by Dean Haycock

(Issue 10 ? posted June 13, 1997; archived June 27, 1997)

"You can take 'em naked," the ad in the back of the New York Times Magazine promises. That was not the first thought I had as I looked for online courses, but I couldn't deny the truth of the claim. The ad sought attention for online multimedia studies classes but the same fringe benefit applies to biomedical courses on the Web.

A few Web teaching sites still use the traditional "chalk and talk" approach. Fortunately the authors of most sites know the strength of their medium: no online course needs to cover everything. A site can concentrate on its core material and find more strength in its links. This means you can start a course and quickly be drawn away as you follow links to your bliss. That is one way to learn. Another way, for those interested in actually completing something, is to eventually force yourself to return to the tutorial you started. There you can take advantage of the virtual textbook that opens other books to the right pages, just when you need them, and sometimes shows you pictures that move.

I started out easy (although still clothed), at Harvard, with a basic Biological Sciences 1 course. Like many online teaching sites, this one was designed to serve students physically enrolled in the class. If you can't get to Cambridge next semester, you can still get something from the online material. The syllabus provides summaries and readings for each lecture topic. The hyperlinks included in the descriptions of the lab assignments cover topics in biochemistry, cell biology, photosynthesis, and genetics (including one, called the Virtual FlyLab, devoted to Drosophila genetics).

I liked the Virtual FlyLab, an outstanding example of an educational site specifically designed for the Web. Here you can choose your mutants, mate them onscreen, and see the results immediately (oh, and pick up some genetics too). The exercise is like using an interactive genetic coloring book. Click the "Mate Designed Fly" button, be patient, and see - literally see - what your virtual matchmaking yields. You can continue tinkering with fly genealogies as long as you wish as you test hypotheses and absorb the genetics and the statistics behind the crosses you've ordained (and no cleaning fly-specked bottles).

Not many subjects, however, can be presented in the alluring medium of neatly rendered mutant flies. (Pity.) When straightforward presentation of facts is required, a decent model to follow might be the Introduction to Gene Therapy, a Vanderbilt University site. The material is interesting; the progression is straightforward, logical, and easy to follow; and the site is well designed. Like most good Web courses, this one includes a page devoted to other teaching sites. Among them is the excellent Mendelian Genetics site, one of 10 chapters in the MIT Biology Hypertextbook.

For developmental biology, a leading site is produced by Dr. Leon Browder of the University of Calgary. His Virtual Embryo and Developmental Biology sites are impressive and extensive. These significant resources started as a Web page to support a single course but grew like the Web itself in content and in reputation. One reason for its success may be because Dr. Browder knows how to use links effectively and is clearly devoted to squeezing everything out of the Web in his quest to cover his discipline. He even includes exams from his courses going back to 1992 - with answers. On his home page the developmental biologist tells visitors: "The rapid pace of change in the field convinced me that a more flexible medium than a textbook was needed to communicate developmental biology. The Internet seemed to me to provide a way to change course content dynamically, as opposed to the static format of a textbook."

Dr. Browder has incorporated moving images into his site. The University of Wisconsin Institute of Molecular Virology site designed by Dr. Jean-Yves Sgro and Stephan Spencer does too. The site covers basic virology, emerging diseases, and AIDS, using both print and electronically published material. It also provides moving images such the Flock House Virus, seen in striking depth-cued blue color as it rotates 360 degrees. The Electronic Introduction to Molecular Virology, designed by Dr. Ed Rybicki, is mirrored at this site and makes extensive use of links to it, although its home is at the University of Cape Town Microbiology site.

One of the classiest online courses is Medical Biochemistry, a product of the Medical Education Group of the University of Kansas Medical Center. The layout and design are so rich you might feel you should be paying to use it. Molecular structures rotate and biochemical reactions play out in animation after you download the necessary software. You can search for most of the slides used in the course and the explanatory text and links highlight the interrelationship of biochemistry with the rest of biology and medicine.

Finally, I visited a site that illustrates the potential eclipse of the old "chalk and talk" teaching method. The Biology of Infection and Immunity course is a self-described "experiment in information technology." The online material is straight class familiarization stuff but there is great emphasis on using Web resources and even a newsgroup for the class. The links are valuable for all interested visitors. The glimpse of the future lies in the requirement that registered students must use the WWW resources to pass the course and they "will be examined on material acquired from this source."

Thus I learn the answer to the age-old query, "Is this going to be on the exam?" The answer is yes. (But you can still take 'em naked on the Web.)

Dean A. Haycock is a journalist who writes science articles for many magazines and newspapers. He received his Ph.D. in neuroscience from Brown University.

Andrzej Krauze is an illustrator, poster maker, cartoonist, and painter who illustrates regularly for HMS Beagle, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, Bookseller and New Statesman.

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