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D-Lib Magazine
November 2002

Volume 8 Number 11

ISSN 1082-9873

The NSF National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program

New Projects in Fiscal Year 2002

 

Lee L. Zia1
<lzia@nsf.gov>
Division of Undergraduate Education
National Science Foundation
Arlington, VA 22230

Red Line

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The National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) program2 recently made its third set of awards for projects in three basic tracks: Collections, Services, and Targeted Research. These projects are working with those funded in fiscal years (FY) 2000 and 2001 to build a national digital library of high quality science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational resources for students and teachers at all levels, in both formal and informal settings. By supporting widespread access to a rich, reliable, and authoritative collection of interactive learning and teaching materials and associated services in a digital environment, the National Science Digital Library will encourage and sustain continual improvements in the quality of STEM education for all students, and also serve as a resource for lifelong learning.

Various workshops and planning meetings during the latter half of the 1990s explored and developed the vision and operational framework for the NSDL program [1-6]. Since the program's formal inception in FY2000, interest has grown steadily with proposal submissions increasing from 80 in FY2000, to 101 in FY2001, and to 156 in FY2002. In FY2000 thirteen projects were funded in the Collections track, nine in the Services track, and one in the Targeted Research track. In FY2001 eighteen new Collections projects began, along with thirteen in Services, and three in Targeted Research. Brief descriptions of each FY2000 and FY2001 project appear in [8] and [9] respectively; and full abstracts can be found in the Awards section at <http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/due/programs/nsdl/>. Two NSF directorates, the Directorate for Geosciences (GEO) and the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) have both provided significant co-funding for fifteen projects in these first two fiscal years, illustrating the NSDL program's facilitation of the integration of research and education, an important strategic objective of the NSF.

For the FY2002 funding cycle, the 156 proposals sought approximately $92 million in total funding. Forty-one new awards have been made with a cumulative budget of approximately $25 million. These include twenty-five in the Collections track, ten in the Services track, and six in the Targeted Research track. As in the first two years of the program, sister directorates to the NSF Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) are providing significant co-funding of projects. Participating directorates include GEO and MPS from before, as well as the Directorate for Biological Sciences.

Existing projects from FY2000 and FY2001 address subject domains in the life sciences, geosciences, various areas of engineering, the mathematical sciences, and several cross-disciplinary areas. New projects from FY2002 expand this coverage into areas of chemistry and physics. Other new projects focus on collections of video resources, as well as continued work on collections development and services targeting the pre-K to12 educational enterprise. Indeed, nearly half of all existing and new projects in the program have explicit linkages with the pre-K to12 sector or strong secondary efforts in that area. All projects have interdisciplinary teams of principal investigators from a variety of backgrounds, including expertise in the library and information sciences, computer science, digital library research, disciplinary content, and instructional design.

The past year of the program has also seen the establishment of an information architecture framework for the library resulting from the joint efforts of the NSDL Core Integration project and many of the Collections, Services, and Targeted Research projects. The Core Integration component of NSDL (see <http://cinews.comm.nsdlib.org/>) provides the organizational and technical infrastructure to bind distributed users of the National Science Digital Library to its distributed collections and services. An NSDL community produced white paper, "Pathways to Progress," [7] informed much of this work and has also stimulated the emergence of a nascent community governance structure that is jointly establishing guidelines, practices, and policies for participation in the larger NSDL building effort. Complete information on technical and organizational progress, including links to current Standing Committees and community workspaces, may be found at the NSDL Communications Portal, see <http://comm.nsdlib.org>. All workspaces are open to the public, and interested organizations and individuals are encouraged to learn more about NSDL and join in its development.

Following is a list of the new FY2002 awards displaying the official NSF award number, the project title, the grantee institution, and the name of the Principal Investigator (PI). A condensed description of the project is also included. Full abstracts are available from the Awards Section at the NSDL program site <http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/due/programs/nsdl>. (Grants with shared titles are formal collaborations and are grouped together.) The projects are displayed by track and are listed by award number. In addition, eleven of these projects have explicit relevance to applications to pre-K to12 education (indicated with a * below). Seven others clearly have potential for application to the pre-K to12 arena (indicated with a ** below).

