In my courses, particularly my upper level Developmental Biology course, students are required to read, analyze, and often present research articles. Professor and student discussions of these articles is extremely valuable, but often questions arise that go beyond the faculty members expertise or are just to personal to the study that only the original investigator could answer. To address this issue, I utilized current technology of web chatting, to directly connect in real time the lead investigators of the research articles with my class. Students read and present the article in class. After the presentation I have arranged a timed web conference with the lead investigator of that particular study. Typically, using simple video chatting software (iChat) and digital cameras (iSight), we begin a conference in class with the investigator. This has been one of the most valuable experiences for the students. For their comprehension of the article and topic in general, for their appreciation of the techniques and methodology and effort that is unwritten and behind all the research, and students gain a personal connection with the scientist. This last point has turned out to be very important, because students learn that there is a real person behind the article and often a funny one. In the end, students feel part of the science community, they had a dialog with the actual scientists conducting the work as if they were sitting at the same table together at dinner at a scientific conference.

I have been able to quite easily record these sessions using Conference recorder, an add-on software program affiliated with iChat. Each session is based on a specific research paper. Students have generated specific and general questions about the work, as well as some big picture questions related to the field. The perspectives provided by the researchers have been extremely enlightening to all. Because these conferences are question based, highly organized, and really focused on a paper, I feel they will be of great use and accessibility to anyone's syllabi covering similar material. Each conference is provided here on this website broken down by question so that you can quickly tailor your discussions to those questions most pertinent to your class. Additionally, by clicking on the subscribe to podcast button, you will automatically be linked up to these conferences in podcast form, and thus can be accessed via iTunes. Do enjoy, we certainly have!

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0615594.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.