This session reported progress in establishing mechanisms for internet accessible instructional support materials being developed as part of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) initiative of the National Science Foundation. Sharing these materials among colleagues will allow instructors to use them and to improve the quality of their teaching without having to develop the materials by themselves, saving both faculty time and effort. Dr. Carroll described the American Physiological Society Archive of Teaching Resources, (www.apsarchive.org) an AAAS BioSciEdNet portal (www.biosciednet.org). This database was launched in April of 2002, and submission and usage data was discussed. Dr. Uijtdehaage presented the progress on HEAL, the Health Education Assets Library (www.healcentral.org), also part of the NSDL project, but in conjunction with the Association of American Medical Colleges and the National Library of Medicine. The BioSciEdNet project partners professional societies and provides a unified framework for database organization. Currently, users can search the individual society data base, or search through the BioSciEdNet portal which contains information about the 14 partners, which include the American Physiological Society, the American Society for Microbiology, the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, with ongoing discussions about adding the other basic science professional societies. Each professional society maintains its own database. The APS Archive of Teaching Resources contains physiology-related materials to assist instructors at the K-12, undergraduate, graduate and professional levels. HEAL focuses exclusively on the health sciences, including medical, undergraduate, and patient education. Currently it has a prototype collection of about 3000 items consisting of images, videos, and online tutorials that can be searched, browsed and retrieved online (www.healcentral.org). In the next development phase, the size and breadth of the collection will increase substantially to about 40,000 items by the end of 2004. To this end, HEAL is forming a federation of collections that can be searched through one central index. In addition, educators will be able to contribute materials directly to the HEAL collection. A peer-review process ensures the quality and integrity of the overall collection. The group discussed issues of content, access, copyright, and HIPPA. Both HEAL and the APS archive incorporate already developed materials and solicit faculty to contribute new materials for educational use. The sponsorship of both projects by the NSF should allow both portals to be searched using a common set of metatags (descriptors), or each site may be searched individually. The majority of objects in the databases are available for free, but links can direct users to materials available for a fee. Anyone with internet access can use the databases, but the large size of some of the image and multimedia files may impede use of those objects by faculty with slow internet connections. Issues of copyright, fair educational use, and compliance with the HIPPA regulations were discussed, as these projects must comply with the laws of the USA. Conclusions reached by the participants were that the electronic availability of teaching materials will improve the quality of materials available for use by faculty for instruction. **** **** ****
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