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Developing and Advancing a Cyberinfrastructure to Gain Insights into Research Investments: An Organizing Research Framework

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Conference

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Seattle, Washington

Publication Date

June 14, 2015

Start Date

June 14, 2015

End Date

June 17, 2015

ISBN

978-0-692-50180-1

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

NSF Grantees’ Poster Session

Tagged Topic

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

9

Page Numbers

26.493.1 - 26.493.9

DOI

10.18260/p.23832

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/23832

Download Count

402

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Paper Authors

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Ann F. McKenna Arizona State University, Polytechnic campus

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Ann F. McKenna is a Professor in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and Director of The Polytechnic School at Arizona State University. Prior to joining ASU she served as a program director at the National Science Foundation in the Division of Undergraduate Education, and was on the faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University. Dr. McKenna received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Drexel University and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. McKenna is also a Senior Associate Editor for the Journal of Engineering Education.

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Jeremi S London Arizona State University, Polytechnic campus

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Dr. Jeremi London is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Arizona State University. She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Industrial Engineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education, all from Purdue University. Prior to her PhD, she worked in quality assurance and logistics roles at Anheuser-Busch and GE Healthcare, where she was responsible for ensuring consistency across processes and compliance with federal regulations. For four consecutive summers (2011-2014), she worked in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Undergraduate Education on research and evaluation projects related to the use of technology in STEM education. Dr. London masters mixed methods and computational tools to address complex problems, including: science policy issues surrounding STEM learning in cyberlearning environments; evaluation and impact analysis of federal investments in R&D; and applications of simulation & modeling tools to evaluate programs.

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Aditya Johri George Mason University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-9018-7574

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Aditya Johri is Associate Professor and Chair in the Applied Information Technology Department. Dr. Johri studies the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for learning and knowledge sharing, with a focus on cognition in informal environments. He also examine the role of ICT in supporting distributed work among globally dispersed workers and in furthering social development in emerging economies. He received the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Early Career Award in 2009. He is co-editor of the Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research (CHEER) published by Cambridge University Press, New York, NY. Dr. Johri earned his Ph.D. in Learning Sciences and Technology Design at Stanford University and a B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering at Delhi College of Engineering.

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Mihaela Vorvoreanu Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Krishna Madhavan Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Dr. Krishna Madhavan is an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. He is Co-PI and Education Director of the NSF-funded Network for Computational Nanotechnology (nanoHUB.org which serves over 330,000 global researchers and learners annually). Dr. Madhavan was the Chair of the IEEE/ACM Supercomputing Education Program 2006. In January 2008, he was awarded the US National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award for work on learner-centric, adaptive cyber-tools and cyber-environments. He was one of 49 faculty members selected as the nation’s top engineering educators and researchers by the US National Academy of Engineering to the Frontiers in Engineering Education symposium. Dr. Madhavan leads a major NSF funded effort called Deep Insights Anytime, Anywhere (DIA2) that attempts to characterize the impact of NSF and other federal investments in the area of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education using interactive knowledge mining and visual analytics for non-experts in data mining. DIA2 is currently deployed inside the NSF and is already starting to affect federal funding policy. Dr. Madhavan also served as Visiting Research Scientist at Microsoft Research, Internet Services Research Group. His research has been published in Nature Nanotechnology, IEEE Transactions on Computer Graphics and Applications, IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, and several other top peer-reviewed venues. Dr. Madhavan currently serves as PI or Co-PI on federal and industry funded projects totaling over $20M.

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Abstract

Developing  and  Advancing  a  Cyberinfrastructure  to  Gain  Insights  into  Research   Investments:  An  Organizing  Research  Framework    Although  the  National  Science  Foundation  (NSF)  funds  approximately  24%  of  basic  research  conducted  in  America’s  colleges  and  universities  (NSF),  there  is  little  we  know  about  how  NSF-­‐funding  decisions  have  resulted  in  the  current  research  landscape.  This  gap  was  the  impetus  for  a  project  –Deep  Insights  Anytime,  Anywhere  (DIA2)—  that  begins  to  address  this  problem  by  focusing  on  NSF  investments  in  undergraduate  STEM  education  research,  and  how  education  innovations  make  an  impact  and  diffuse  throughout  the  STEM  education  community.  The  project  team  has  designed  an  information  portal  (http://www.dia2.org)  to  allow  researchers  and  scientists  to  browse  and  search  public  data  from  NSF  to  understand  what  research  has  taken  place  in  specific  areas  and  to  find  collaborators.  There  are  many  challenges  in  developing  and  using  such  a  cyberinfrastructure,  but  also  many  potential  advantages  for  practitioners  and  researchers.  In  this  paper  we  will  specifically  discuss  the  research  opportunities  provided  by  DIA2  and  present  the  research  framework  guiding  the  DIA2  project—a  description  of  the  three  major  themes/areas  of  research  for  the  study.  It  summarizes  the  research  questions  and  research  activities  corresponding  to  each  of  the  themes,  presents  next  steps,  and  based  on  our  findings,  highlights  the  value  of  DIA2  to  members  of  the  STEM  education  community.  These  concentrated  efforts  can  help  us  better  understand  the  domain  of  STEM  research.        Reference  NSF.  About  the  National  Science  Foundation.  Retrieved  October  14,  2014,  from  http://nsf.gov/about/    

McKenna, A. F., & London, J. S., & Johri, A., & Vorvoreanu, M., & Madhavan, K. (2015, June), Developing and Advancing a Cyberinfrastructure to Gain Insights into Research Investments: An Organizing Research Framework Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23832

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