Vireal Lab – From Instruction to Construction

Living in a century in which the turnover of new insights in biomedical sciences is accelerating rapidly, educational institutions have to face the problem of the sustainability of its teaching strategies. There is no doubt that the task of every university is to keep the quality of its education on a high standard. This goal can only be achieved if the increasing information of high complexity can be adequately integrated into teaching scenarios and constantly be available with reasonable accessibility. Conventional types of teaching media are no longer qualified for this purpose. New teaching technologies, carefully integrated into the curriculum are believed to be an essential media to guarantee the constant high standard of education. In addition, nearly all modern research in life sciences nowadays has switched to teamwork to be able to create real breakthroughs in basic and medicinal sciences, e.g. the Human Genome Project. This fact demands appropriate team teaching and working concepts as well as a well-equipped environment to support collaboration. In this article a completely new scientific environment for teamwork in education and research in life sciences is presented: Vireal Lab, a physical learning environment, equipped with interactive tables and white boards with built-in electronic devices and touch-sensitive surfaces. It supports all modes of face-to face or virtual collaborative learning and working. Since collaborative learning is believed to be one of the most successful learning methods it is, for the first time, supported by appropriate new technologies. Vireal Lab is an innovative approach to meet the high demands of today's teaching and research in life science

Pharmasquare (Pharma²)

The project Pharmasquare (Pharma2) is based on the regular course 'Pharmaceutical Chemistry: Drug Effects on the Molecular Level' alternately presented in Zürich and Basel using the videoconferencing system Telepoly. The course is part of an open learning environment, which is currently complemented by distant learning facilities including a virtual learning environment. Pharma2 receives financial support from the Swiss Virtual Campus, the ETHZ, and matching funds by the Universities of Basel and Neuchâtel. In its final form, the virtual learning environment will offer web-based training modules, a virtual laboratory, the adaptive self-assessment system PharmAskYou, scripts of the Telepoly lectures including learning objectives, a glossary in pharmaceutical sciences, a news-platform, a discussion forum and the 'Question of the Week'