The NSDL program will have another funding cycle in fiscal year 2003 with the next program solicitation expected to be available in January 2003, and an anticipated deadline for proposals in mid-April 2003.

Collections Track

DUE 0226040**. www.eSkeletons.org: An Interactive Digital Library of Human and Primate Anatomy. Institution: University of Texas at Austin. PI: John Kappelman. This project is expanding the range of content at www.eskeletons.org, the degree of learner interactivity with the materials, and the amount of interaction among users. New high resolution X-ray computed tomography technologies allow the inclusion of species of a much smaller body size than those initially posted at the site, and much faster completion of scans. The collection provides students with a more complete understanding of the range of primate diversity and facilitates a great diversity of lab exercises.

DUE 0226102**, DUE 0226132, and DUE 0226314. Collaborative Research: Health Education Assets Library. Institutions: University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, University of Utah, and UCLA. PIs: Chris Candler, Sharon Dennis, and Sebastian Uijtdehaage. The Health Education Assets Library (HEAL) supports K-12, undergraduate, and professional health science education as well as patient and consumer education. Partnering with the National Library of Medicine and the Association of American Medical Colleges has led to a rapidly growing network of institutions that either contribute teaching resources directly to the HEAL collection or bridge HEAL to their own collections.

DUE 0226116. Advanced Technology Environmental Education Library (ATEEL). Institution: Eastern Iowa Community College District. PI: Ellen Kabat Lensch. ATEEL serves the environmental information needs of environmental technology students, educators, and technicians as well as individuals with an interest in or a knowledge requirement of environmental issues. Project partners include the Advanced Technology Environmental Education Center (ATEEC), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Partnership for Environmental Technology Education (PETE), and the Davenport Public Library.

DUE 0226129**. ComPADRE: Communities for Physics and Astronomy Digital Resources in Education. Institution: American Association of Physics Teachers. PI: Bruce Mason. The American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Physics/Society of Physics Students, and the American Astronomical Society are creating an interconnected set of digital collections of educational materials and providing specific learning environments accessible to learners and teachers from elementary school through graduate school. Initial areas include resources for introductory astronomy, quantum physics, pre-college physical science teachers, undergraduate majors or prospective majors in physics and astronomy, and informal science education.

DUE 0226140. The Moving Image Gateway. Institution: Rutgers University New Brunswick. PI: Grace Agnew. This project is developing a web portal for moving images that combines an archives directory database with a union catalog to provide access to the world's moving image collections. Initially archives of moving images in the Library of Congress, Cable News Network, National Geographic Television, the National Library of Medicine, the Oregon Health Sciences University, ResearchChannel, and the Smithsonian Institution are being made available to STEM students, educators, and researchers, as well as the general public.

DUE 0226157* and DUE 0226219. Collaborative Project: Physics Teaching Web Advisory (Pathway) -- A Digital Video Library for Enhancement and Preparation of Physics Teachers. Institutions: Kansas State University and Carnegie-Mellon University. PIs: Dean Zollman and Scott Stevens. This project is demonstrating a new type of digital library for physics teaching that brings together long-standing research projects in digital video libraries, advanced distance learning technologies, and collaboration technologies, and nationally known experts in physics pedagogy and high-quality content. The project marries research on the problem of information extraction from video and audio content, with the concept of "synthetic interviews" of master physics teachers.

DUE 0226184*. Teachers' Domain - Physical Science and Engineering. Institution: WGBH Educational Foundation. PI: Michele Korf. The Teachers Domain Digital Library is harnessing the extensive broadcast, video, and interactive programming resources of WGBH to support standards-based teaching and learning at the K-12 level. Initially focused on the life sciences, the collection is now expanding its coverage to include the physical sciences and engineering. Through a searchable, web-based repository of contextualized multimedia units teachers are easily accessing materials for their own professional development as well as to enrich classroom activities for students.

