<h1 rel="dc:type" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text"><font size="2">Open Education, Open Minds</font></h1><a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508" target="_blank">http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508</a><br>
<br><p class="authors"><span rel="dc:creator"><span>Cheryl A. Kerfeld</span></span><sup><a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#aff1">1</a></sup><sup>,</sup><sup><a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#aff2">2</a></sup>, <span rel="dc:creator"><span>Liza Gross</span></span><sup><a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#aff3">3</a></sup><sup><a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#cor1" class="fnoteref">*</a></sup></p>
<p class="affiliations"><a name="aff1" id="aff1"></a><strong>1</strong>
Structural Genomics and Education Programs, United States Department of
Energy, Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, California, United States
of America, <a name="aff2" id="aff2"></a><strong>2</strong> Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America, <a name="aff3" id="aff3"></a><strong>3</strong> Senior Science Writer/Editor, Public Library of Science, San Francisco, California, United States of America</p>
<br><div><p>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posted online every day, more and more historical documents, books, and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 <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#pbio.1000508-httpwwwopeneducationnetabout1" target="_blank">[1]</a>.
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.</p>
<p>With this issue, <em>PLoS Biology</em>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 (<a href="http://www.scivee.tv/" target="_blank">http://www.scivee.tv/</a>)
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 <em>PLoS Biology</em> Collections (<a href="http://www.ploscollections.org/static/pbioCollections.action" target="_blank">http://www.ploscollections.org/static/pbioCollections.action</a>).
They will be organized in various ways: according to concepts,
disciplines, topics, methods, their relationship to one another, and by
student level.</p>
<p>In 2003, The National Research Council's widely praised report on life sciences education reform, <em>Bio2010</em> <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#pbio.1000508-Committee1" target="_blank">[2]</a>, noted, “Outstanding textbooks such as Linus Pauling's <em>General Chemistry</em> <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#pbio.1000508-Pauling1" target="_blank">[3]</a> and James Watson's <em>Molecular Biology of the Gene</em> <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#pbio.1000508-Watson1" target="_blank">[4]</a>
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 <em>Bio2010</em> 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.</p>
<p>Now, in 2010, with open-access publishing, the Education Series in <em>PLoS Biology</em>
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.</p>
<p>By mining the promise of open education and harnessing the collective imagination and talent of <em>PLoS Biology</em>
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) <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#pbio.1000508-Charkoudian1" target="_blank">[5]</a>,
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
<a href="mailto:biology_editors@plosbiology.org" target="_blank">biology_editors@plosbiology.org</a>.</p>
</div>
<div><a name="12b83cd245c585ef_notesandreferences" title="Notes and References"></a><h3>Notes and References<a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000508#top" target="_blank"></a></h3>
<ol><li><a name="12b83cd245c585ef_pbio.1000508-httpwwwopeneducationnetabout1"></a><span></span> <a href="http://www.openeducation.net/about/" target="_blank">http://www.openeducation.net/about/</a>. </li><li><a name="12b83cd245c585ef_pbio.1000508-Committee1"></a><span>Committee on Undergraduate Biology Education to Prepare Research Scientists for the 21<sup>st</sup> Century</span>
(2003) Bio2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future
Research Biologists. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. </li><li><a name="12b83cd245c585ef_pbio.1000508-Pauling1"></a><span>Pauling L</span> (1970) General Chemistry. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company. </li>
<li><a name="12b83cd245c585ef_pbio.1000508-Watson1"></a><span>Watson J. D</span> (1965) Molecular Biology of the Gene. New York: W.A. Benjamin. </li><li><a name="12b83cd245c585ef_pbio.1000508-Charkoudian1"></a><span>Charkoudian L, Fitzgerald J, Champlin A, Khosla C</span> (2010) Bacterial Pigments: From Art to Commerce. PLoS Biol 8: e1000510. doi:<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000510" target="_blank">10.1371/journal.pbio.1000510</a>. </li>
</ol></div>