BEN – Biological Sciences Pathway

I. Objectives

The BEN Pathway serves as a catalyst for professional societies or coalitions that seek to foster a change in biological sciences teaching in higher education institutions and middle and high schools, including changes in pedagogy and assessment that foster multidisciplinary and student-centered biological sciences teaching. The BEN Pathways funds support services and activities of 26 biological sciences professional societies or organizations. Services include: (a) mentoring and professional development for organizations that want to build digital libraries or contribute resources to the digital library of another collaborator; (b) tools and technical assistance for digital library builders and catalogers; (c)) maintenance of the BEN portal, including metadata management and review, search and browse functions, and harvesting capabilities; and (d) outreach activities, including a  faculty-based outreach program (The BEN Scholars Program).

The BEN Portal aggregates the educational resources of the societies for harvesting by nsdl.org.

The BEN Scholars Program is a two-year professional development program for biological sciences college and university faculty members to help them better understand how to promote (a) the use of digital library resources and (b) student-centered teaching and learning methods in higher education.

II. Digital Library Development

Since 1999, NSDL funds for the BEN Collections or Pathways projects have supported the building of the BEN portal and 10 digital libraries. In addition, technical modifications were done so that the resources of 16 other Collaborators can now be harvested via the BEN portal. Resources of 5 societies and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) are currently cataloged by AAAS – the American Phytopathological Society, ABLE, BSA, FUN, and SOT.  Three (3) other societies catalog their resources on the APS server, including HAPS, SDB, and NAHSEP.  

As of July 2010, the BEN Portal catalog includes 15,601 peer reviewed electronic education resources harvested from collaborators. These electronic resources include images, reviews and journal articles, lab exercises, lesson plans, teaching strategies and guidelines, animations, and more. Resources cover, but are not limited to, over 70 biological topics including microbiology, botany and plant sciences, physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology, cell biology, human biology and anatomy, genetics, heredity and ecology. Compared to the 3,676 records in April 2005, this represents an increase of 11,925 new peer-reviewed records.

Ninety-five percent (95%) of the BEN resources are free. A small percentage of the resources are from subscription-based resources, such as Science Signaling. To improve the user experience, we have made the Free Records Only feature more visible by using a green shading. Also, in the search results page, we are including a dollar symbol and a message that says, “Subscribe and View Resource” next to each fee-based resource. Another portal upgrade includes a Visual Library Only browse feature. The visual library is currently comprised of 5,348 resources, and a Visual Media Only search feature. This feature facilitates the search process for users that are only seeking visual media resources.


III. Tools Development and Technical Support

***Isovera, the BEN Collaborative technical service provider, created a technology wiki. All documentation for BEN Pathways technical development is publicly available on the BEN Technology Wiki. The BEN Techonlogy Wiki is designed to provide developers with instructions and documentation on how to set up a digital library that meets the BEN Portal specifications and format. (http://www.biosciednet.org/wiki/doku.php?id=home).

***Iosvera developed digital library cataloging and peer-review submission tools and formats. The ‘IsoveraDL’ Cataloging Tool provides the flexibility to set up collection management capabilities to meet BEN Collaborators’ unique needs, while ensuring that the core metadata structure, controlled vocabularies, and metadata records comply with the LOM standard utilized by the BEN Collaborative. It supports metadata definition, collection management, metadata review, search/browse, and harvesting capabilities. Ten (10) BEN Collaborators use IsoveraDL. The documentation for Isovera DL can be found online  (http://www.biosciednet.org/isoveradl/doku.php).

***Chadwick Cipiti Studios, Inc. worked with APS to upgrade their digital library. The APS Archive underwent a complete database redesign. The restructure was both functional and visual. The new archive uses cutting edge web technologies, such as AJAX, to provide a rich interface for both users browsing the system and individuals submitting resources. The same concepts provide streamlined and more powerful management tools for APS administrators and the two (2), other BEN Collaborators that catalog resources on the APS server. Incentives to register on the system include the ability to save resources and searches. Please consult the Internet for more details (http://www.apsarchive.org/).

***Three BEN Collaborators are using the CWIS collection tool developed by the NSDL Internet Scout Project (http://scout.wisc.edu/Projects/CWIS/).


IV. Outreach Programs

The BEN Pathways outreach activities include the (A) BEN Scholars Program  and (B) collaborator outreach activities.