DUE 0226185. BioSciEd Net (BEN) Collaborative: Cycle 2. Institution: American Association for the Advancement of Science. PI: Yolanda George. The Biosci Ed Net (BEN) Collaborative comprises twelve professional societies and coalitions for biology education with an interest in transforming the teaching and learning of undergraduate biology. Six collections from BEN partners are currently featured, including the American Physiological Society (APS), the Ecological Society of America (ESA), the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS), and Science's Signal Transduction Knowledge Environment (STKE).

DUE-0226191*, DUE-0226236, and DUE-0226322. Collaborative Research: TeachEngineering — Hands-on Engineering. Institutions: Tufts University, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus, University of Colorado at Boulder. PIs: Martha Cyr, Michael Mooney, and Jackie Sullivan. This project combines extensive K-12 engineering curriculum developments funded by the NSF GK-12 program with complementary efforts at several engineering colleges to create an on-line digital library of engineering resources for use by K-12 teachers and engineering college faculty conducting outreach in their communities. Each of the three lead institutions is partnering with numerous local school districts to promote engineering as a vehicle for mathematics and science integration.

DUE 0226195. Marine Mammal Commission Digital Library of International Environmental and Ecosystem Policy Documents. Institution: Ohio State University Research Foundation. PI: Paul Berkman. This project is developing a sustainable single-source digital collection of international environmental and ecosystem policy documents that facilitates knowledge discovery, supports a "rich learning environment" and benefits researchers, teachers, students, diplomats and decision-makers throughout society from global to local levels. Source materials for this collection come from the Marine Mammal Commission's five-volume Compendium of Selected Treaties, International Agreements, and Other Relevant Documents on Marine Resources, Wildlife, and the Environment.

DUE 0226196, DUE 0226233, DUE 0226289, and DUE 0226292. Collaborative Research: To Enhance the Depth, Breadth, and Quality of the Collections of the Digital Library of Earth System Education (DLESE). Institutions: American Geological Institute, Dartmouth College, Foothill College, and Columbia University. PIs: Sharon Tahirkheli, Barbara DeFelice, Christopher DiLeonardo, and Kim Kastens. This project is improving the breadth, depth and quality of the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) through a set of four integrated tasks. The first is a systematic comparison of the scope and balance of the existing resources with those desired by the geosciences community. The second and third focus on filling identified gaps or thin spots in the collection and cataloging of resources. Finally, the fourth continues development and implementation of a Community Review System.

DUE 0226199**. Earth Exploration Toolbook: A Collection of Examples of Educational Uses of Earth System Science Tools, Datasets and Resources. Institution: TERC Inc. PI: Tamara Ledley. The Earth Exploration Toolbook (EET) guides educators at both the pre-college and college levels on how to use various Earth system tools and datasets developed and archived by and for scientists. Examples provide educators experience with and in-depth knowledge of these resources to be able to use them in other contexts, and to help their students use them to explore and investigate issues in Earth system science.

DUE 0226228*. Collection Building and Capacity Development for K-12 Federally-Produced Mathematics and Science Education Digital Resources. Institution: Ohio State University Research Foundation. PI: Kimberly Roempler. The Eisenhower National Clearinghouse is aggregating science and mathematics education resources developed through Federal funding, to make them easily and meaningfully accessible by teachers, parents, and students. It is also laying the groundwork for ensuring that future resource and materials development adheres to standard metadata schema and tagging practices, on which efficient and relevant search, navigation, and access to content rests.

DUE 0226238**. Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library (K-MODDL). Institution: Cornell University - Endowed. PI: John Saylor. A team of faculty and librarians are aggregating educational materials associated with the 220 late 19th-century model machine elements designed for research and teaching by the founder of modern kinematics, Franz Reuleaux (1829-1905). Resources of the collection include still and navigable moving images of these kinematic teaching models; systematic descriptions, and historical and contemporary documents related to the collection of the mechanisms; computer simulations of mathematical relationships associated with the movements of the mechanisms, and sample teaching modules that employ the models and simulations in the classroom at the undergraduate, secondary and middle school levels.

