Empleo de herramientas virtuales para la creación de material didáctico de acceso libre

[SPA]Potenciar el aprendizaje autónomo del alumno siguiendo un determinado itinerario es uno de los postulados del denominado Plan Bolonia; en este contexto, además de otras funciones, el profesor ha de actuar como guía, enseñando y ayudando a alcanzar las habilidades y competencias marcadas como objetivos en cada materia. En algunos casos, esto significa la introducción paulatina de cambios en la metodología docente y la introducción de nuevas herramientas para facilitar el trabajo autónomo del alumno. Como profesores responsables de la experiencia piloto de adaptación al EEES de la materia Citología e Histología Vegetal y Animal iniciada en el año 2007 en la Universidad de Vigo, consideramos oportuno crear una herramienta propia para nuestro ámbito de conocimiento: un atlas histológico virtual. Asimismo, creímos que dicho atlas debía cumplir una serie de requisitos, tales como: abarcar la mayor parte de los aspectos relacionados con la Citología e Histología, disponer de gran cantidad de ilustraciones originales, ser fácil de usar, intuitivo y ameno, ser interactivo y potenciar el autoaprendizaje, diseñarse mediante programas de software libre, y ser de acceso y uso libre. [ENG]Promoting the autonomous learning of the students following a specific itinerary is one of the postulates of the so called Bologna Process; in this context, besides other functions, the professor should act as a guide, teaching and helping 2078 students to achieve the skills and competences marked like objectives in each subject. In some cases, this means a gradual introduction of changes in the teaching methodology and the introduction of new tools to facilitate the autonomous work of the students. As the responsible professors for the pilot experience of adaptation to the EEES of the matter Cytology and Animal and Plant Histology started in 2007 at the University of Vigo, we considered opportune to create our own tool for cell biology teaching: a virtual histological atlas. Likewise, we believed that the atlas should meet a series of requirements, such as: to cover most aspects of Cytology and Histology, to include a high number of original illustrations, to be easy to use, intuitive and mild (fun) pleasant, to be interactive and encourage self-learning, to be designed by free software, and to be of free access and use.Campus Mare Nostrum, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Universidad de Murcia, Región de Murci

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016