This freely available digital book, Cat burglars, yeast races, and other hypothesis-driven bioscience practicals, edited by Dr Rebecca Barnes and created by staff in the School of Biosciences with support from the University Library, presents eight lab practicals designed to develop the experimental planning skills of undergraduate students.
The book is aimed at teachers at other institutions, providing all the information and materials needed to plan and deliver lab-based teaching on a range of biology themes.
All student-facing materials, resources for teachers and technical information in the book can be shared, edited and adapted under a Creative Commons license.
Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open licence, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others (UNESCO Recommendation on OER, 2019).
The University supports and encourages the re-use, re-purposing and adaptation of existing OER for teaching and learning, and also supports and encourages those who wish to create and share their own OER (see the University's Open Educational Resources (OER) policy
To find out more about OER, including how to find, use and adapt them for your own teaching, or create and share your own, visit our webpages or email oer@sheffield.ac.uk.
Watch Dr Rebecca Barnes' OER Case Study video:
Dr Rebecca Barnes, Senior University Teacher, School of Biosciences, explores the development of a co-authored collection of hypothesis-based Biosciences practical sessions using the Pressbooks platform and discusses her plans for making increased use of OERs in future.