DUE 0226243. Linking Pedagogy, Resources and Community Interaction to Support Entry-Level Undergraduate Geoscience Courses. Institution: Carleton College. PI: Cathryn Manduca. This project targets faculty teaching entry-level geoscience and is exploring ways that the NSDL can catalyze improvement in undergraduate teaching and learning. The collection contains the full suite of resources needed to support faculty teaching at the entry level including teaching resources (e.g., visualizations; field, lab, and classroom activities; problem sets), information on effective teaching methods, and examples of successful teaching in the geosciences.

DUE 0226244. The Journal of Chemical Education Digital Library. Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison. PI: John Moore. The JCE Digital Library offers four new collections that complement the digital material already available at JCE Online. DigiDemos comprises digitized text, graphics, sound, and video of chemical demonstrations. Computer Algebra Systems contains documents for Mathcad, Mathematica, Maple, or MATLAB to help students learn mathematically intensive aspects of chemistry. JCE WebWare delivers animations, simulations, and calculations to promote discussion and interaction among students, and to provide new insights through graphic and other non-traditional means. Resources for Student Assessment include homework, quiz, and examination questions with anytime anywhere, feedback and tutoring based on student responses, and new approaches to student assessment.

DUE 0226273. A Digital Library Collection for Computer Vision Education. Institution: Swarthmore College. PI: Bruce Maxwell. This project is gathering high-quality material into a comprehensive digital library collection for computer vision education. The resource links to assignments at a variety of institutions and hosts a set of vetted assignments, complete with data sets and solutions. In addition, it contains educational resources such as lecture notes, links to other computer vision courses, and reviews of textbooks, software, and hardware.

DUE 0226279** and DUE 0226295. Collaborative Research: A Digital Library Collection for Visually Exploring United States Demographic and Social Change. Institutions: CUNY Queens College and University of California-Los Angeles. PIs: Andrew Beveridge and David Halle. This project is developing a collection of web-based materials that depict and explore growth and social change in the United States based on US census data at the county, tract, and city levels, stretching back in some cases to the late 1700s. It is accessible to students from elementary through postgraduate school, library users, the media, and all others interested in relating a variety of demographic and other data to one another. In addition, users may visualize data in the form of maps and charts, download data for further analysis, and relate data to specific issues in the social sciences.

DUE 0226284*. Math Tools Project. Institution: Drexel University. PI: Eugene Klotz. The Math Forum is aggregating mathematical software critical to the learning of school mathematics, including software for handheld devices, small interactive web-based tools such as applets, and other small modules based on software application packages.

DUE 0226317*. Advanced Placement Digital Library for Biology, Physics and Chemistry. Institution: William Marsh Rice University. PI: Siva Kumari. Rice University, in collaboration with the College Board, is creating the Advanced Placement Digital Library (APDL), an online digital library for high school Advanced Placement (AP) students and teachers of Biology, Physics and Chemistry (BPC).

DUE 0226323*. Viewing the Future: Aligning Internet2 Video to K-12 Curriculum. Institution: Merit Network, Inc. PI: Marcia Mardis. The University of Washington and the ResearchChannel are using high quality Internet2 video resources to build a collection of STEM materials for the K-12 community. These resources are being aligned to state and national curriculum standards, including relevant classroom assessments.

DUE 0226327. Second Generation Digital Mathematics Resources with Innovative Content for Metadata Harvesting and Courseware Development. Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. PI: Bill Mischo. This project is developing second-generation capabilities for two mathematical digital collections that support mathematics, engineering, physics, and applied sciences education and research: the "MathWorld" and the "Functions" sites at Wolfram Research. Functional enhancements are being added to these sites, and collection and item-level metadata from these resources are being integrated into the NSDL Metadata Repository framework via maintenance of an Open Archives Initiative (OAI) server.

