Introduction

In order to strengthen the teaching of Veterinary Histology, The Online Veterinary Histology Atlas was developed. The project began in April, 2007 with the teaching assistants Waldemir Aguiar and Fabíola Barroso and continued with the teaching assistants Luciano Barroso and Fabíola Carvalheira, directed by Professor Maurício Alves Chagas.

The will to create an illustrated teaching material, to assist and to facilitate extracurricular studying appeared some time ago from the need that students showed when they had to recognize the slides from the studied collection on test days. Despite hours of practical lessons being appropriate to the volume of the content and also the possibility of using the lab accompanied by the teaching assistants of the course outside regular classes, there was interest and motivation by students to extend the work already done in the discipline.

Due to the evolution of communication means, it is now possible to offer students a distance study method widely used by many universities so to complement the work developed in the presence-based system. It should be pointed out however that the digital Atlas should not under any circumstances substitute the work done in class or even discard the complementary reading of text books, for the Atlas presents only subtitles related to the images and a brief summary of the content, therefore, only contributes to the final understanding. Technology presents itself as an indispensable tool nowadays, making it possible for us to perfect the dynamics of knowledge building and in this way keep ourselves updated and apt to participate in existing opportunities in the internet as a whole.