Biological Sciences (61) The Science Collaboratory: Open Participatory Learning Infrastructure for Education (SCOPE) project is working intensively with two cohorts of biology faculty to create, implement and assess a novel approach to faculty professional development by using online Problem Spaces to integrate existing e-science resources with collaborative web-based productivity tools. Problem Spaces contain: 1) collections of open research questions, 2) datasets and analytical tools, 3) faculty-generated curricular resources, 4) references and links to background material, and 5) examples of student work. Problem Spaces are operated in conjunction with Open Educational Resources (OER) Commons to provide a large community of users a platform for interacting and building a shared knowledge base. The Problem Spaces are explicitly designed to be useful in introductory biology courses including microbiology, environmental science, and anatomy & physiology. Faculty are participating in workshops held in cooperation with the Center for Science Education at Emory University and the San Diego Supercomputing Center. Workshop participants then continue in a year-long series of technology supported distance collaborations including curriculum development, implementation, and revision cycles. The SCOPE project is developing 10 problem spaces, connecting faculty use of these spaces with the scholarship of teaching, and investigating student use of Problem Spaces to assess how this activity enhances student learning and problem solving skills.
Two important design features ensure that the outcomes of this project reach beyond those faculty who are directly involved. First, working under the Open Educational Resources Initiative and the Creative Commons license system ensures that the entire SCOPE Project curriculum collection is available for others to adopt and adapt. Additionally, the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium is maintaining these collaborative curriculum centers in perpetuity and affords many opportunities to invite others to participate.
