Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A Mississippi State psychology professor is being honored for significant contributions to digital scholarship.
Gary L. Bradshaw recently received the 2005 Classics Award for Psychology of the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching. The international Web-based organization recognized his digital learning module, "ePsych."
MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students in higher education. Its awards are designed to recognize and promote outstanding online resources designed to enhance teaching and learning, as well as honor the authors and developers of resources for their contributions to the academic community.
Bradshaw, director of the MSU psychology department's Applied Cognitive Science Doctoral Program, conducts research in Web-based education, individual differences, decision-making and errors, complex problem-solving, and the psychology of scientific discovery and invention.
MERLOT executive Gerry Hanley said Bradshaw's Web site won "because of its comprehensive and exemplary quality of content, its design, which engages students in interactive learning experiences, and its intuitive navigational design that draws the student into wanting to learn more about psychology."
Michelle Pilati, the organization's psychology editor, observed that Bradshaw's site serves to bring psychology to life through various means such as video clips and interactive exercises.
"The site is designed to make learning about the biological, deliberate, descriptive and adaptive mind interactive and fun," she said. "ePsych world features activities that really bring the concepts to life."
Bradshaw received bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Missouri in 1974 and 1979, respectively, and a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University in 1984.
In designating the annual award winners, separate MERLOT editorial boards select an outstanding resource from each of 15 disciplines: biology, business, chemistry, engineering, health science, history, information technology, math, music, physics, psychology, statistics, teacher education, teaching and technology, and world languages. A Classics Award is presented for each discipline.
The Editors' Council, composed of editorial board leaders, further reviews the classics awardees and selects MERLOT Editors' Choice award winners to represent exemplary models for all disciplines.
The 2005 honors were presented during the MERLOT International Conference in Nashville, Tenn.
The ePsych Web site at http://epsych.msstate.edu includes more than 2,500 html pages, 6,000 images, 200 video clips, and numerous java applets that permit students to experience psychology rather than just read about it. Students also can perform experiments and collect data just by visiting a Web page.
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NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information, contact Dr. Bradshaw at (662) 325-0550 or glb2@ra.msstate.edu.