[Insight-developers] Open Education, Open Minds: PLoS Biology

[Luis Ibanez]

Open Education, Open Minds
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508

Cheryl A. Kerfeld1<http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#aff1>
,2<http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#aff2>,
Liza Gross3<http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#aff3>
*<http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#cor1>

*1* Structural Genomics and Education Programs, United States Department of
Energy, Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, California, United States of
America, *2* Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of
California, Berkeley, California, United States of America, *3* Senior
Science Writer/Editor, Public Library of Science, San Francisco, California,
United States of America

Over the past few decades, advances in science and technology have produced
a seemingly endless stream of new data, ideas, and knowledge, challenging
scientists and educators alike to keep abreast of the latest concepts and
discoveries in their fields. Adding to the wealth of new information posted
online every day, more and more historical documents, books, and educational
materials are being made available on the Web. To make the most of this
treasure trove of resources, educators are increasingly sharing lessons,
tools, and resources in electronic formats and online repositories
[1]<http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#pbio.1000508-httpwwwopeneducationnetabout1>.
Much like the open science movement, which promotes greater sharing and
transparency to accelerate discovery, the open education movement freely
shares fundamental and innovative teaching methods, initiatives, and
materials to enhance understanding.

With this issue, *PLoS Biology* launches a new series of articles and
associated resources for life sciences education. The Education Series
combines the philosophy of the open education movement with the unrestricted
access to scientific papers and data afforded by open-access publishing to
present innovative approaches to teaching critical concepts, developments,
and methods in biology. The series will cover fundamental areas of biology,
including evolution and ecology, developmental biology, genomics and
bioinformatics, molecular biology and genetics, immunology, microbiology,
cell biology, neurobiology, and biochemistry.

Articles will showcase instructional approaches that incorporate the ideas
and methods of contemporary life sciences research to help teachers engage
the imagination and talents of their students. By enabling students to use
the same tools researchers use and to explore real data, such approaches are
especially valuable—it's widely acknowledged that engaging students in
active research fosters their enthusiasm for and interest in science.
Because of their accessibility through the Web, genomics databases and
bioinformatics tools are especially suitable for adaptation to educational
settings. Moreover, because bioinformatic algorithms can often be explained
as mathematical articulations of biological concepts, articles exploring how
to use such tools as BLAST provide a meaningful way to link math and
science. Alternately, taking students out in the field to test relationships
between the presence of contaminants in streams and the health and abundance
of key species, for example, provides a memorable lesson in ecology and
environmental science.

While most articles will focus on such instructional tools and approaches,
we'll also feature innovative open-education initiatives and strategies
that, wherever possible, draw on research reported in open-access journals.
The series will take full advantage of Web-based open-access publishing and
multimedia tools to create an interactive, dynamic resource for educators,
researchers, and students, as well as the interested public, to enhance
understanding of fundamental questions in biology and current methods to
investigate them.

Although the series will focus on existing educational programs and
resources, we hope authors who publish in open-access journals will consider
annotating their past and future research articles with supplementary
resources that can be used in the classroom or student laboratory. For
example, an author might include as a supplement a student-ready laboratory
or bioinformatic protocol modeled on those in the article, a set of
PowerPoint slides, videotaped seminar, tutorial, or SciVee video (
http://www.scivee.tv/) for teaching the context, ideas, or methods contained
in the article. Collectively, as the number of articles grows, they will
form a dynamic network of resources that will be available through *PLoS
Biology* Collections (
http://www.ploscollections.org/static/pb
ioCollections.action<http://www.ploscollections.org/static/pbioCollections.action>).
They will be organized in various ways: according to concepts, disciplines,
topics, methods, their relationship to one another, and by student level.

In 2003, The National Research Council's widely praised report on life
sciences education reform, *Bio2010*
[2]<http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#pbio.1000508-Committee1>,
noted, “Outstanding textbooks such as Linus Pauling's *General Chemistry*
[3]<http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#pbio.1000508-Pauling1>and
James Watson's
*Molecular Biology of the Gene*
[4]<http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#pbio.1000508-Watson1>have
enriched and transformed undergraduate education in the past. These
innovative works defined new areas of science and made them accessible and
exciting to future scientists at a crucial formative stage. The need for
works that sculpt science in ways that inform, enlighten, and empower the
next generation of researchers is even greater today.” And, in keeping with
the goals of biology education as outlined in the *Bio2010* report, we are
keen to highlight those initiatives that focus on interdisciplinary
connections, including those that make direct connections between the
various physical and social science fields that interface with biology.

Now, in 2010, with open-access publishing, the Education Series in *PLoS
Biology* can help “inform, enlighten, and empower” by providing tools and
resources to every student—those in conventional courses as well as the
curious child, or adult, surfing the Web for information. By providing a
forum for the open exchange of educational materials, the series will
provide an interactive dynamic space to share key ideas, methods, tools, and
activities with our students and with the public to advance understanding of
biology through the primary literature rather than textbooks. Moreover, the
series provides an opportunity for the life sciences research community to
get more involved in education—to have a broader impact by making your work
and ideas more accessible while contributing to the development of the next
generation of scientists.

By mining the promise of open education and harnessing the collective
imagination and talent of *PLoS Biology* readers and contributors, the
Education Series will create a virtual biology education library. In the
first article, published today (doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000510)
[5]<http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#pbio.1000508-Charkoudian1>,
Louise Charkoudian, Jay Fitzgerald, Andrea Champlin, and Chaitan Khosla show
that Streptomyces-derived natural products provide an untapped source of
useful biopigments and hope to inspire others to explore the potential of
biopigments in art, industry, and perhaps most importantly, the classroom.
They share their experiences in harnessing these biopigments to create paint
and paintings and provide the tools for educators to replicate their
experiments in the classroom. Contributions to the Education Series are
encouraged; ideas should be sent to biology_editors at plosbiology.org.
 Notes and References<http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#top>

   1. http://www.openeducation.net/about/.
   2. Committee on Undergraduate Biology Education to Prepare Research
   Scientists for the 21st Century (2003) Bio2010: Transforming
   Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists. Washington, D.C.:
   The National Academies Press.
   3. Pauling L (1970) General Chemistry. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and
   Company.
   4. Watson J. D (1965) Molecular Biology of the Gene. New York: W.A.
   Benjamin.
   5. Charkoudian L, Fitzgerald J, Champlin A, Khosla C (2010) Bacterial
   Pigments: From Art to Commerce. PLoS Biol 8: e1000510. doi:
   10.1371/journal.pbio.1000510<http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000510>.
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