(A) The goal of the BEN Scholars Program is to promote the use of digital library resources and student-centered teaching and learning methods in higher education, specifically in biological sciences lecture and laboratory courses, and in research training programs. The program includes a two and one-half day face-to-face meeting, and Scholars are expected to complete online pre- and post-institute assignments and readings. Scholars also participate in an ongoing dialogue amongst the BEN Scholar community for a two-year period.

To date, 45 faculty have participated in the BEN Scholars Program. For more details see
(http://www.biosciednet.org/portal/NewCallforApplications2008.doc). Of the 21 2006-07 BEN Scholars, 17, or 81%, developed and submitted a teaching resource to a digital library. Twelve (12) of the 16 or 75% of the submissions were accepted for online publishing. All Scholars conducted outreach activities in their departments or on campus and in over 40 regional and national meetings.

The second cohort of BEN Scholars completed their face-to-face training in July 2008. As indicated in evaluations, Scholars’ self-ratings of their skills/knowledge on a scale where 5 = “excellent” and 1 = “very weak” increased significantly on nearly all questions. Scholars rated their skills/knowledge in the use of digital libraries and submitting to a digital library much higher after the Institute. They also felt their skills and knowledge base for leading professional development for their colleagues improved as a result of the Institute. For more details on the BEN Scholars evaluations visit: (http://www.biosciednet.org/portal/about/evalreports/2008%20BEN%20SCHOLARS%20FORMATIVE%20REPORT.PDF).

(B)  Reports from BEN Collaborators indicate that they conducted over 80 outreach events, including presentations, exhibits, and workshops, since 2006. For more details see (http://www.biosciednet.org/portal/about/calendar.php).

(C). Other BEN outreach activities include:

***Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education with Faculty, Students, and Officers in Professional Societies. With additional funding from NSF, in 2008 and 2009, AAAS coordinated a series of conversations with faculty, students, staff and leaders in professional societies. Given the radical changes in the nature of the science of biology and technology and what we have learned about effective teaching methods, these meetings sought to address how the biology that is taught can better represents the biology we do in the workforce. The objective was to mobilize biological sciences faculty to focus on undergraduate biology education by engaging them in shared, directed, provocative, and ongoing discussions. Over 500 biological sciences researchers and faculty were involved in conversations and conferences. For more details see the project Web site (http://www.visionandchange.org).

The resulting product will be a publication focused on a blueprint for change in biology education, which will be released at the 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego. The report will include an outline of overarching, key-concepts and competencies, recommendations for classroom practices, and strategies for change.

***The Cyberleaning Community College Project (http://c3cyberlearning.ning.com/), developed by staff of the BEN Collaborator BioQUEST. The objective of this NSDL project, jointly developed by the University of Pittsburgh and Beloit College, is to provide professional development opportunities that engage undergraduate biology faculty in exploring contemporary teaching practices. Biology, microbiology, anatomy and physiology faculty participate in twelve workshops emphasizing collaborative curriculum development and in project-based online group work. Professional development activities are built around the effective use of existing and publicly accessible digital library materials; networked computing and communications technologies; and E-science resources.

***Preparing to Prepare the 21st Century Biology Student. Through an NSF Resource Coordination Network grant, The University of Oklahoma and the American Institute of Biological Sciences, in collaboration with key national biological societies, will articulate a shared vision of how best to prepare biology students and scientifically literate citizens. This project, entitled Preparing to Prepare the 21st Century Biology Student, will use a series of networking meetings over a five-year period to mobilize leading faculty in undergraduate biology education. Primary goals of these meetings will be to develop a model of introductory biology experiences, to develop an online communication network that connects biologists, and to help faculty reform their basic biology courses (http://www.aibs.org/education/preparing_to_prepare.html).

V. Web Trends

To track visits to the BEN portal, we installed Google Analytics in mid February 2008. Google analytics data indicates that from February 2008 to end of July 2010 the BEN portal had 181,705 visits; 151,580 unique visits; and 434,707 page views.

Also, while we do not have data from all of the 26 BEN collaborators, data from nine of the collaborators indicate that the BEN teaching resources are being viewed by a large number of educators. Based on data provided by nine BEN collaborators, the estimated number of:

***Unique visitors to the BEN portal or to digital libraries of BEN collaborators total 4,476,168.
***Registered users for the nine BEN collaborators total 167,291.
***Page Views for the nine BEN collaborators is 34,687,661.

