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Poster presented on March 6-8, 2002 at the conference on Communicating the Future: Best Practices in Communication of Science and Technology to the Public, co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, and NIST. Poster topics were selected as "best practices" through a formal peer review by a committee of distinguished science writers, educators, and researchers. Dolan
DNA Learning Center Web Sites |
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Abstract The Dolan DNA Learning Center (DNALC) is the world's first science center devoted to public genetics education. It is an operating unit of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a world-renowned basic research facility. The DNALC develops and runs hands-on laboratory courses for middle and high school students and provides teacher training workshops. In recent years, to broaden their audience, the DNALC started developing educational material for the WWW. Gene Almanac (www.dnalc.org) is DNALC's web portal to all of the other major content sites produced by the Biomedia staff. Key among these content sites are: DNA
from the Beginning: the animated primer to genetics and molecular biology. These and other DNALC web sites cover the field of genetics and molecular biology, highlighting the science, history, social implications as well as the promise of current and developing technologies. The web sites are meant to provide information to the interested public, teachers and students. Professionals from other fields can also use the web site to learn or update their knowledge about topics that impinge on their specialties. The web sites are all free, and have been used for teaching and other research projects by teachers and students all over the world. The DNALC web sites are supported by a number of grants, which helped established the Biomedia group: a small staff of scientists, writers, artists and designers, and computer programmers. There are currently seven full-time employees augmented by part-time staff and interns. The Biomedia group has regular meetings to decide on design, style and content for our web sites. Everything on the web sites is produced inhouse. Before each web site was built, either an Internet assessment meeting (DNA from the Beginning), an internal board review meeting (Digital Archive) or a focus group meeting (Your Genes, Your Health) was convened. These meetings provided us with contacts, information about current and upcoming technologies, and important feedback from other professionals in the field. An important insight that can be distilled from these meetings is the importance of flexibility and adaptability. New software and technology change quickly; web sites have to accommodate the largest number of users without being slow and dated. Statistics on web site usage has been collected every month since the DNALC's web sites have been online. Some of the things we track with statistics are user sessions, parts of the sites accessed, as well as time spent on the site. As the web sites grew, so did the numbers. In addition to the ability to compile numbers, each web site has its own feedback function, which allows users to email their opinions, problems and questions. An online survey was added six months ago to DNA from the Beginning to solicit more specific information about the user's needs and level of knowledge. We plan to expand the online surveys and add them to other DNALC web sites in order to identify and target user needs. Major
Funding Contact Estimated Annual Budget: $500,000 Web Site
Back to Best Practices home page Back to Best Practices posters page Created: 7/22/2002 |
Montage of selected Donlan DNA Learning Center web sites.
Gene Almanac Web
Site Users Per Month in Thousands -- |
