Peer Review

Smithsonian Open Access: Create. Imagine. Discover

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Dec 24, 2020 by Sociology

Bookmark

Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

This website is a repository for images and data, and other open access resources from the Smithsonian Institution (US National Museum). The images (including 3D digital images), data, and resources may be shared and reused. These images, texts, sound recordings, data (including research datasets), and resources (such as lesson plans) are from the associated museums, research centers, libraries, archives, and the US National Zoo.

Type of Material:

Learning Object Repository

Recommended Uses:

This may be used for homework, individual study, group projects, and reference.

Technical Requirements:

High speed internet. Browser capabilities.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

By using materials from this website, students will be able:

To explore virtually the natural and social world—past and present
To create new materials and resources for story-telling

Target Student Population:

Grade School, Middle School, High School, College General Ed, College Lower Division, College Upper Division, Graduate School, Professional

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Accessing and using most content requires no specialized knowledge and skills. Access to metadata records requires knowledge and skills in using GitHub.

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

Within the areas covered by the Smithsonian, there is a wide array primarily of historical resources which can easily be gleaned using the search engines. There is a lot of good content (mostly historical and natural science images) for use, with more materials expected to be added. Students may find content suitable for some of their social studies assignments and projects. Allowing for open access for the materials is a strong feature of the website.

Concerns:

The problem is the content lacks context and sufficient guidance on how to learn from the content, particularly for sociology students. While the website provides a general search engine, it lacks an appropriate way to quickly get social studies materials and resources. The resources are mostly historical and need to be a part of course assignments rather than a primary assignment in itself.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

The fine-art, historical, and anthropological, materials are well suited for social science instructors to be integrated into their curriculum. As a resource, it offers a good deal of ease in use and plenty of information not easily found elsewhere.

Concerns:

The disparate feature of the website makes it somewhat challenging for instructors to find useful social studies materials (such as lesson plans, datasets, and images/texts). Better organization and rating/ranking of the materials is needed, in order to make explicit the relationship between the resource materials and concepts to be learned. There does not seem to be an overall directory that can easily let the instructor know if the particular topic to be explored is found on this site.

Since this is a resource, it is NOT a teaching tool. It does not have listed learning goals, assignments built in or specific evaluation of student learning.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: The website is a great online resource and high quality. The search engine works well and allows for narrowing the search so a person can see what is offered in video, audio, or text.
Concerns:: Although the search engine is intuitive, there are no explicit directions given as to how to use it. The amount of resources for social sciences appears to be limited in scope and it's not clear how they were selected. The site is still working to make materials more universally accessible.

Other Issues and Comments:: It should be emphasized this is primarily a resource tool and must be placed in the context of assignments by an instructor who has explored just what it has to offer for the students for the designed assignments.
Creative Commons: