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Peer Review

A virtual cell

Reviewed:

Mar 11, 2016 by Biology
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Ratings

Overall Rating: 2.2 stars
Content Quality: 2.8 stars
Effectiveness: 2.5 stars
Ease of Use: 1.8 stars
Overview:

This site is one section in a larger virtual “textbook” (incomplete). This chapter focuses on cell biology. It contains an animated cell, with the option for students to click through and learn more about each organelle in context. The website has been translated into Russian, Spanish, and French
Type of Material:

Animation, chapters of etext
Recommended Uses:

Homework
Technical Requirements:

Can be viewed with any browser but the recommended one is Netscape Communicator. Quicktime and Metastream plugins required to view movies and GIF animations. Winzip required to access zip files after download.
Identify Major Learning Goals:

Users of the website will learn about cell structure
Target Student Population:

High school or introductory biology
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

None

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:

  • Content is factually correct.
Concerns:

  • Material covered is relatively basic and may be most suited for introductory lectures
  • Material needs work in summarizing, integration
  • The website has not been updated since 2003

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:

  • Demonstrates the spatial relationship between cellular organelles.
  • Material is efficient and contains only the basic information about each topic covered
  • The pronunciation function is working after Quicktime plugin is installed
Concerns:

  • Material wouldn’t work to assess learning outcomes, as no assessment is included Integration between concepts is difficult to visualize based on difficulty of navigation
  • Many web links are no longer working
  • The page appearance is not visually appealing
  • The whole presentation has not been updated

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:

  • Material is interactive
  • The website is accessible in any browser
Concerns:

  • Site is outdated and difficult to use. Color scheme is jarring, navigation is not intuitive and students cannot always move easily from one screen to the next/previous.
  • Site appears to have been last updated in the 1990s. I’m sure it was quite progressive then, and these days I think students would be better served by similar but more modern animations such as those done by the University of Utah’s genetics center, etc.
  • Many links are no longer working
  • Incompatible with some newer computer software
Other Issues and Comments:

It is not easy to navigate through this website because it has not been updated since 2003. Later versions of the software in many operating systems are unable to read some of the information. This animation is copyrighted material for the Virtual Cell site. While it is freely available on the internet and could be used in your class or lab, it would be a copyright violation to make it part of a set of course materials that others may use.
Creative Commons:
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