Scott Gilbert's "Development Biology" is a web site that contains an enormous amount of material designed to supplement developmental biology courses. It is organized to follow the organization of the 6th edition of the authors textbook, "Development Biology". While it is intended to supplement the textbook, the material stands on its own and is arranged in a modular manner so that it would be easy to use selected portions of it in a developmental biology course. The organization follows that of the Gilbert textbook and typically includes ten to twenty supplemental modules per chapter. The supplemental material discusses a particular topic in much more depth than is normal for a text book. Sometimes the supplement is over the details of historical experiments, sometimes it covers current research, and sometimes it covers controversial topics. All of the supplements are very well done with up-to-date bibliographies, excellent figures and links to other relevant web sites.
Type of Material:
Collection
Technical Requirements:
HTML, Quicktime
Target Student Population:
College/University students in developmental biology courses
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
Quality of Content Ratings: (5)(5) = 5
Technically excellent with accurate material
* Provides an extensive collection of up to date modular material on various aspects of developmental biology
* Integrates material with comparable topics in the author's textbooks
* Descriptions are detailed and thorough
* Very good figures
Concerns:
No glossary
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching-Learning Tool Ratings:(4.5)(4) = 4.25
The modular nature of the content makes it easy to incorporate portions of the material into a course.
* References to the primary journal literature are provided in each module
Concerns:
Learning objectives are not clearly stated
* Material is very static, with little or no student interaction possible
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
Ease of Use Ratings:(5)(5) = 5
Easy to use since it is largely static web pages and the material is well written and well organized.
* The home page provides a complete list of topics dealt with on the site and the organization is clear making the site easy to navigate
Concerns:
There are some broken links on the site.
* Many pages do not have a link to the next page, you have to go back to a subject subheading page and find the link to the next topic
Creative Commons:
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