LibGuides: Anatomy & Physiology: Finding Web Sites

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Tutorial websites

The following is a sampling from a terrific list of A & P links from Prince George's Community College, Largo, MD and a sampling of other links found or suggested to us (Thanks, Monument Charter Schools!).

Appendicular skeleton
From Wisc-Online, a production of Wisconsin Technical College System, this tutorial site has multiple images and views of the bones that compose the appendicular skeleton.
Axial skeleton
From Wisc-Online, a production of Wisconsin Technical College System, this tutorial site has multiple images and views of the bones that compose the axial skeleton.
Central Nervous System
CNS anatomy photographs with interactive labeling feature. Nice images. University of Utah.
Full List of Anatomy & Physiology links
Digestive system function and anatomy
Pathophysiology of the digestive system from Colorado State University
Muscle anatomy interactive
Skeletal muscle and contraction tutorial from Brooks/Cole.com
Pacific Medical Training - Anatomy of the Heart
This is a commercial site, but it has a list of free heart function and anatomy tutorials linked from other commercial and non-commercial site. (Note: You do not have to pay for anything on these sites.)
Synapse tutorial
Nice animated tutorial on synapse function from The Mind Project.

Health and medicine websites/full text resources

There are many authoritative government and non-profit health and medicine websites around. Here are a few:

Centers for Disease Control
Data and statistics for both diseases and other health conditions. Choose from a list of topics or use search box in upper right hand corner.

PubMed Central This link opens in a new window
Full text life science journals

World Health Organization (WHO)
"WHO is the coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, setting norms and standards...and monitoring and assessing health trends."
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Use the search box in the upper right hand side to search for statistics across 27 different types of health institutes.
MedlinePlus
Provides authoritative information about diseases, conditions, and wellness issues for patients, family members, and friends.

YouTube on evaluating websites

Evaluating websites

"The World Wide Web can be a great place to accomplish research on many topics. But putting documents or pages on the web is easy, cheap or free, unregulated, and unmonitored (at least in the USA)." UC Berkeley, 2009

How can you determine if you have a "good" website?
Assess the following:

AUTHORITY and ACCURACY
•    Who publishes the website? Is this a well-know or respected institution?
•    Is there contact information for authors of the website content? What is their background or credentials?
•    Is it a commercial site (.com), a government site (.gov), an educational site (.edu), a non-profit or other organization (.org)? How does this affect the information presented?
•    Do other reliable sites link to this one?
•    Are facts, ideas or references credible and backed up by citations to the original sources?

PURPOSE and OBJECTIVITY
•    What is the purpose of this site: to sell, inform, entertain or persuade?
•    Who sponsors this website? What is their agenda or goal?
•    For what audience is this site written?
•    Is there an explicit or hidden bias behind the information presented?
•    Is there advertising on the site? Does this influence information found on the site?
•    Are arguments well-reasoned and supported?

CURRENCY
•    Is the information on the page up-to-date?
•    Is the page updated regularly?
•    Are there dead links?