HEAL resources are offered to educators through a powerful custom-built online application through which they can simultaneously search multiple collections for high-quality materials. Providing the user a single point of free access for health sciences educational resources, the HEAL application provides users the ability to:

• search, either with a simple keyword search or with an advanced search
• browse by Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) or by collection
• view or play resources
• view detailed cataloging information (metadata) about the resource
• download chosen files as a packaged archive (zip file)
• submit resources for peer review and publication

The application uses non-proprietary technologies such as Java Server Pages (JSP), JavaBeans, Java servlets, and XML. The database back end requires an SQL-compatible database server, such as the freely available MySQL database.

The HEAL team designed an n-tiered architecture to support the web-based application. This architecture is maximally scalable and contains numerous points of interoperability and extension. It strictly separates presentation, business logic, and data, so that team skills can be leveraged, code can be easily re-used, and new functionality can be accommodated.

Development proceeds under the direction of requirements specifications, with SourceForge-based tracking tools. User testing by a professional usability specialist complements our ongoing programming work. Browser testing assures that all major browsers on both Windows and Macintosh platforms display the full functionality of the application.

The HEAL application is available for download on SourceForge at SourceForge.net. You can read about how to access the CVS repository and see the HEAL files listed in a web-based CVS repository viewer (the most recent files are in the directories 'healJavaSrc' and 'activedev'). The code is licensed for use under a GNU General Public License (GPL).