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Bio-Education takes the next step with BioED

An example of the BioED CD-ROM
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The research group from the Department of Applied & Molecular Ecology
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Tuesday, 12 February 2002

THOUSANDS of ÐÓ°ÉÖ±²¥n university students studying in the areas of biology and environment science are set to benefit from a new hi-tech teaching tool developed by the universities of Adelaide, Queensland and Sydney.

BioED is an interactive CD-ROM system that enables students to easily identify thousands of ÐÓ°ÉÖ±²¥n animals, plants and micro-organisms.

Free copies of the CD-ROM, launched today at Adelaide ÐÓ°ÉÖ±²¥, will be distributed to every university in ÐÓ°ÉÖ±²¥.

The BioED CD provides eight separate keys to groups including:

• protozoa
• soil micro-arthropods (segmented invertebrates)
• insect orders
• wasps
• mosquitoes
• microscopic fungi
• weeds, and
• urban pests

"There has been a real need for an easy-to-use identification system in CD-ROM form for many years," says Associate Professor Andy Austin from Adelaide ÐÓ°ÉÖ±²¥'s Centre for Evolutionary Biology & Biodiversity.

"The CD provides a resource for learning about various groups of organisms with text boxes and some video that provide information on structural characteristic, behaviour, ecology, etc.

"BioED also contains a huge library of digital images and illustrations that would be prohibitively expensive in any printed form."

For instance, the wasp key (part of the work conducted at Adelaide ÐÓ°ÉÖ±²¥) contains more than 350 separate images.

In all, there are 500 different groupings representing tens of thousands of ÐÓ°ÉÖ±²¥n species.

"The sheer scale of the material contained in BioED will aid students throughout ÐÓ°ÉÖ±²¥ in the identification of this important part of ÐÓ°ÉÖ±²¥'s biodiversity, and it will help immensely in students' learning," Dr Austin says.

BioED was developed thanks to a $160,000 grant in 1999/2000 from DEETYA's Committee for ÐÓ°ÉÖ±²¥ Teaching and Staff Development. The project is the first stage of a larger ongoing national initiative that will include other groups of organisms as keys for them are developed.

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