VI. User Surveys

User feedback has been obtained via the BEN Collaborators meeting, BEN advisory group meetings, and special meetings of professional societies, and user surveys. In a user survey implemented in March 2009, 224 respondents:

***Indicated that they had used BEN resources for (a) their own professional development, 125 or 55.8%; (b) in classroom lectures 110 or 49.1%; (c) for classroom assignments (study aid) 72 or 32.2%; and (d) student projects, 56 or 25%.

***Indicated that BEN resources that were most useful were (a) animations or videos, 119 or 53.1%; (b) science teaching articles, 112 or 50%; (c) Images and laboratory exercises, 110 or 49.1%; (d) historical documents, 32 or 14.3%

***Rated their overall experience of locating resources on the BEN portal as (a) excellent or very good, 116 or 51.8%; (b) good, 69 or 30.8%; or (c) fair to poor, 39 or17.4%.

***Rated the quality of the resources on the BEN portal as (a) excellent to very good 134 or 59.8%; (b) good 69 or 30.9%; or (c) fair to poor, 20 or 8.9%.

In this same survey, responses to open-ended questions included:

***Of 112 respondents to the question – What do you like most about the BEN portal? – (a) 42 or 37.5% indicated the amount or variety of materials or the ability to search multiple sites; (b) 17 or 15.1% mentioned the browsing features; and (c) 13 or 11.6% mentioned the quality/reliability of resources.

***Of 101 respondents to the question -- What do you like least about the BEN portal? –(a) 14 respondents mentioned not having access to the fee-base resources and (b) 8 mentioned having to use multiple logins to access resources.

In terms of demographics:
***185 or 81.5% of respondents were from the United States (N=227).

***45 or 22.8% were from PhD granting institutions; 39 or 19.3% were from Bachelors Degree granting institutions; 33 or 16.3% were from Masters Degree granting institutions; 26 or 12.9% were middle/high school teachers; 23 or 11.4% were from Community Colleges or Associates Degree granting institutions; 16 or 7.92% were from Professional Schools (N=202).
***110 or 54.5% teach introductory college and university biology; 93 or 46% teach advanced undergraduate biology courses; 59 or 29.2% teach graduate biology courses; 45 or 22.3% teach high school biology; 23 or 11.3% teach medical school biology courses; 21 or 10.4% teach teacher education courses; 12 or 5.9% teach middle school (N=202).

VII. Impact on Teaching

Resource impact on teaching and student learning is exemplified in two related articles, about faculty use of Science’s Signaling online teacher resources in a graduate course, which were published in Science magazine. The Teaching Resource describes how to use an online asynchronous discussion as a mechanism to introduce students to the peer-review process, as well as to assess student performance and understanding. This method was applied to a graduate course on signal transduction and the Teaching Resource includes a syllabus, detailed plan for incorporating the online discussion, sample journal club questions, and sample student responses to the discussion forum, faculty responses, and student revisions.
http://stke.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1/9/tr2

The Science magazine article focused on the evaluation of the course. Excerpts from the article indicate the course helped graduate students develop critical thinking skills. A valuable outcome of this integrative project was the ability to document and assess how students integrated breadth of knowledge with depth of reasoning. This was achieved by comparing the original and revised answers, as well as the references used in both answers. The commentaries on answers from their peers were also very useful in assessing the student's integrated learning capability.

All of the faculty observed a difference between the classroom discussion, where students mostly did not challenge each others' comments, and the written Web postings where students were respectful but often quite critical of answers from their peers. Anonymity of the Web format and the time provided to think about the Web postings appear to contribute to this critical feedback between peers. We had a nearly even distribution of male and female students in a class of 25, but the female students on average made fewer unsolicited comments in class (P = 0.03; see graph, left).

We observed only a weak correlation between the number of unsolicited comments made by a student in classroom discussion and the student's grade on the assignment (R2 = 0.15; see SOM). These data gathered over the four discussion forums support our original concern that some of the top students do not speak up in class. The gender divide in voluntary journal club participation in an advanced course is disconcerting and merits further study.

We also examined the students' evaluations of the course, assessed using the school's standard survey instrument. We compared the overall course rating, exam format, and effectiveness of readings for this course to ratings for two other courses with similar formats except for the lack of asynchronous interactions. The cell signaling course ranked better in all three categories [table S1 (16)]. This integration project has appeared to work well both from the teachers' and students' perspectives and has struck a practical balance between student-teacher and student-student interactions. In the future, we feel a comparison between instructor critiques and peer critiques would be useful. (http://stke.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;319/5867/1189)