EAGER: Open access resources to promote undergraduate neuroscience education

每年都有成千上万的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、心理学和生物系开设，为学生提供神经系统结构和功能的基本原理，以及神经系统如何控制运动、感觉和思维的基本信息。鉴于美国行为神经科学入门课程的高入学率，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，这可能会广泛地提高教育质量。在2019冠状病毒病之后，最近许多课程转向在线形式，这进一步凸显了对可从世界任何地方访问的数字学习资源的需求。这个项目将创建一个开放获取的在线教育资源，作为商业教科书的替代品。它将整合多媒体展示材料，包括视频和高质量的图形，以及教师友好的补充材料（包括样题和预先准备的讲座幻灯片），提供教师创建的，同行评审的神经科学教育资源，而不是隔离在付费墙后面。更广泛地获得专业神经科学学习资源可能会转化为更好地招募有才华的神经科学学生。虽然目标是美国学生，但美国教科书在国际课堂上的普遍采用意味着这一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。虽然科学教科书的内容通常是由教师创造的，但这些书主要是由营利性出版商制作和销售的。然后，教师指定文本，学生通过购买实体书或在线访问来付费。开放教育资源的出现，通过向任何希望从中学习的人免费提供教育材料，提供了一种减少学术成功的经济障碍的方法。然而，目前还没有高质量的开放获取教科书替代资源供大学神经科学本科学生使用。为了解决这一问题，这项工作将开发一种开放获取的在线教科书，以替代大学一年级和二年级学生的典型行为神经科学导论课程。提议的内容将由一组在本科教学中表现出色的神经科学家专家创建、策划和同行评审。资源的制作、格式和获取将由一个在开放获取教科书（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表示，允许书面文本与高质量的图形和嵌入式视频交织。还将为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，同时还将提供一个测试库。最重要的是，所有这些组件都是免费的，对公众开放。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.