1 / 25

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) nsdl

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) http://nsdl.org. An Introduction and Overview ASEE 2005 Annual Conference. NSDL Vision. A Learning Environment and Resources Network for Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

brendy
Download Presentation

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) nsdl

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) http://nsdl.org An Introduction and Overview ASEE 2005 Annual Conference

  2. NSDL Vision A Learning Environment and Resources Network for Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics • Designed to meet the needs of teachers and learners, in both individual and collaborative settings • Constructed to enable dynamic use of a broad array of materials for learning, primarily in digital format • Managed actively to promote reliable anytime - anywhere access to quality collections and services.

  3. A Short History of NSDL • Prototype Phase: 2000-2001 • Site for Science • Startup Phase: 2001-Dec. 2002 • Initial Release, Dec. 2002 • Current Phase: 2003-2006 • Technical improvement and consolidation • Community building • Extending the model

  4. NSDL Audiences • Students: primarily K-16, but including life-long learners • Teachers: both as mediators of student content, and as users themselves • Partners:NSDL funded projects (Pathways, collections, services), other data and service providers

  5. Project Characteristics • Current content domains include: various engineering disciplines, life sciences, physics, mathematical sciences, sub-areas of geosciences, chemistry, materials science, anthropology, economics, demography, computer science, statistics, bioinformatics, linguistics, plus cross-disciplinary collections • Thematic projects growing: e.g. video collections, services for targeted audiences, etc. • Increased involvement of professional societies • Nascent private sector and publisher involvement • Numerous formal collaborative projects

  6. NSDL: A portal of portals? • NSDL.org • Basic services: gather, search, archive • General purpose user interface • AskNSDL—a Virtual Reference Desk • Links to associated portals

  7. What are the NSDL Portals? “NSDL Portals provide specialized views of selected NSDL resources organized around the needs of specific audiences.  These audiences may be defined by grade level, discipline, resource or data type, or some other designation.  Portals represent a strategy for building the NSDL in a manner that best supports efficient resource discovery for broad categories of users.  NSDL Portals are developed and managed in partnership with organizations and institutions that have a history and expertise in serving the portal's target audience.” – http://nsdl.org/ofinterest/?ctype=rss&rss=partner_libraries

  8. Pathways Projects • Middle School Portal--Middle School Math, Science, and Technology presented by Eisenhower National Clearinghouse • Pathways to Science--Rich media for K-12 teaching presented by Teachers' Domain at WGBH • The Math Gateway--Undergraduate Mathematics presented by the Mathematical Association of America • The Computational Science Education Reference Desk--Computational Science presented by the Shodor Education Foundation • The Applied Mathematics and Science Education Repository--Community Colleges presented by Internet Scout at the University of Wisconsin

  9. Back-end Services • Repository—currently metadata only, transitioning this summer to a mixed metadata and content repository • OAI-PMH harvesting and data provision (close to 1 million records) • Metadata management and quality improvement tools and services • Search

  10. More Back-end Services • User authentication—based at Columbia, using Shibboleth • Archiving—based at San Diego Supercomputing Center • More to come: • Automated metadata creation—working with INFOMINE/iVia • Additional group management access • Content and Communications system

  11. Collection Development • Director of Collection Development • Manages distributed group of volunteers and partner staff recommending resources to NSDL in specific subject areas • Recommendation Service enables authorized parties to add resources, and provides a combination of machine-aided and human editable functionality for record creation (including controlled vocabularies)

  12. Future Collection Development • Automated methods • Increase number of resources at the item level • Test and improve crawling strategies and automated metadata creation • Enable further collection developer activity • More “editors” • Firmer process for maintaining quality of collections • Increasing reliance on subject- and thematic- based domain pathways to build high quality curated collections

  13. NSDL Funded Collections • KMODDL • 2nd Generation Mathematics DL • NEEDS • Teach Engineering

  14. Looking Behind the Curtain • Metadata and Content • Hierarchy and granularity • The “Quality” issues • Missing Gatekeepers • Who sez? • Evaluation and evolution • Mission definition • Audience definition

  15. Hierarchy and Granularity Why only two levels? • “Item” is the basic unit • Items can be individual documents, websites, aggregations, images, video clips, etc. • Items are ingested and maintained via automated processes • “Collection” is a practical construct • Arbitrary levels keep decisions simple • Relationships between items and collections support quality inferences

  16. Quality Issues • Gatekeepers • The traditional library model • The “Automated” model • The “Trusted” model • Who sez? • Attributing assertions • Improving service provision

  17. Evaluation and evolution • Mission definition • The attempt to “do it all” • CI the organizational and technical “glue” for a broader notion of NSDL • Audience definition • From “K to gray” to K-16 • Stronger focus on services to teachers

  18. Community Development • Management structure includes National Visiting Committee, Policy Committee and other working committees • Annual All-Projects meeting integrates new and previously funded projects and provides opportunities for networking and collaboration • New community site with enabling functions in process for the coming year, replacing an older CommPortal used primarily by technical staff

  19. Some Lessons So Far • One size never fits all—general and special audiences need to be accommodated • Issues are increasingly social rather than technical—community building, feedback, needs analysis—all loom large as NSDL enters a more mature phase • Most important constraints are imposed by limited resources, not limited ideas • Finding a middle path between the culture of librarianship and that of research and technology is a persistent challenge

  20. What’s Ahead? • New Pathways projects this fall need to be integrated • Changes in technical infrastructure will provide significant challenges, and potential benefits • Collaborations with teacher groups promise more direct information about needs and usage

  21. Additional Information • http://nsdl.org - About NSDL • http://comm.nsdl.org - Communications Portal - user and developer exchange and community building • http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march01/zia/03zia.html - a look at the “big picture”

More Related