DUE 0226334**. Ceph School: A Pedagogic Portal for Teaching Biological Principles with Cephalopod Molluscs. Institution: University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. PI: Phillip Lee. Using cephalopods as model organisms, Ceph School strives to have students understand basic principles in biology, observe the methodology of scientific research and become familiar with cephalopods, and also provide student and teacher-specific support. Collection modules are enhanced with web cameras, videos, and links to additional data. From remote sites students observe living animals in real time, use interactive maps to explore their geographical distribution and habitats, learn about their anatomy, physiology and behavior, search appropriate bibliographies, locate world experts, and participate in the scientific process.

DUE 0226344. An Active Object-Based Digital Library for Microeconomics Education. Institution: University of Arizona. PI: James Cox. Using an Open Archives Initiative (OAI)-compliant approach, this project is developing an extensible and scalable collection of Microeconomics related content that incorporates experimental software and automated e-commerce agents that simulate markets and enable the exploration of intelligent trading systems.

DUE 0226354*. Harvard-Smithsonian Digital Video Library. Institution: Smithsonian Institution Astrophysical Observatory. PI: Matthew Schneps. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is assembling and managing an extensive collection of STEM digital video materials for education including programs such as "A Private Universe" and professional development materials created for the Annenberg/Corporation for Public Broadcasting project. Materials span a variety of topics and formats and include high-quality, case-study footage showing teaching in action, rare and difficult to create materials documenting children's ideas in science and mathematics, interviews with internationally prominent researchers in STEM learning, and computer animations and other costly visualizations of STEM concepts.

Services Track

DUE 0226075. Digital Library Service Integration. Institution: New Jersey Institute of Technology. PI: Michael Bieber. This project is developing a Digital Library Service Integration infrastructure that enables a systematic approach to sharing relevant information services within a seamless, integrated interface. In addition to integrating relatively simple services, the project is also exploring the sharing of services that require customization, such as peer review, to a particular collection or community, incorporating collaborative filtering for customizing large sets of links, and developing advanced lexical analysis tools.

DUE 0226152. The Development and Use of Digital Collections to Support Interdisciplinary Education. Institution: Washington and Lee University. PI: Frank Settle. This project is using the Alsos Digital Library as a model for educators wishing to develop digital collections for educational uses, especially those that are multidisciplinary and integrate science and technology with the humanities. A series of workshops targets faculty who want to connect digital collections to their courses through credible, digital, searchable, annotated references. Topics include collection development, software systems, processes for editing materials, integration of collections into courses and curricula, evaluation, and dissemination. Additional discussion centers on assessment, maintenance, culling, technology migration, security, collaboration, and integration into larger digital libraries.

DUE 0226214. Access NSDL. Institution: WGBH Educational Foundation. PI: Madeleine Rothberg. The National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), a joint effort of WGBH and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is building the capacity of the NSDL to serve learners with disabilities. Through this project the NSDL is benefiting from and contributing to the national and international dialogue on access specifications for online learning resources to meet the needs of users with disabilities and to ensure interoperability of accessible content.

DUE 0226234 and DUE 0226304. Collaborative Proposal: Managing Authority Lists for Customized Linking and Visualization: A Service for the National STEM Education Digital Library. Institutions: Johns Hopkins University and Tufts University. PIs: Sayeed Choudhury and Greg Colati. The Services for a Customizable Authority Linking Environment (SCALE) project supports two broad classes of service for the NSDL. First are linking services to bind key words and phrases automatically to supplementary information to help students, professionals outside a particular discipline, and the interested public to read documents with unfamiliar technical terms and concepts. A second class of service bases automatic linking on authority control of names and terms and on links among different authority lists such as thesauri, glossaries, encyclopedias, subject hierarchies, and object catalogues.

