On the Web NSF’s NSDL Program: An Overview of Its History, Progress, and Promise Lee L. Zia, National Science Foundation, Division of Undergraduate Education, Arlington, VA 22230;
[email protected] Keywords: Audience: General Public, High School/Introductory Chemistry, First-Year Undergraduate/General, Upper-Division Undergraduate. Domain: Curriculum, Demonstrations, Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary. Pedagogy: Inquiry Based/Discovery Learning, Internet/Web-Based Learning, Multimedia-based Learning. Topics: Acids/Bases, Aqueous Solution Chemistry, Equilibrium, Kinetics, pH, Stoichiometry, Thermodynamics. Full text available at: http://www.jce.divched.org/JCEDLib/ ConfChem/200804/P01
In fiscal year 2000 the National Science Foundation (NSF) initiated the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) to support innovations in teaching and learning at all levels of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. This paper provides an overview of the history of the development of the NSDL program, its vision, and its primary goals and purposes. Details of the program’s first two four-year funding cycles are presented next, followed by a description of key NSDL collaborations and partnerships that have emerged during this time. Lastly, challenges and future directions for the program are outlined.1 The first section of the paper begins with a short discussion of a series of workshops and accompanying reports and monographs that led to the development of a vision for the program, characterizing the digital library as a learning environment and resources network for STEM education. The program’s roots in the NSF research enterprise and its subsequent political support are also noted. The paper then describes the design of the program and how it has evolved as major components of NSDL have come into being and as underlying technologies have emerged. This second section views the NSDL program’s evolution through two four-year funding cycles. Projects in the first cycle empha-
The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) at http://nsdl. org/ (accessed Nov 2008) provides a mechanism for learning, exploring, creating, and sharing digital resources and tools that cut across all levels of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.
sized developing and testing various aspects of the emerging network, with attention to issues such as quality control, user access and services, intellectual property, evaluation, and models for sustainability. In addition, projects developed collections in new content domains; explored new value-added library services with which to validate operating capabilities; and engaged in targeted research in various aspects of user needs. The second four-year cycle of NSDL projects represented a deliberate programmatic move to reflect an appropriate expansion in emphasis for NSDL from its initial (and necessary) collecting of educational resources, materials, and other digital learning objects, towards enabling learners to “connect” or otherwise find pathways to resources that are appropriate to their needs. In its third section the paper describes the important role that collaboration has played in the development of NSDL and offers a number of examples both of groups of projects collaborating with one another and of NSDL collaborating on behalf of all projects with external third parties such as the publishing community. In addition, examples are given of NSDL interactions with teachers across the STEM disciplines to identify and provide key services and capabilities to the pre-K to 12 sector. The paper closes with a discussion of a number of challenges and opportunities for NSDL. Note 1. The views expressed in this article are entirely those of the author and do not reflect official NSF statements or positions.
© Division of Chemical Education • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 86 No. 1 January 2009 • Journal of Chemical Education
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