SoilWeb200 Educational Tool Goes to Ubc Wiki.

The SoilWeb200 educational tool (http://www.landfood.ubc.ca/soil200/index.htm), was originally developed in 2003 for University of British Columbia’s APBI 200 – Introduction to Soil Science course, and over the years, it become adopted by 16 UBC courses as well as additional 17 courses across Canada and internationally, contribution to about 2,000 students per year. Even though the current use of the 10-year old SoilWeb200 is still strong, its outdated mode of delivery, the lack of communication and collaboration layer, and the lack of support for mobile devices and the new generation of web browsers will inevitably lead to decrease of its use. The objectives of our ongoing project are to (1) update the SoilWeb200 web platform with simpler, modern and mobile friendly interface and (2) migrate the SoilWeb200 content to UBC Wiki (standard open platform that can be accessed with UBC’s campus wide login and that provides ongoing material development). Migrating the SoilWeb200 to UBC Wiki will provide innovative access to relevant, novel information in a format accessible to different learning styles, opening up possibilities for meaningful learning and community engagement. In the long-term, this will assure sustainability of the SoilWeb200 resource in terms of content accuracy and relevancy by opening the material to editing by community of UBC faculty and students.