EAGER: Open access resources to promote undergraduate neuroscience education

EAGER：开放获取资源以促进本科神经科学教育

• 批准号: 2035041
• 负责人: Elizabeth Kirby
• 金额: $ 29.92万
• 依托单位: Ohio State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-01-15 至 2024-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2035041&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAGER; Open; access; resources; promote

Every year, hundreds of thousands of undergraduate students participate in an Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience course. This gateway course, offered by Neuroscience, Psychology and Biology departments across the country, provides students with foundational principles of nervous system structure and function, as well as basic information about how the nervous system governs movements, feelings, and thought. Given the high enrollments in introductory behavioral neuroscience courses across the US, the development of a high-quality, open access textbook could substantially reduce barriers to neuroscience education, as well as implement a broad core curriculum that may broadly improve educational quality. The recent shift of numerous courses to online format in the wake of COVID19 further highlights the need for digital learning resources that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. This project will create an open access, online educational resource to serve as a replacement for commercial textbooks. It will integrate multimedia presentation of material, including videos and high quality graphics, as well as instructor-friendly supplemental material (including sample test questions and pre-prepared lecture slides), providing access to a faculty-created, peer-reviewed neuroscience educational resource that is not sequestered behind a pay-wall. Wider access to professional neuroscience learning resources is likely to translate into improved recruitment of talented students into neuroscience. Although targeted toward US students, the common adoption of US textbooks in international classrooms means that this resource would also be poised to influence international neuroscience education and recruitment.Textbooks support and guide learning in numerous college-level science courses. Though faculty typically create the content of science textbooks, the books are primarily produced and sold by for-profit publishers. Instructors then assign texts which students pay to access, by purchasing a physical book or gaining online access. The emergence of open educational resources offers a way to reduce financial barriers to academic success by providing educational materials free of charge, to anyone who wishes to learn from them. However, there are currently no high-quality open access textbook-replacement resources for university undergraduate neuroscience students. To address this gap, the proposed work will develop an open-access, online textbook replacement to accompany the typical Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience course for first and second year college students. The proposed content will be created, curated and peer-reviewed by a team of expert neuroscientists who all show excellence in undergraduate instruction. Resource production, formatting and access will be supported by a team experienced in the dissemination of open access textbooks (OpenStax). The proposed resource will be rooted in digital presentation, allowing written text to be interleaved with high quality graphics and embedded videos. Slides with images and videos will also be provided for instructors to encourage faculty adoption of the resource, as will a test bank. Most importantly, all of these components will be free and openly accessible to the public.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

每年，数十万本科生参加行为神经科学导论课程。这门入门课程由全国各地的神经科学、心理学和生物学系提供，为学生提供神经系统结构和功能的基本原理，以及有关神经系统如何控制运动、感觉和思想的基本信息。鉴于美国各地行为神经科学入门课程的入学人数很高，开发高质量、开放获取的教科书可以大大减少神经科学教育的障碍，并实施广泛的核心课程，从而广泛提高教育质量。最近，在新冠肺炎疫情发生后，许多课程转向在线形式，这进一步凸显了对可以在世界任何地方访问的数字学习资源的需求。该项目将创建一个开放获取的在线教育资源，以替代商业教科书。它将集成材料的多媒体演示，包括视频和高质量图形，以及教师友好的补充材料（包括样本测试问题和预先准备的讲座幻灯片），提供对教师创建的、经过同行评审的神经科学教育资源的访问，该资源不被隐藏在付费墙后面。更广泛地获得专业神经科学学习资源可能会转化为神经科学领域优秀学生的招募。尽管针对的是美国学生，但在国际课堂上普遍采用美国教科书意味着该资源也将影响国际神经科学教育和招生。教科书支持和指导许多大学水平的科学课程的学习。尽管科学教科书的内容通常由教师创作，但这些书籍主要是由营利性出版商生产和销售的。然后，教师分配文本，学生可以通过购买实体书或在线访问来付费访问。开放教育资源的出现为任何希望向其学习的人免费提供教育材料，从而提供了一种减少学术成功的经济障碍的方法。然而，目前还没有针对神经科学本科生的高质量开放获取教科书替代资源。为了解决这一差距，拟议的工作将开发一种开放获取的在线教科书替代品，以配合针对一年级和二年级学生的典型行为神经科学导论课程。拟议的内容将由神经科学家专家团队创建、策划和同行评审，他们都在本科教学中表现出色。资源制作、格式化和访问将由在开放获取教科书（OpenStax）传播方面经验丰富的团队提供支持。拟议的资源将植根于数字演示，允许书面文本与高质量图形和嵌入式视频交织。还将向教师提供带有图像和视频的幻灯片，以鼓励教师采用该资源，测试库也是如此。最重要的是，所有这些组成部分都将免费向公众开放。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。