| Title | Cell Biology Image Database |
|---|---|
| Faculty/College/Unit | Science |
| Status | Completed |
| Duration | 3 Years |
| Initiation | 04/01/2002 |
| Completion | 03/31/2005 |
| Funding Details | |
| Year 1: Project Title | Bio-Imaging Microscopy Course and Cell Biology Image Repository |
| Year 1: Project Year | Year 1 |
| Year 1: Funding Year | 2002/2003 |
| Year 1: Project Type | Small TLEF |
| Year 1: Principal Investigator | A. Lacey Samuels |
| Year 1: Funded Amount | 27,500 |
| Year 1: Team Members | A. Lacey Samuels, Botany, Faculty of Science |
| Year 1: Summary | The objectives of this project are:
The rationale for this project is that the UBC Bio-Imaging Facility is a center for Cell Biology research and graduate student learning and we wish to formalize this learning experience into a recognized Biology course. Out goals are to optimize the students’ experience as well as provide recognition of their experience on the students’ academic record. At the same time, the undergraduate courses in Cell Biology are increasingly relying on multimedia tools to allow students to view and analyze data. The introductory Structural Cell Biology (Biol 200) presently requires students to purchase a CD of images to help them learn how to interpret images from electron microscopes. The creation of this image data base on the Bio-Imaging Facility server will allow undergraduate students free, web-friendly access to a wide variety of image of cells. In addition to being a great resource, this database will also directly link research in Cell Biology to undergraduate learning. |
| Year 2: Project Title | Cell Biology Image Repository and Bio-Imaging Microscopy Course |
| Year 2: Project Year | Year 2 |
| Year 2: Funding Year | 2003/2004 |
| Year 2: Project Type | Small TLEF |
| Year 2: Principal Investigator | A. Lacey Samuels |
| Year 2: Funded Amount | 45,000 |
| Year 2: Team Members | A. Lacey Samuels, Botany, Faculty of Science |
| Year 2: Summary | The project’s objectives are twofold:
The rationale for this project is that undergraduate courses in Cell Biology are increasingly relying on multimedia tools to allow students to view and analyze data. The creation of our image data base has allowed undergraduate students free, web-friendly access to a wide variety of images of cells. In addition to being a great resource, this database directly links research in Cell Biology to undergraduate learning. |
| Year 3: Project Year | Year 3 |
| Year 3: Funding Year | 2004/2005 |
| Year 3: Project Type | Small TLEF |
| Year 3: Principal Investigator | A. Lacey Samuels |
| Year 3: Funded Amount | 31,808 |
| Year 3: Team Members | A. Lacey Samuels, Botany, Faculty of Science |
| Year 3: Summary | The objective of this project is to link Cell Biology research and teaching at UBC by providing a free, web-based Image Database of microscopy images. This Image Database was developed in 2001, introduced into the Cell Biology curriculum in 2002, and integrated into the curriculum in 2003. This Database is one of the few learning object repositories that have been developed on campus. Its success is due to the involvement of several communities of users: researchers who donate and archive images, faculty and instructors who use images and build educational material around them, and students utilizing the images. The Database is used in the Cell Biology curriculum (Biology 200, 1338 students), both by faculty displaying images during lectures and by students for assignments. In the 60 days from October 01 to November 30, 2003, the Image Database site was visited by 1,650 unique computers and transferred 3.95 gigabytes of data (245,011 images downloaded). Ideally, as students are exposed to a variety of images, they will start to develop the confidence and experience to interpret, evaluate and classify research images. Our immediate objective is to increase the presence of the researchers in the database. The continued growth of the Database depends on the researcher/donors so we will focus on widening the number of researchers, making short video clips of some researchers' explanations of the images, and tying the Image Database more closely to the UBC Bio-Imaging Facility courses and website. A biology coop student will be hired to focus on this aspect of the project in a four-month work term. This project complements two other projects in progress in other places around campus. A similar image databases has been developed in the Faculty of Arts and another has been proposed. Through the complementary work proposed by Brian Lamb and the Office of Learning Technologies (OLT), a federated search of repositories such as ours is being implemented. In addition, the OLT will attempt to integrate various databases with WebCT and uPortal, which will permit greater use of our collection. |