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The National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program: Progress and Potential

Lee L. Zia* Division of Undergraduate Education National Science Foundation

Abstract This paper explains the background of the NSDL program and details the program structure along with a short description of progress to date with pointers to complete project descriptions. In addition it provides technical information about the NSDL metadata framework and outlines new program components introduced for fiscal year (FY) 2004. Finally, implications for engineering education are discussed.

Introduction and background

The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) program seeks to create, develop, and sustain a national digital library supporting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at all levels. By supporting broad access to rich, reliable, and authoritative sets of interactive learning and teaching materials and associated services in a digital environment, the National Science Digital Library is expected to catalyze continual improvements in the quality of STEM education for all students, and also serve as a resource for lifelong learning.

The program traces its roots to concept papers developed within the NSF Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) in late 1995. Earlier that year NSF had launched the interagency Digital Libraries Research Initiative (DLI), and DUE staff saw an opportunity to apply these emerging research findings to the creation of a national digital resource for STEM education. While the initial motivation focused on enabling systematic access to NSF-supported educational materials at the undergraduate level, the scope quickly expanded to embrace a larger set of learning resources addressing all educational levels. Over the period of several years a series of workshops explored this idea further with findings documented in various reports and monographs 1-9. These efforts characterized the digital library as a learning environments and resources network for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. The resulting virtual facility should:

• center on the learner, either individually or in collaborative settings;

• enable dynamic use of a rich array of digital learning materials; and

• promote reliable anytime, anywhere access to quality collections and services.

For a further discussion of the vision and prospects for the growth of NSDL, please see http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march01/zia/03zia.html 10.

Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2004, American Society for Engineering Education

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Zia, L., & Seals, R. (2004, June), The National Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics Education Digital Library (Nsdl) Program: Progress And Potential Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--12921