Publications

Abstract : Thanks to the radical progress of information technology (IT), e-learning and open-learning resources are accessible to anyone, anywhere through the Internet. True open-learning resources can be freely accessed, reused, modified, and shared without restriction. Over the last decade, Open Course Ware (OCW) resources, originally initiated by MIT and the Hewlett Foundation, accelerated the spread of knowledge outside of the United States and Europe for global distribution, and were introduced in many Asian countries, including China and Japan [1–4]. However, high-quality educational resources for biotechnology and other life sciences disciplines are lacking [5]. The need for these open-learning programs in the broad field of biotechnology is 2-fold. Cutting-edge scientific research requires access to the latest techniques, which must be constantly refined to achieve greater accuracy in results; however, keeping pace with these techniques is no small feat. Economic crunches and perpetually limited educational resources make it difficult for most of the institutes to afford even the most basic laboratory set-ups [6]. Even well-funded institutions must limit their infrastructure to what they require for research purposes, and access to advanced labs is most often restricted to authorized research personnel. Virtual labs, where simulators are used to create interactive tutorials that provide students a visual demonstration of techniques, may circumvent many of these roadblocks.