DUE 0226241*. A Digital IdeaKeeper For K-12: NSDL Scaffolded Portal Services for Information Analysis and Synthesis. Institution: University of Michigan Ann Arbor. PI: Chris Quintana. The "IdeaKeeper" is a specialized scaffolded NSDL portal for K-12 science learners with services that support students in analyzing library resources and synthesizing the information into arguments addressing their questions. IdeaKeeper is being deployed in Detroit middle school classrooms to assess the impact of such supportive digital library services on how well they support students in doing information analysis/synthesis and how much students learn about information analysis/synthesis.

DUE 0226269. Scaling the Peer Review Process for National STEM Education Digital Library Collections. Institution: California State University, Trustees. PI: Gerard Hanley. This project is addressing the high costs associated with face-to-face training and retention of reviewers, and the difficulty reviewers face in keeping pace with the rapidly increasing size of digital collections of educational material. A professional development module for training peer reviewers targets NSDL collection developers (and others) to effectively and efficiently implement and sustain peer review of their collections. To facilitate adaptation and usage by other collections, the module is designed as a channel adaptable to the uPortal framework being implemented by the NSDL Core Integration development team.

DUE 0226277. The NSDL Collaboration Finder: Connecting Projects for Effective and Efficient NSDL Development. Institution: California State University, Trustees. PI: Brandon Muramatsu. This project is developing a web-based, searchable and browsable database tool to capture information about the goals, ongoing activities, deliverables, schedules, development stages and discipline areas covered by NSDL projects. Cooperatively populated by the NSDL community and organized by its shared vision, the Collaboration Finder works with the NSDL Community Services Standing Committee to facilitate its use by the existing collections, services, and targeted research track projects.

DUE 0226286*. Strand Maps as an Interactive Interface to NSDL Resources. Institution: University of Colorado at Boulder. PI: Tamara Sumner. The Strand Map Service provides an interactive and flexible interface to the NSDL's educational resources by mapping them to interrelated science learning goals based on the AAAS Benchmarks for Science Literacy and the NRC National Science Education Standards. The service enables educators and learners 1) to discover educational resources that support the learning goals articulated in the strand maps; 2) to browse the interconnected learning goals in the strand maps; and 3) to enhance their own content knowledge by exploring important background information such as prior research on student misconceptions.

DUE 0226332. Optimizing Workflow and Integration in NSDL Collections. Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison. PI: John Strikwerda. This project is creating turn-key software for collection developers to manage their organizing and cataloging tasks and to create and share item-level metadata. In addition, a digital library workflow management knowledge archive is under development.

DUE 0226367. Unleashing Supply: Services for Collaborative Content Development. Institution: Wayne State University. PI: Rob Stephenson. This project is exploring how to increase the number and quality of STEM Education learning objects by facilitating virtual communities of content developers. An open course application service provider hosts the collaboration tools needed for each community, including a directory of open course projects, a collection of Web-based tools for student use, a consultant database to connect projects with skilled experts, and a set of licenses suitable for open course learning objects. This project is enabling the NSDL to explore an infrastructure to support future content acquisition for its collections.

Targeted Research Track

DUE 0226144. Question Triage for Experts and Documents: Expanding the Information Retrieval Function of the NSDL. Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst. PI: W. Bruce Croft. This project is investigating the merger of the information retrieval (IR) and digital reference components of the National STEM Education Digital Library (NSDL). Combining these functions enables users to find answers to questions regardless if those answers come from documents in NSDL collections or experts accessible through the NSDL's virtual reference desk.

DUE 0226216. ReMarkable Texts: A Digital Notepad for the NSDL. Institution: Brown University. PI: Andy van Dam. Faculty and students are investigating capabilities for an innovative pen-based digital notebook to enable users, particularly students, to work and interact with NSDL's digital materials in a personalized manner. The main features include viewing, taking notes on, annotating (e.g. freehand ink, post-it notes, and bidirectional fine-grained hyperlinks), organizing, and collaborating on multimedia documents, all with the ability to replay the temporal sequence of one's notes in the contexts in which they were made. Whiteboarding and audio facilities are also supported.

