APS Archive of Teaching Resources
As originally published in The Physiologist
Volume 45, Number 2, April 2002, page 100
APS is pleased to announce the launch of the revised Archive of Teaching Resources
(http://www.apsarchive.org) as a component of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Digital Library Program.
Improvements include a unique web address, a new look, and extensive new options. The new Archive incorporates a fully searchable database of teaching resources, allowing the user to select resources by grade/age level, topic, format, resource type, and a dozen other characteristics. The Archive also provides a forum for sharing and discussing teaching resources developed by physiology and life science educators. Submission of material for sharing can be done online at the Archive website, and new submissions of material are now being accepted.
What kinds of materials (“objects”) are appropriate for submission? The Archive welcomes all objects that enhance teaching and learning—everything from figures and illustrations to lecture/course PowerPoint presentations to simulations and animations. Material submitted must be the original work of the author. Copyright for any object submitted to the Archive will remain with the author. Not all objects must be downloaded to the Archive; materials such as simulations may reside at the author’s website.
Materials submitted to the Archive will undergo review for scientific accuracy and to ensure that any use of animals or humans is according to the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki and conducted in conformity with the APS “Guiding Principles for Research Involving Animals and Human Beings”
(http://www.the-aps.org/publications/journals/guide.PDF). Acceptance to the Archive will depend on these two criteria. Because the Archive is designed for colleague-to-colleague sharing, the initial review will not focus on the teaching usefulness of the item. Instead, each object accepted into the Archive will have a bulletin board associated with it on which educators who have used the material can engage in discussions on each object’s quality and usefulness. The bulletin boards are designed to serve as discussion forums where authors can gain ideas on how to improve and/or expand their teaching resources.
The APS Archive of Teaching Resources was established as an initiative of the Education Committee and funded by the APS Council and by the NSF National Digital Library Program. The APS Archive will serve as a searchable repository of case histories, figures, lectures, animations, and links to physiology teaching resources on the web. It will contain not only items submitted by the membership but also material already developed by educational programs under the auspices of the Society as well as material published by the Society in its journal, Advances in Physiology Education. Where appropriate, teaching objects will be linked to APS online research and/or review articles. Links to valuable resource material on other web sites will also be contained within the Archives. The Archive will include resources useful to teachers at all levels (K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and professional school) to enhance their teaching both in terms of content and effective teaching strategies (pedagogy).
The APS Archive is also an awardee of the NSF National Digital Library Program as a founding partner of the BiosciEd Net (BEN) project, a collaborative of the APS, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Society for Microbiology (ASM), and nine other professional societies and programs (NSF grant DUE-0085840). The APS Archive, as well as other professional society archives, will regularly share specific database information with the BEN database. As a result the BEN online portal
(http://www.biosciednet.org) will allow users to search for educational materials over a wide range of scientific disciplines, such as microbiology, ecology, and signal transduction.
The APS invites you to join your many colleagues in submitting your teaching resources to the APS Archive of Teaching Resources and by joining in the bulletin board discussions. If you have any questions, please contact Robert Carroll, Chair of the APS Education Committee (carrollr@mail.
ecu.edu), Melinda Lowy, APS Higher Education Programs Coordinator (mlowy@the-aps.org), or Marsha Matyas, APS Education Officer
(mmatyas@the-aps.org).
Robert G. Carroll
Chair, Education Committee