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New semantic web tool for Plant Scientists

Created by Catherine Howell (La Trobe University) on September 26, 2008

The ENSEMBLE project has recently finished its summer studentships programme (known as UROPS - Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, a concept initially developed at MIT). The key to UROPs is that students participate as researchers in a real research project, in the process gaining valuable skills and experience, and actively participating as members of an academic research community.

As I've mentioned previously, ENSEMBLE is exploring the use of MIT's Simile "semantic web" toolkit for case-based teaching and learning. And there's now a shiny new Simile demonstrator developed by student participants available on the project website: the Plant Evolution Timeline. The Timeline, using an implementation of the Timeplot tool, allows the viewer to explore a multi-layered data set about the development of plant species over time. This academic year, it will be introduced to first and third-year students in Plant Sciences, as a learning tool. Congratulations to Nicola and Ben, who worked so hard behind the scenes - it looks great!

Update, 29/09/2008: For clarification, Ben was at CARET as a Research Associate, not as a UROP.


 
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