DUE 0226217. Integrating Digital Library Resources into Online Courses. Institution: Texas Engineering Experiment Station. PI: Connie McKinzie. This project is investigating a model for integrating content from NSDL into online and web-enhanced courses in higher education, using as a testbed community the students and faculty at the Texas A&M Electronic Teachers College (ETC). Services under investigation include mapping of modular learning object content to teacher certification competencies in high area needs such as mathematics; defining competency-based metadata vocabularies for these learning objects that reflects the teacher certification requirements; and creating a Content-Packaging Tool Suite to enable faculty to select learning objects from a repository, build them into learning modules, and connect them into course-management systems or other delivery platforms.

DUE-0226312. MetaTest: Evaluating the Quality and Utility of Metadata. Institution: Syracuse University. PI: Elizabeth Liddy. Researchers are evaluating the use and utility of metadata from multiple perspectives. These include the comparison of the subjective quality of metadata that is assigned both manually and automatically to learning resources; the comparison of the retrieval effectiveness due to metadata that is assigned manually versus automatically to learning resources; determination of searching and browsing behaviors of users when engaged in information seeking in the digital library; and an analysis of the relative contribution of individual elements of the GEM + Dublin Core metadata scheme to users' searching and browsing behavior.

DUE 0226321. Using Spatial Hypertext as a Workspace for Digital Library Providers and Patrons. Institution: Texas Engineering Experiment Station. PI: Frank Shipman. This project is investigating the use of spatial hypertext by digital library patrons to build personal and shared annotated digital information spaces, and by digital library providers to organize, annotate, and maintain collections of digital information. Spatial hypertext enables users to collect source materials as information objects in a set of two-dimensional spaces and imply attributes of and relationships between the materials via visual and spatial cues.

DUE 0226483*. Effective Access: Using Digital Libraries to Enhance High School Teaching in STEM. Institution: Education Development Center. PI: Katherine Hanson. This project is studying the use of networked digital resources by secondary school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers as they seek and select quality materials and tailor them to fit the learning environment of their classrooms. Areas of interest include: characterizing the use of digital resources for preparing lessons and for incorporating materials directly into student projects; and investigating types of software tools, lesson templates, and support that enable teachers to integrate digital library resources into general classroom settings.

Notes

[Note 1] All views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent an official NSF policy statement.

[Note 2] NSDL home page, <http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/due/programs/nsdl/>.

References

[1] "Information Technology: Its Impact on Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology." (NSF 98-82), April 18-20, 1996. Available at <http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/getpub?nsf9882>.

[2] "Developing a Digital National Library for Undergraduate Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education: Report of a Workshop" National Research Council, August 7-8, 1997. Available atv<http://books.nap.edu/books/0309059771/html/R1.html>.

[3] "Report of the SMETE Library Workshop." (NSF 99-112), July 21-23, 1998. Available at <http://www.dlib.org/smete/public/report.html>.

[4] Serving the Needs of Pre-College Science and Mathematics Education: Impact of a Digital National Library on Teacher Education and Practice. Proceedings from a National Research Council Workshop NRC workshop, September 24-25, 1998. Available at <http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9584.html>.

[5] "Digital Libraries and Education Working Meeting." January 4-6, 1999. Available at <http://www.dli2.nsf.gov/dljanmtg.pdf>.

[6] "Portal to the Future: A Digital Library for Earth System Education." August 8-11, 1999. Available <http://www.dlese.org/>.

[7] "Pathways to Progress: Visions and Plans for Developing the NSDL." Available at <http://doclib.comm.nsdlib.org/PathwaysToProgress.pdf>.

[8] Zia, Lee L. "The NSF National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program: A Progress Report." D-Lib Magazine, October 2000. Available at <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october00/zia/10zia.html>.

[9] Zia, Lee L. "The NSF National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program: New Projects and a Progress Report." D-Lib Magazine, November 2001. Available at <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october00/zia/10zia.html>.

 

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DOI: 10.1045/november2002-zia