title: Bringing guest scientists to the university biology classroom via the web.
abstract: This commentary describes an initiative to bring national and international guest scientists to undergraduate and introductory graduate classrooms via web videoconferencing to facilitate interesting and effective research-informed teaching. Interactions center around both journal articles authored by the guests that are in line with weekly course lecture topics and on learning about the nature of academia in other parts of the world. Some particularly interesting perspectives from guests have come about by connecting with a journal editor-in-chief, a textbook author and with a scientist who shared a recently rejected manuscript and peer reviews. Beyond allowing students a unique behind-the-scenes look into how research questions are asked and answered, this initiative helps overcome the limited nature of a single instructor's research area to better complement the comprehensive scope of university courses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and the Vale Living with Lakes Centre, Laurentian University, 935 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury, Ontario, P3E 2C6, Canada nbasiliko@laurentian.ca.
authors.forename: Nathan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Basiliko
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and the Vale Living with Lakes Centre, Laurentian University, 935 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury, Ontario, P3E 2C6, Canada.
authors.forename: Varun
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Gupta
mesh_terms: D001695:Biology / Q000193:education*; D002170:Canada; D004500:Education, Graduate; D005178:Faculty; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D012108:Research Personnel; D014495:Universities; D049269:Videoconferencing
keywords: graduate; research-informed teaching; teleconference; undergraduate; videoconference