The Bridge is not a compendium of all ocean science materials on the web. It is a collection featuring the best internet resourcs for ocean science education. The STARs provide the project with guidance in screening out sites with questionable scientific content. A separate team of educators (TROLLs - Teacher Reviewers of On-Line Learning) reviews sites for educational usefulness.
After looking over a site, STARS recommend a site's scientific content for the Bridge at one of three levels:
- Excellent - Should be included (highest merit)
- Acceptable - Could be included (acceptable quality)
- Not Acceptable - Do not include (bad science)
In making these recommendations, STARs focus on the scientific content rather than the appearance or non-scientific content, keeping in mind the grade level of the intended audience. For example, it is to be expected (and usually is preferable) that sites created for younger students contain only a small amount of simple information. But, however small the amount of information presented, it all needs to be essentially correct.
STARs may use the "your comments" box to communicate with the Bridge staff about a site, but should keep in mind that the Bridge staff has no editorial control whatsoever over content of the sites that are being reviewed. Suggestions for how to fix whatever is wrong will generally not be seen by site webmasters. Reviewers comments will only be provided to site webmasters if they request them. When provided, comments will be anonymous.
Please do take an extra moment to fill in the blank on the form letting us know how much time you spent working on this review. This is important because success of the Bridge project is dependent upon input from scientists. This record is our only documentation of the time you have generously contributed to "building the Bridge", and our funding agency (the National Oceanographic Partnership Program) needs to know.
Thanks for your help!
Go to the STARs site review page
(Registered STARs only)
Forget your password? Contact Laura Rose (rose@vims.edu), Bridge Outreach Project Manager.
The Bridge is supported by the National Sea Grant Office, the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, and the National Marine Educators Association.