Digital Libraries

Case Study: Improving Biology Education With Online Resources

Background

The BEN (Bioscience Education Network) Collaborative is a National Science Foundation (NSF) effort spearheaded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the nation's largest nonprofit scientific organization. BEN includes 25 professional societies who make their content resources available both in their own specialized peer-reviewed online libraries as well as via a centralized general biology portal. Since in 2002, Isovera has been responsible for designing, constructing, and deploying the technology underlying this effort. The unified technology system hosts library catalogs at member organizations, provides peer-review workflows for content curation, tools for meta-data management, publishing management, data exchange, content permissions, and facilitates intellectual property rights management.

Breaking Disciplinary Boundaries

Through its federated architecture, BEN provides an innovative approach that enhances biology education in higher education. The underlying technology enables seamless searchable access to its partners' digital library collections in order to provide users with accurate and reliable biology education resources. As a result, BEN gives educators true cross-discipline access to biology learning resources. The resources accessible through BEN impact the learning of biological sciences by students with diverse interests and career aspirations. 

Enhancing Accessibility of Quality Resources

BEN helps to bridge a "digital divide" that exists in the biology education community. Educators and students at smaller institutions who lack the resources to generate or access high-quality, cutting edge educational resources are able to do so using BEN. Through the BEN portal website, partners receive greater exposure and access to an additional audience ready to use the materials they have to provide. The peer review system and content cataloging technology helps to ensure resources are of highest quality.

Supporting the National Science Digital Library

BEN content also feeds the National Science Digital Library (NSDL). With over 1.5 million teaching and learning resources, the NSDL provides unique access to high-quality materials for science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education. In the words of NSF program staff, the NSDL "will strongly affect education at all levels, including pre-K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and life-long learning, by providing anytime, anywhere access to a rich array of authoritative and reliable interactive materials and learning environments."