Ruble Julie E, Lom Barbara
Biology Department and Neuroscience Program, Davidson College, Davidson, NC, USA.
CBE Life Sci Educ. 2008 Fall;7(3):296-301. doi: 10.1187/cbe.08-02-0007.
A well-constructed, step-by-step protocol is a critical starting point for teaching undergraduates new techniques, an important record of a lab's standard procedures, and a useful mechanism for sharing techniques between labs. Many research labs use websites to archive and share their protocols for these purposes. Here we describe our experiences developing and using a protocol website for the additional purpose of enhancing undergraduate research training. We created our lab's protocol website in a message board format that allows undergraduates to post comments on protocols describing the lessons they learned, questions that arose, and/or insights they gained while learning to execute specific research protocols. Encouraging and expecting students to comment on the protocols they are learning to execute is beneficial for both the student and for the lab in which they are training. For the student, annotations encourage active reflection on their execution of techniques and emphasize the important message that attending to and understanding details of a protocol is a critical factor in producing reliable data. For the lab, annotations capture valuable insights for future generations of researchers by describing missing details, hints, and common hurdles for newcomers.
一个精心构建的、循序渐进的实验方案是向本科生教授新技术的关键起点，是实验室标准程序的重要记录，也是实验室间共享技术的有用机制。许多研究实验室利用网站来存档和共享他们的实验方案以实现这些目的。在此，我们描述我们开发和使用一个实验方案网站的经历，该网站还有增强本科生科研训练的额外目的。我们以留言板的形式创建了我们实验室的实验方案网站，本科生可以在描述他们在学习执行特定研究方案时学到的经验教训、遇到的问题和/或获得的见解的实验方案上发表评论。鼓励并期望学生对他们正在学习执行的实验方案发表评论，这对学生及其所在的训练实验室都有益。对学生而言，注释鼓励他们积极反思自己的技术执行情况，并强调这样一个重要信息：关注和理解实验方案的细节是产生可靠数据的关键因素。对实验室而言，注释通过描述遗漏的细节、提示和新手常见的障碍，为后代研究人员捕捉到有价值的见解。
