From: <abstracts@gsm

BREAKOUT SESSION

 

Does it work? Evaluating Educational Web Sites

 

Ken M. Williams

University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

 

ABSTRACT:

 

With the phenomenal growth of educational web sites over the past few years, we need to ask hard questions about how usable and useful our sites are for students, teachers and the general public who comprise our diverse audiences.

 

Since evaluation plays (or should play) a key role in determining how to allocate resources, and since such evaluation procedures have been notably lacking in many similar endeavors, we hope to stimulate others to think about the important issues of usability and effectiveness in designing sites for educational use in medical and biological science education

 

BENEFIT TO PARTICIPANTS ATTENDING SESSION:

 

We need to ask hard questions about how usable and useful our sites and software are for students, teachers and the general public who comprise our diverse audiences -- partly because we need to know in order to improve our offerings, and partly because our institutions increasingly require evaluation as a part of our accountability. This breakout invites everyone concerned with these issues to discuss experiences, expectations and approaches in a congenial and informal setting.

 

Ken M. Williams

University of Arizona

Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology

Life Sciences South 444

PO Box 210106

Tucson AZ 85721

Phone: 1-520-621-3624

Fax: 1-520-621-3759

mailto:kenw@email.arizona.edu

Website www.biology.arizona.edu