There are weekly "discussion" prompts in Ed for participation points and a low-effort group project. The class median received full marks on nearly everything. Those of you who are privacy concious be warned - one of the assignments requires you to have a Google account!!!

While at times the material was interesting, this class was mostly a waste of time and a walk in the park. Labs 2 and 3 took a few hours, but the rest of the labs did not take much time even with a Gradescope component. It's not hard to get an A even if you don't do the discussion posts and extra credit labs. Quizzes are open-book and can be taken twice. Honestly, workload per week may be closer 5 hours/week. This class is not designed to be much of a coding/programming class. For most assignments, you are provided a starting guide with videos on Canvas for more background on the task.

As others from the Spring 2025 semester below have mentioned, this class is mostly about the practicum project. Unfortunately, if you have the bad fortune of being put in a terrible team (like I was for reasons out of my control unfortunately) it adds unnecessary stress and you have to carry the whole project yourself because your mentor and TA will not allow you to change groups or work alone. I cannot stress this enough, and it probably applies to all OMSCS classes with a project component: if you want to work on a team, reach out on Ed Discussion/email and try to form a team and do not wait for the TA to assign you randomly otherwise you will get screwed. Those that don't do are more likely to not care about putting in any effort. Also don't expect to get constructive feedback from the mentor on your project as I got feedback for the demo/halfway checkpoint like three days before the final deliverable was due (and it was a generic one sentence comment at that). Also do not worry about the 100 hour requirement as you won't be graded on that if you fall short of that.

This course was poorly organized and frustrating. Lectures were unfocused, covering random medical information with little connection to the technical material. Quizzes and labs were extremely easy but plagued with setup issues and vague instructions, wasting time without providing meaningful learning.

TAs were frequently unavailable, office hours were often canceled, and communication was minimal. The group project, which made up most of the grade, had unclear requirements and almost no mentorship. Success depended heavily on group dynamics, and bad groups meant carrying the project alone.

Overall, the course failed to deliver on both its medical and technical promises. I would not recommend it.

I have a background in healthcare so I was interested in the course. The lecture videos are not very informative. The quizzes are very easy and the labs are trivial. The bulk of the class is the assigned group project. While this could be a cool project, the lack of structure / organization / communication by the TAs and professor made it for a frustrating experience. The requirements were quite vague and left to the students to figure out what to produce for the project. They gave suggestions about scope based on "hours spent". If you get a bad group this could be a very frustrating experience. I didn't really learn much in the class because the quizzes and labs didn't require that you really understand any of the material.