National Science Digital Library

The logo of the National Science Digital Library

The United States' National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is an open-access online digital library and collaborative network of disciplinary and grade-level focused education providers. NSDL's mission is to provide quality digital learning collections to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education community, both formal and informal, institutional and individual. NSDL's collections are continuously refined by an extensive network of STEM educational and disciplinary professionals. Their work is based on user data, disciplinary knowledge, and participation in the rapid evolution of digital resources as major elements of effective STEM learning.

Resource types available via NSDL include instructional matierals, activities, lesson plans, audio/video materials, images, web sites, simulations, visualizations, tools, and services. NSDL also provides annotation collection and paradata (usage data) collections: comments, ratings, or usage information attached to existing resources in the NSDL.

Activities

• Learning Registry: The NSDL is a key partner in the national Learning Registry project to facilitate the exchange of resources, metadata about resources, and paradata about their use in learning environments. NSDL is contributing to this multi-agency federal project designed to make learning resources produced by federal funding more accessible ^[1].
• NSDL STEM Exchange: a web service to capture and share social media-generated information and other networked associations about educational resources (tagged, recommended, commented, discussed, clicked, viewed, downloaded, favorited, shared, etc.)^[2]
• Learning Application Readiness - an NSDL initiative that refers to how closely educational resources, collections, and their related metadata are aligned to educational goals, curriculum, or professional development needs of users, and how readily those can be embedded in tools and services that teachers and students use ^[3].
• Repositioning NSDL for the Next Generation of Digital Learning - NSDL's present work is building on and leveraging the successes and lessons of current and prior work (NSDL network partners collaborations;STEM Exchange; Learning Registry collaboration; Learning Application Readiness; Common Core Mathematics collection) to bring pilot level projects to scale and to integrate new capacities in NSDL's value to STEM education. These efforts contribute to NSDL's long-term sustainability through diffusion and adoption of resources into a wider range of instructional settings and teacher peer-to-peer networks, and by increasing resource utility to educator communities of practice.

History

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) was established in 2000 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide an organized point of access to STEM content aggregated from a variety of other digital libraries, NSF-funded projects, and other national STEM stakeholder providers. Key collaborations with disciplinary communities and audience-focused providers grew out of the NSDL, providing a rich social and technical infrastructure for collaboration in the delivery and use of digital resources in STEM education ^{[4] [5]}. NSDL also provides access to services and tools that enhance the use of this content in a variety of contexts. NSDL is designed primarily for K-16 educators, but anyone can access NSDL.org and search the library at not cost, and without creating a user account, although some content providers require a nominal fee or subscription to retrieve their specific resources.

From 2000 – 2011, the National Science Foundation sponsored an NSDL grant-making program in the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) of the Education and Human Resources Directorate. The National STEM Distributed Learning (NSDL) program offered grants to support major collection-building efforts, services development, and targeted research that built and extended library services. In February 2011, the NSF announced its decision to conclude funding for the NSDL grant-making program, and did not issue an NSDL program solicitation for FY2011 ^[6].

Originally a collaboration between Cornell University, Columbia University, and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), the NSDL is now entirely hosted at UCAR, in Boulder, Colorado, and continues its mission as an entity dedicated to the advancement of STEM education.

Notes

1. ^ Van Gundy, S. (2011). Why Connected Online Communities Will Drive the Future of Digital Content: An Introduction to Learning Resource Paradata. Connected Online Communities of Practice (COCP). Available from: http://connectededucators.org/blog/why-connected-online-communities-will-drive-the-future-of-digital-content-an-introduction-to-learning-resource-paradata/
2. ^ Van Gundy, S. (2010). The STEM Exchange: Enabling next generation approaches for community access to federally funded online materials. Concept Paper. Boulder, Colorado: National STEM Education Digital Library. 4. Available from: http://nsdlnetwork.org/stemexchange/concept-paper
3. ^ Ginger, K., & L. Goger (2011). Evaluating the National Science Digital Library for Learning Application Readiness. Paper presented at the 74th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology - Bridging the Gulf: Communication and Information in Society, Technology, and Work.
4. ^ Zia, L. L. (2001). Growing a national learning environments and resources network for science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education. D-Lib Magazine, 7(3). Available from: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march01/zia/03zia.html
5. ^ Zia, L. L. (2001). The NSF National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) program: New projects and a progress report. D-Lib Magazine, 7(11). Available from: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november01/zia/11zia.html
6. ^ McIlvain, E. (2011). Transitioning NSDL news item. Retrieved from http://nsdlnetwork.org/content/story/1307/transitioning-nsdl

References

Lagoze, C., D. B. Krafft, S. Payette, & S. Jesuroga (2005). What is a digital library anymore, anyway? D-Lib Magazine, 11(11). Available from: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november05/lagoze/11lagoze.html

Mardis, M., & K. Howe (2010). STEM for Our Students: Content to Co-conspiracy? [Co-editor's column]. Knowledge Quest, Journal of the American Association of School Librarians, 39(2), 82. Available from: http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/knowledgequest/docs/KQ_NovDec10_WEB.pdf

Multiple authors (2010). STEM for our Students. Knowledge Quest, Journal of the American Association of School Librarians, 39(2), 82. Available from: http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/knowledgequest/docs/KQ_NovDec10_WEB.pdf

External links

• National Science Digital Library
• Learning Registry
• NSDL STEM Exchange
• Learning Application Readiness
• Common Core Mathematics collection
• NSDL Network Partners
• National Science Foundation
• National STEM Distributed Learning (NSDL) program