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This research paper aims to provide information about certified learning apps for biological education and gave an ordered list of all learning apps currently used by Austrian biology teachers in the classroom, which should serve as an overview for all biology teachers. In addition, the (currently little known) certification process of learning apps (seal of quality for educational applications) is described.

Online questionnaire for all biology teachers throughout Austria, on the one hand to find out the apps, and on the other hand to research how Austrian teachers find suitable apps. The data were evaluated using descriptive statistics.

A total of84 different learning apps are currently used by biology teachers in Austria. There are two certified lernapps in Austria, both are used. The most common app in biology lessons is “Anton”. The teachers find the information about apps throughout their own research or through colleagues. There are regional and school-specific differences in regards of usage and knowledge about seal of quality. It needs its own teacher training (TT) via suitable learning apps, because problems (data protection, advertising) are sometimes not taken into account during use.

Limitations of this paper are that some of the teachers indicated the apps from other subjects (mathematics) to use this learning app, although this is not possible for biology lessons. Data protection was stated to the best of the authors’ knowledge by the authors, if the authors were not sure it says “unsure”. The participants are mainly women, but this corresponds to the gender ratio, which is typical of the Austrian teaching profession.

The overview of the apps, compiled by this Austria-wide research, can be taken over into the biology lessons of all teachers. In addition, on the basis of this study, a TT at the University of Education 2023 in Linz was created. In addition, the (currently little known) certification process of learning apps is described.

The TT and the overview of the learning apps used serve as guidelines for teachers as to which apps they can use in biology lessons without hesitation. Above all, the aspect of the follow-up of digital media/apps will be emphasized. Data backup, inappropriate advertising must be processed in class or completely omitted. Biology teachers need the right training (TT) and appropriate materials and tools (apps) to reduce problems (cybercrimes).

Currently, there is no prepared list of suitable (certified and uncertified) learning apps for biology lessons. There are isolated recommendations and individual apps, but the selection criteria and backgrounds of the authors are not clear. This list shows which apps (how often) are used by which teachers. In addition, the (currently little known) certification process of learning apps is described.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze how the Swedish Association of Biology Teachers (ABT) and some other subject associations helped form pre-service biology teacher education in two major Swedish reforms from ca. 1960 to 1990.

The activities of subject associations can be understood as boundary-work since they defend their subject boundaries in terms of content, space in the timetable, and legitimacy. A hermeneutic method of text interpretation is employed in analyzing historical archival and parliamentary material.

The work of the ABT to demarcate their subject in the 1968 and 1988 Teacher Education Reforms may seem like merely defending certain biological items instead of others, in the name of science. However, it was also a professional struggle to assert the importance of the teachers, their jobs, education, knowledge of biology subject matter, and thereby their professional authority and autonomy. The ABT were also caught in a political struggle for their subject throughout the period of investigation. Depending on the political winds of the time they therefore had to ally themselves with or distance themselves from various actors.

In comparison with the few other studies of subject associations, this paper is unique in outlining how the ABT acted in relation to teacher education. However, the ways of doing boundary-work were still very similar to those used by subject associations in schools in other countries, especially in acting for increased study time in their respective science subjects as well as their resistance to subject integration. An obvious conclusion regarding teacher education is that subject associations such as the ABT did not contribute to bridging the gap between subject matter and pedagogy but rather the opposite. Biology teacher education was seen as an academic pursuit carried out at universities rather than at the practically oriented teacher training colleges.

Online resources can be helpful for students and can augment the content presented in learning environments. A team consisting of four biologists, a graduate student, instructional designer and media developers collaborated on the design, development and evaluation of first-year biology online tutorials in a Canadian University. The tutorials were designed to address knowledge gaps resulting in low success rates and attrition of first-year students in biology. The decrease in the number of students in STEM has alarmed educators, prompting a call for efforts to increase STEM majors in universities. Large class sizes, such as first year biology with ∼900 registrants annually, with detail-oriented, content-heavy loads, can result in low success rates and attrition.

Active learning methods, including online formative assessments, which encourage student engagement in course material, can be effective in large introductory science classes, and thus, the authors provided engagement with tutorial online resources. The authors identified the tutorial topics by analyzing previous years' tests, student feedback and pedagogical research in undergraduate biology. The top five topics identified as common misconceptions or troublesome concepts within the course were selected. Standard instructional design processes were used to produce high-quality online tutorials. Tutorials included learning materials, videos, animations, self-assessments, reflective questions and badges to facilitate deep learning of the topics. Effectiveness of the tutorials was evaluated using quantitative methods and quasi-experimental design to compare the student learning results between the control year (without tutorials) and the year when tutorials were offered. Pre- and posttests measuring conceptual understanding were administered to assess gains in student learning. Additionally, student engagement was measured using the Classroom Survey of Student Engagement (CLASSE), and data from learning management system was collected.

Results of the study show that the tutorials were an effective means of providing supplementary assistance to students as well as fostering a gain in students' levels of engagement with the course. Data analysis indicates that there was a significant increased gain in learning of core concepts in biology. Specifically, using formative online assessments resulted in measurable learning gains in students who participated voluntarily, in comparison to students who chose not to engage in self-paced quiz testing.

As seen from the description earlier, the tutorials, and this project, provide suitable university-level complexity to address specific learning gaps in the first year course. They provide a valuable service to students in terms of representing content in an alternate format and motivating students as they engaged with videos and self-assessment most frequently. The project adds to the teaching and learning environment with respect to program design, mode of delivery and scheduling by providing self-paced tutorials that focus on specific concepts in biology. Students may review these resources whenever and as often as they feel necessary to better master the concepts. This makes the content applicable for the various preferences for approaches to learning and accommodation requirements found in students. Importantly, using formative online assessments resulted in measurable learning gains in students who participated voluntarily, in comparison to students who chose not to engage in self-paced quiz testing.

Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs), which apply a peer-review policy based solely on scientific soundness, elicit opposing views. Sceptical authors believe that OAMJs are simply an easy target to publish uninteresting papers that would not be accepted in more selective traditional journals. The purpose of this paper is to investigate any differences in scholars’ considerations of OAMJs by analysing the productivity and impact of Spanish authors in Biology and Medicine who publish in PLOS ONE.

Scopus was used to identify the most prolific Spanish authors in Biology and Medicine between 2013 and 2017 and to determine their publication patterns in PLOS ONE. Any differences in terms of citation impact between Spanish authors who publish frequently in PLOS ONE and the global Spanish output in Biology and Medicine were measured.

Results show a moderate correlation between the total number of articles published by prolific authors in Biology and Medicine and the number of articles they publish in PLOS ONE. Authors who publish frequently in PLOS ONE tend to publish more frequently than average in Quartile 1 and Top 10 per cent impact journals and their articles are more frequently cited than average too, suggesting that they do not submit to PLOS ONE for the purpose of gaining easier publication in a high-impact journal.

The study is limited to one country, one OAMJ and one discipline and does not investigate whether authors select PLOS ONE for what they might regard as their lower quality research.

Very few studies have empirically addressed the implications of the soundness-based peer-review policy applied by OAMJs.

The purpose of this paper is to discover the research practices of biology researchers and to assess the suitability of the OJAX++ Virtual Research Environment (VRE) for these researchers.

Usability testing was used to evaluate the usability of OJAX++ in relation to biology researchers. Interviews with biology researchers in a large Irish university were conducted to investigate their research information behaviour, to establish user requirements in their discipline and to evaluate the feasibility of using OJAX++ in their research.

The results show that biology researchers used online tools extensively in their research but do not use social networking tools. E-mail and phone conversations are the preferred methods of collaborating with colleagues. The biology researchers found that OJAX++ was easy to use, intuitive and professionally presented but in its present format, OJAX++ does not fit in with current research practices as they do not use Web 2.0 tools that facilitate tagging. A list of requirements of a VRE for biology researchers is presented.

The findings of the study will assist developers of VREs and other web tools to better understand how researchers, in particular biologists, collaborate during the research process and what they require from online research tools. This study gives an important insight into the information behaviour of life science researchers.

The serial coverage and indexing policies of Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA), Oceanic Abstracts, Biosis, and Georef were compared. Analyses indicated considerable overlap in serial sources in marine biology for ASFA, Oceanic Abstracts, and Georef. Biosis appeared to include the largest amount of material relevant to marine biology and Georef the largest relevant to marine geology. Oceanic Abstracts and Georef provided the most extensive general subject indexing, Biosis the most complete taxonomic indexing, and ASFA and Georef the easiest systems for geographic retrieval.

As the US transitions to a majority–minority population, the underrepresentation in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce must be resolved to ensure that our nation maintains its competitiveness and global economic advantage. The persistent problem of retaining underrepresented minority (URM) students in STEM continues to be a national priority after several decades of attention. The role of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in addressing this challenge cannot be overstated, given their history in producing African American STEM graduates. As the largest HBCU in the country, North Carolina A&T State University (NC A&T) serves a combined undergraduate and graduate population of 11,877 students, 78% of which self-identify as African American. To overcome the multiple challenges that impede retention and persistence to degree completion in biology, the Department of Biology at NC A&T has adopted a major cultural shift in its advising strategy. The new approach encompasses a Life Mapping and Advising Model that builds faculty–student relationships and engages both parties effectively in the process. The model includes six important pillars to drive student success: (1) dedicated advising space, the Life Mapping and Advising Center (LMAC), (2) effective advisors, (3) integrated peer mentor and peer tutoring programs, (4) an intrusive advising strategy, (5) integration with first-year student success courses, and (6) life coaching. Although the program is in its infancy, based on the first-year assessment data, we have observed many promising trends that, together, point toward successful retention and persistence of our students in the major.

Theories of platform strategy and adoption have been largely derived from studies of their application in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. These platforms vary in openness, with the model of open source software providing the best-known exemplar for open platforms.

This exploratory field study examines the degree to which nine attributes of ICT platforms are applicable to open platforms in biotechnology. Using a combination of interview and secondary data, it identifies three patterns of such biotechnology platforms – IP commons, hackerspaces, and crowdsourced patient registries – and the degree to which these nine attributes apply. It shows the impact of ICT platforms and open source software on open source approaches to biotechnology, and how the latter are affected by the technical, legal, and institutional differences between information technology and biotechnology.

Instead of open source software platforms organized around modular interfaces, complements, ecosystems, and two-sided markets, this study instead suggests a model of open source knowledge platforms which benefits from economies of scale but not indirect network effects. From this, it discusses the generalizability of the ICT-derived models of open source platforms and offers suggestions for future research.

Purpose – This chapter is designed to acquaint readers with examples of and issues in graduate education in biology and politics.

Design/methodology/approach – The main method adopted is the case study. Several programs or suggestions of how a program might develop are provided.

Findings – There are several examples of graduate education in biology and politics. These illustrate how different departments carry out educating students in biology and politics. Approaches include a biology and politics track in a political science program or interdisciplinary collaborations.

Research limitations – There are only a handful of case studies. Considering how other programs work would be a useful future research initiative to pursue.