NEEDS, SMETE.ORG and Educational Digital Libraries : NEEDS, SMETE.ORG and Educational Digital Libraries Brandon Muramatsu
NEEDS/SMETE at UC Berkeley
mura@needs.org
Key Topics : Key Topics Evolution of NEEDS
“Educational” Digital Libraries
NEEDS: A Project of Synthesis : NEEDS: A Project of Synthesis
Synthesis Coalition : Synthesis Coalition Reform of undergraduate education
Mechatronics became key focus
8 Universities across the US
First of many Coalitions (SUCCEED, ECSEL)
Funded by the National Science Foundation 1989-1998
NEEDS: Original Concept : Three Components Connected Through the Internet Since the early 1990’s NEEDS has evolved from a courseware development and delivery system into an “educational digital library”. NEEDS: Original Concept
NEEDS: Circa 1993 : NEEDS: Circa 1993
NEEDS: Circa 1993 : NEEDS: Circa 1993 Primary Audience:
Engineering educators
Systems:
Iowa State OPAC special collection
Gopher and Telnet versions
Metadata and Cataloging:
US MARC, 856 field
Focuses on bibliographic description of the resource
Contents:
Almost exclusively internal to Synthesis Coalition
“Archives” available from NEEDS FTP servers: Mostly relatively small courseware and software (a few hundred KB)
Some multimedia courseware only available on CD-ROM (1x or 2x speeds)
NEEDS Circa 1997 The World Wide Web Happened… : NEEDS Circa 1997 The World Wide Web Happened…
NEEDS: Circa 1997 : NEEDS: Circa 1997 Primary Audience:
Engineering educators
Secondary Audience(s)
Undergraduate engineering students
Expanding to educators and students in Science, mathematics and technology (e.g., Chemistry, Physics)
Systems:
Web-based access to relational database
Metadata and Cataloging:
Evolved from USMARC bibliographic description
Beginnings of “use” and “context” in Learning Object Metadata
Contents:
Mostly references to external websites
Some historical “archives” (Synthesis)
Looking Toward the Future: NEEDS Circa 1997 : Looking Toward the Future: NEEDS Circa 1997 Expansion of Cataloging
Physical sciences and mathematics
Tackling problem of everything that’s out there now—trying to help users identify and select those resources
New Services Under Development
Display of results
User Comments (Amazon.com)
“Peer Review”
Beginnings of recommender systems
“Self-cataloging”
A number of others possible…
Using Web technologies, taking cue from what access and systems Web makes possible
Issues in Providing Access to Educational Resources : Issues in Providing Access to Educational Resources Ever expanding number and scope of resources being developed and made available
Variety of technical and pedagogical formats
Transient nature and half-life of content and technology
Varying definition of “quality”
Parallel efforts in other domains and for other audiences
Increasing clarity of specific needs of end-users
Specifically K-12
Issues in Providing Access to Educational Resources (cont.) : Issues in Providing Access to Educational Resources (cont.) New expectations from users (for content and services)
Web technologies (& CS/DL research) enables new services
Specific standards and specifications efforts for education initiated
IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee, IMS Global Learning Consortium, Dublin Core
…and now for something different… SMETE.ORG …and “Educational” Digital Libraries : …and now for something different… SMETE.ORG …and “Educational” Digital Libraries
From NEEDS to SMETE : From NEEDS to SMETE How did we get from NEEDS to SMETE?
NSF and National Research Council examine a digital library for undergraduate science education from 1996-1998
New funding under Special Emphasis in DLI2 and now NSDL programs
NEEDS already beginning to expand into physical sciences and mathematics in cataloging
NEEDS as a technology-base through which we can extend to other disciplines
Background on Our Efforts : Background on Our Efforts To build a successful National STEM Education Digital Library …
We focus on science, mathematics, engineering and technology at all levels
And more important, it focuses on education
…we needed to develop a collaborative team…
To overcome the challenges we face in developing a National SMETE Digital Library
To cover target audiences and disciplines
To share in the development efforts
Shared Vision : The SMETE Open Federation is committed to providing a service…
to support learning
across disciplines in science, mathematics, engineering and technology
providing access to high-quality resources
in support of education reform and cross-disciplinary learning
from K-12 to higher education to professional development Shared Vision
“Working” Description of “Educational” Digital Libraries : “Working” Description of “Educational” Digital Libraries …or…how they go beyond traditional brick and mortar library or “research” digital libraries…
Either a repository or index to teaching and learning resources
Directly supports teaching and learning activities of students
Undergraduate and K-12
Provides support for adapting or adopting resources developed by others (through comments of use, lesson plans, etc.)
Uses technology to support collaboration, personalization, recommendation of resources
Supports communities of users
And in SMETE’s case…
Covers a wide range of science, mathematics and engineering subject areas, encouraging connections between disciplines
Portal at www.smete.org : Portal at www.smete.org
SMETE Technologies : SMETE Technologies Union Catalog and Federated Search
OAI-PMH
Data provider (limited)
Harvest other collections
Specialized Harvesting
Federated Search
SOAP and WSDL
Multiple recommender systems
User Comments (Amazon.com)
“Peer Review”
NEEDS Premier Award
SMETE and NEEDS: Today : SMETE and NEEDS: Today
SMETE and NEEDS: Today : SMETE and NEEDS: Today Primary Audience:
Engineering, science, mathematics and technology educators
Secondary Audience(s)
Undergraduate students
K-12 teachers and students
Systems:
Commercial application, database servers
Production-quality systems
Metadata and Cataloging:
IEEE Learning Object Metadata (1484.12.1-2003)
Exportable to Dublin Core
Contents:
Mostly references to external websites
Some historical “archives” (Synthesis)
SMETE and NEEDS: Today : SMETE and NEEDS: Today SMETE is the technology platform
Proof of concept and testing of new services
Deployed to NEEDS as available
Multiple approaches to providing access to collections
Harvesting (OAI-PMH) and Federated Search (SOAP and WSDL)
Multiple approaches to determining “Quality” that are more community based
SMETE and NEEDS: Today (cont.) : SMETE and NEEDS: Today (cont.) Not Really an Archive
Hold some materials
Could use Internet Archive techniques
Life-span and usefulness of educational resources tends to be limited
Metadata and services focus on more than bibliographic description
“Context” of use
Recommending “Similar” resources
Lessons Learned : Lessons Learned Transitions
There will be a lot of change, evolving standards and specifications
Collaboration necessary
One group can’t do it all
Recognize strengths and history of partners, build upon those strengths
Build upon strengths of partners
While SMETE.ORG can be a portal, it doesn’t try to be the be all, end all
Lessons Learned (cont.) : Lessons Learned (cont.) Community and social aspects as important, if not more important, as technical aspects
Focus on unique qualities of work
Key recommendation to other “Educational Digital Libraries” and collections
Track work of others
Homepage : Homepage
Details : Details
Recommendations : Recommendations
Contact Info : Contact Info Brandon Muramatsu
Project Director
mura@needs.org
mura@smete.org
NEEDS/SMETE
University of California, Berkeley
3115 Etcheverry Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-1750 USA
(510) 643-1817