Developing websites for biomedical research and training

Abstract

The Internet and web technologies are changing rapidly, bringing a steady stream of exciting new applications and abilities to both the developer and the end user. Web-based applications have unique attributes to provide new and updated teaching materials in an interactive format. Websites designed for biomedical research and training provide rich contents with multiple hyperlinks and multimedia objects. Web-based tools for information exchange include forums, bulletin boards and discussion lists, chat rooms, videoconferencing, and webcasts using streaming technology. Regardless of the delivery format, the design of websites for biomedical research or training raises many issues such as selection of hardware and software authoring tools, collaborative design efforts, pedagogy, copyright or intellectual property issues, and concerns regarding security, privacy, and confidentiality. This chapter briefly reviews the client-server technology, and describes commercial tools for developing an academic website from personal experience. The challenges and motivators for creating websites for biomedical education and research are discussed. © 2008 Humana Press Inc.