BIOPS Interactive An e-Learning Platform Focused on Protein Structure and DNA

One of the difficulties in teaching basic molecular biology concepts to the students with little biological background is the lack of hands-on exercises that combines the challenges of the concepts with visualization and immediate feedback. BIOPS Interactive is a web-based interactive learning environment for molecular biology that complements traditional lecture and text coursework. It includes a set of exercises of basic concepts about molecules through the use of interactive graphics and scientific visualization. Students can gain immediate feedback of their exercises, and the instructor can get the real-time feedback about students’ performance. In addition to the existing exercises, BIOPS provides a simple platform for instructors to create exercises of their own, or to modify existing ones. The preliminary feedback from BIOPS users has been positive.