[This email was also sent to the FUNfaculty list maintained at Bowdoin College. My apologies if you receive it twice.]

Dear colleague,

I am very pleased to tell you that in a few days, the Society for Neuroscience will formally announce ERIN, Educational Resources in Neuroscience. This new website (http://erin.sfn.org) lists high-quality resources for higher education and provides opportunities for SfN members to review and rate the resources that they use in their own teaching. As time goes by, we hope that reviews posted by our colleagues, plus new resources that they nominate, will enrich the way neuroscience is taught in colleges and universities.

Today, I would like to ask every FUN member who is also a member of SfN to help us run a little beta test. In the next day or two, please go to the ERIN website (http://erin.sfn.org), sign in, and post a review of the textbook you are using in one of your courses. Your review can be very brief: the title of your course, your course's level, a rating of the resource from one to five stars, and a few words about the resource's strengths and weaknesses in the context of your own course. Most common textbooks are already in ERIN's database; if you are using a book that is not already described, please suggest it as a new resource and then review it. A member of ERIN's board of editors will expand your description of the resource and upload the description and your review to ERIN's database.

Of course, if you are able to nominate or review any other favorite resources that you use (videos, websites, simulations, lab exercises, special readings -- many media types are listed), your postings will enhance ERIN's value even more.

Your contribution to ERIN will continue the ongoing involvement of FUN members in ERIN's development. ERIN was first broached as an idea in a 2007 article in JUNE; it was further developed at a workshop at Macalester College prior to the 2008 FUN triennial meeting; ERIN's board of 7 editors was drawn largely from the more than 50 FUN members who volunteered to serve in 2011, and the 650+ resources already listed were identified and described at a workshop at Pomona College prior to the 2011 FUN triennial meeting. Although SfN is the sponsor and developer of ERIN, FUN has been close to its heart from the beginning, and our collective effort to expand and make use of ERIN will be central to its success.

With thanks for your future contributions and best wishes,

Richard

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Richard F Olivo, PhD
Professor of Biological Sciences and Neuroscience, Smith College
Project Director, Educational Resources (ERIN), Society for Neuroscience
    44 College Lane, Smith College, Northampton MA 01063
    413 585-3822  •   http://tinyurl.com/bio300  •   http://erin.sfn.org