We are developing a resource for teaching histology and histopathology on-line.
The project is funded by a JISC grant to the Open University, lead by Prof. David Male, with partners from UCLH, The Royal Society of Medicine, The Institute of Ophthalmology and de Montfort University.
The aim is to develop an on-line set of ~250 teaching slides that will be presented through a virtual microscope, that emulates the functions of a light microscope. The teaching material is suitable for undergraduates in biomedical sciences, medicine and zoology, but may also be used to supplement A-level courses.
The virtual microscope uses very large image scans made using research microscopes at the Open University and UCLH. The tiff images will be available as open educational resources at the end of the project. We plan to have the virtual microscope fully functional with all the slide sets by October 2012.
Angus Mcgregor, (Consultant pathologist) is in touch with Douglas, and says that he can contribute sections on liver pathology which is his specialist area and possibly also some kidney sections.
The microscope which we use to take the scans has been upgraded (Jan 31st), with the addition of a new camera, computer and software, which will allow us to take larger images (up to 1 Gigabyte). The software also improves the tiling of the individual frames, by compensating for any inaccuracy in the alignment of the stage and camera.
You can read about the Virtual labs and what was involved in making the programmes available as open educational resources (OER), on this poster.
We recently completed a project to make available 3 virtual laboratories in molecular and cell biology. They include background reading, interactive experiments, and formative questions. All of the materials can be downloaded from Jorum-Open and OpenLearn, by linking to this page which gives a list of contents and instructions on how to use the laboratories. The page gives the individual URLs, so that each laboratory and its associated reading material can be downloaded separately.
