NSDL

1
NSDL
The National Science Foundation's National
Digital Library for Science, Mathematics,
Engineering and Technology Education a.k.a.
Smete, NSDL, Learns, ... William Y. Arms
2
The NSDL Library Project
1996 Vision articulated by NSF's Division of
Undergraduate Education 1997
National Research Council workshop 1998
Preliminary grants through Digital Libraries
Initiative 2 1998 SMETE-Lib workshop 1999 NSDL
Solicitation 2000 6 Core Integration System
projects 23 others funded 2001 1 very large
Core Integration System project to be funded

3
Collections and Services
Scientific and technical information
Materials used in education
Materials tailored to education
4
Core Partners
5
All Partners
6
Core Integration System projects
University of California at Berkeley (Alice
Agogino) Materials for education in engineering
and other disciplines Cornell University (William
Arms) Comprehensive scientific collections and
services University of Missouri Columbia
(Su-Shing Chen) National biology digital library
University Center for Atmospheric Research
(David Fulker) Federated NSDL for earth system
education Eastern Michigan University (Ellen
Hoffman) Digital community and collections for
teacher education Columbia University (Kate
Wittenberg) Columbia Pubscape NSDL Publishing
Center
7
Collections Track
Biology Education Online An Interactive
Electronic Journal A Digital Multimedia Library
for Health Sciences Education Bioscience
Education Net Digital Library for Earth Systems
Education Atmospheric Visualization Collection
MATHDL Online Learning Materials in
Mathematics A Digital Library Network for
Engineering and Technology Mathematics, Science,
and Technology Teacher Preparation Geoscience
(Solid Earth) Data Sets Muamia Barazangi The
Alsos Digital Library
8
Services Track
Prioritizing Content Creation in Digital
Libraries Peer Review of Digital Learning
Materials Electronic Journal of Earth System
Science Education Resources Breaking the
Metadata Generation Bottleneck Discovering,
Recommending, and Combining Learning Objects
Information Pathways through NSDL Video
Component Repository Environment for Teaching
Environments
9
Research Track
Metadocuments as Communicative Artifact
10
Cornell Team
William Arms Overall coordination Carl
Lagoze Architecture Diane Hillmann Metadata Dea
n Krafft Systems Rich Marisa Architecture and
engineering Mutaamba Maasha Programming John
Saylor Collections development Carol
Terrizzi Design and communications Sarah
Thomas Cornell University Library Herbert Van
de Sompel Services
11
The NSDL as a Collaborative Venture How to ensure
that the projects become partners, not competitors
12
Fundamental Question Leverage
How can the NSDL Library be more than the sum of
its parts? Which separate activities can
NSDL bring together? Which existing,
fragmented activities can be combined as the
initial nucleus of NSDL? The projects are
attempting to develop a shared vision
13
The NSF
The NSDL needs the NSF to succeed ? Prestige
and visibility ? Funding for partners and
central coordination ? Associated research
programs ? Shared identity (www.nsdl.nsf.gov)
Guidelines and service standards for creators of
scientific and technical information!!!
14
Collection Development Policy
The NSDL partners could concentrate on
educational materials be a general purpose
science library concentrate on open access
materials include formally published materials,
preprints, web sites and similar materials be
a long term archive Cornell vision The NSDL
must have a very comprehensive collections
development policy
15
Audience
The NSDL could concentrate on the needs of
science teachers serve students directly
emphasize independent learners Cornell vision
The NSDL should aim to serve every one of these
communities and more.
16
Information Discoveryand Quality of Materials
The NSDL could help people find information
provide catalogs and indexes review educational
materials and validate them for scientific and
educational content Cornell vision The NSDL
should aim to provide every one of these and more.
17
Unanswered Questions
1. The NSDL could facilitate new kinds of
collaboration How would this benefit
education? 2. The NSDL could provide access
to curriculum materials But would people use them?
18
Cornell Architecture Interoperability
19
Cornell Architecture
User portals
Central services, metadata collections, etc.
Distributed collections
20
Components of Interoperability
Technical agreements cover formats, protocols,
security systems so that messages can be
exchanged, etc.   Content agreements cover the
data and metadata, and include semantic
agreements on the interpretation of the messages.
  Organizational agreements cover the ground
rules for access, for changing collections and
services, payment, authentication, etc.
Challenge is to create incentives for independent
digital libraries to adopt agreements
21
Levels of Interoperability
Level Agreements Example Federation Strict use
of standards AACR, MARC (syntax, semantic, Z
39.50 and business) Harvesting Digital
libraries supply Open Archives basic metadata
simple protocol and registry Gathering Digital
libraries do not Web crawlers cooperate
services must and search engines seek out
information
22
Metadata Harvesting
Central data
Metadata harvest
Distributed collections
23
Metadata
Digital libraries must support Unqualified
Dublin Core Digital libraries may
support IMS FGDC or other recognized metadata
sets Simple XML tagged format -- protocol derived
from Dienst The big question What effective
services can we build with such minimal metadata?
24
Cornell Architecture Portals
25
A User's Wish List
To discover materials and services Good
science Comprehensible to students --
effective for teaching Stable -- will not
change or disappear Through services that are
appropriate to the user's needs. No
uniform catalog or index to everything
Mixture of for-profit and open access information
26
Virtual Collections
NSDL
Links show the members of the virtual collection
27
Cornell Architecture
Portal
Tuner
Channel / Ontology Registry
28
Layered System View
Items are stored in (usually) independent
repositories. Surrogates for items and resources
are stored in a central index. Items and
surrogates become part of the library by way of
gather, harvest and publish services. A search
service allows items in the library to be
discovered. Continued on next slide
29
Layered System View (Continued)
Sets of items and/or resources are represented as
channels. Channels may contain filters.
Channels are managed via a channel registry.
Channels are grouped and organized in
ontologies. Channels and ontologies may be
selected and filtered via a tuner. The set of
channels selected by a user is rendered by a
portal. The repository, catalog, search service
and channel registry may be distributed.
Multiple tuners and portals may be developed
(based on common tools) and customized for
specific audiences and applications.
30
Short Term Demonstration System
Interoperability Open Archives alpha test with
pilot registry and harvester. Collections 10
large collections selected for varied
content Metadata Unqualified Dublin Core, IMS,
FGDC Services Basic searching and filtering
(using minimal metadata), mockup of vocabulary
support (?), SFX reference linking (?) User
support Sample channels (about 100) RSS.
Resources described to support channels RDF.
Surrogate repository Dienst. Simple tuner.
Portal rendering based on stereotypical users.
31
Long Term
What will make the NSDL Library a permanent part
of the educational landscape?