Building digital access to biology teaching resources

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) Programs and Science's Signal Transduction Knowledge Environment (STKE)-with 11 other professional societies and coalitions for biological sciences-established the BiosciEd-Net (BEN) Collaborative. BEN serves as a catalyst and a technical support mechanism for professional societies and coalitions that operate their own biological sciences educational digital libraries and collaborate in terms of pedagogy, authentic assessment, and development of multidisciplinary resources. BEN addresses the pressing need for scientifically accurate biological sciences education e-resources for use by educators of introductory and AP high school biology and college and university biological sciences courses. The US National Research Council panels on high school biology content and undergraduate biology (Bio 2010) have identified the need for adaptable inquiry-based and problem-solving e-resources that complement and strengthen high school and undergraduate biological sciences education. Through the BEN portal site, the Collaborative currently provides searchable and seamless access to seven digital library collections of its Collaborators to provide users with accurate and reliable biological sciences education resources. The BEN portal includes over 3, 000 peer-reviewed harvested biological sciences e-resources.