(RCN-UBE) Open Science: An education network in Ethnobiology to coordinate the development of a new culture in the undergraduate science classroom

德克萨斯州植物研究所将开发一个由科学家和其他专业人员组成的跨学科网络，以探索使用新兴的基于网络的技术，以促进教育技术，材料和民族生物学经验的持续交流。研究协调网络（RCN）将多个研究人员的不同作品整合成一套连贯的教育材料，与其他教师和学生分享。区域网络核心参与者编写的初步材料将通过一个统一的门户/数据库系统普遍提供，该系统具有开放网络和开放存取结构，如维基。将把新的和现有的技术纳入区域网络门户网站，包括开放式课件管理系统、几个已建立的生物多样性和植物研究数据库、录像和为科学调查而改装的通用设备（如手机）。由此产生的网络资源将作为一个知识库，并作为一个发展中的系统，可以随着用户社区提供新的贡献而发展和演变，RCN每年将举行两次首脑会议，一次与经济植物学会年会同时举行，另一次通过视频会议举行。八个工作组将被分配与课程开发的具体阶段有关的任务，包括评估。这些工作组每年各举行四次会议。计划扩大门户网站的用户群体，以及扩大核心研究协调网络，包括举办一个初步讲习班，并直接邀请几个专业协会的成员和为少数群体服务的相关机构的科学教师参加，该项目的智力价值在于它有可能促进大学生生物学教育的重大改进，特别是在民族生物学的新兴领域，并在生物学教学的“开放哲学”模式的发展。该项目的更广泛影响来自开发一个开放获取系统，以广泛分享新兴跨学科领域的教育材料。课程材料和经验教训将通过区域网络成员的专业联系广泛分发。

The Botanical Research Institute of Texas will develop an interdisciplinary network of scientists and other professionals to explore the use of emergent web-based technologies to facilitate continual exchange of educational techniques, materials, and experiences in ethnobiology. The Research Coordination Network (RCN) will integrate the diverse works of multiple researchers into a coherent set of educational materials to share with other faculty and with students. Initial materials developed by the RCN core participants will be made generally available through a unified portal/database system with open-network, open-access structures, such as wikis. New and existing technologies will be incorporated into the RCN web portal, including an open courseware management system, several established biodiversity and botanical research databases, videos, and adaptation of common devices (such as cell phones) for scientific inquiry. The resulting web resources will serve both as a repository of knowledge and as a developing system that can grow and evolve as the community of users provide new contributions.The RCN will hold two summit meetings each year, one in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Society for Economic Botany and the other via video conference. Eight working groups will be assigned tasks related to specific stages of curriculum development, including assessment. These working groups will each meet four times per year. Plans to expand the community of users of the web portal, as well as to expand the core research coordination network include an initial workshop and direct invitations to the members of several professional societies and to science faculty at relevant minority-serving institutions.The intellectual merit of the project lies in the likelihood that it will catalyze significant improvements in undergraduate biology education, especially in the emerging area of ethnobiology, and in the development of an "open-philosophy" model for the teaching of biology. The broader impact of the project results from the development of an open-access system for widely sharing educational materials in an emerging interdisciplinary area. The curricular materials and the lessons learned will be distributed widely via the professional affiliations of RCN members.