Literacy Information and Communication System (LINCS)- About LINCS

About LINCS

What is LINCS?

What makes LINCS unique
Guiding Principles

LINCS - the Literacy Information aNd Communication System - is the premier on-line information and communications network for adult and family literacy. LINCS has enhanced the ability of all States to use information technologies in the context of literacy instruction; created a rich database of local, regional, and nationally developed materials; trained thousands of practitioners in applying technology in teaching and professional development; and leveraged several million dollars for regional, State, and local literacy agencies. With the addition of the Partnership for Reading to the NIFL's agenda, LINCS has become one of the principal locations for literacy-related information for children and youth, as well as adults.

LINCS is a cooperative electronic network of the national, regional, state, local partners, including NIFL, five regional LINCS partners, representative organizations from 45 states and territories, 12 content development partners, and several major national organizations. The coordinated efforts of LINCS partners have provided a national infrastructure for literacy community to access the most comprehensive collection of family and adult basic skills research, teaching/ learning and training resources.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Throughout the development of the LINCS initiative, NIFL and its partners have adhered to the following guiding principles:

As a comprehensive system, LINCS is designed to meet the needs of adult and family literacy stakeholders by providing free, timely, easy, and efficient access to the most relevant and up-to-date adult and family literacy resources and training.

As a distributed system, LINCS' architecture is intended to provide more flexibility in contributing and maintaining resources at the state and local level while eliminating fragmentation and duplications nation-wide.

As an interactive system, LINCS brings together different literacy stakeholders enabling them to share resources and expertise instantaneously through different online communication tools.

As a collaborative network, LINCS' content, design, structure, and feature enhancements are developed through contributions, feedback, and ongoing communication between NIFL, LINCS partners and different sectors of the literacy field.

As an evolving system, LINCS reflects new developments and implements state of the art technology to help improve literacy stakeholders' access to information and use of technology resources in teaching and learning.

FOCUS OF LINCS

Meet the teaching and learning needs of literacy practitioners (teachers, tutors, program managers, etc.) and adult learners and other literacy stakeholders through:
1. Enhancing the knowledge base of the literacy community through systematic collection and organization of literacy resources. LINCS has provided for wide dissemination of locally produced materials as full text on the web, and research results that would otherwise have only been disseminated on a limited basis. LINCS Library team catalogs materials daily, making web-based instructional materials, and curriculum resources, and multimedia resources easily accessible to users. In addition, LINCS provide access to selected literacy-focused web pages from 52 state adult basic education and literacy agencies, and numerous major national and international ABE and literacy organizations. The selected sites contain more than 700,000 web pages of major organizations dedicated to literacy.
2. Facilitating development of web-based and multimedia products by providing resources and support to practitioners to develop web-based teaching/learning materials (templates, cyber development sites). Initially, LINCS was among the few organizations that pioneered and facilitated the development of web-based resources, including electronic journals, lesson plans, guides, curricula, and interactive multi-media materials. Most of these were written and designed by teachers, who were assisted by regional LINCS staff.
3. Providing high quality, expert reviewed specialized sites - through Special Collections: LINCS Special Collections that are built around specific content areas are high quality resources reviewed by a core knowledge group, to ensure the quality and usefulness of resources. The Core Knowledge Group (CKG) is a specialized advisory group, consisting of subject experts, practitioners, learners, and researchers who assist the Special Collection staff on issues such as setting policy, content development, and selection criteria to ensure that a wide variety of high quality resources are selected for inclusion in the collection to address user's need and to ensure ease of use. Only limited numbers of resources from the LINCS general collections that meet the review criteria are posted on the Special Collections sites.
4. Bridging the gap between research and practice and building community: Established in 1995, the LINCS 13 public discussion lists provide thousands of literacy stakeholders opportunities to discuss the literacy field's critical issues; share resources, experiences, and ideas; ask questions of subject experts; and keep up-to-date on literacy research issues and best practices. Each national LINCS discussion list is moderated by a national organization with expertise in the topic area. In addition over 310 private lists are established on the LINCS servers to provide on-line space for practitioners across the country to work together on instruction, research, web development, and other issues of concern.
5. Meeting the information needs of the literacy community: Updated daily, LINCS national and regional partners provide most comprehensive up-to-date information for literacy community through the following services:
  1. America's Literacy Directory (ALD): is a comprehensive on-line directory of local literacy providers in all 50 states and U.S. territories to find adult basic education, English as a second language, GED preparation, homework assistance, and after school programs in every community.
  2. Newsflashes: Updated weekly, News Flashes on LINCS provide the latest literacy news worldwide, including learners' success stories; exemplary projects, publications, and software packages; discoveries in integrating technology with teaching and professional development; information on recent research and new trends; major policy initiatives affecting literacy and education; and requests for proposals. Stories and updates are gathered from major national newspapers, as well as from online journals, newsletters, and messages posted on the LINCS discussion lists.
  3. Grant information: Updated daily, the LINCS Grants and Funding database, provide access to hundreds of current funding opportunities available from federal, state, and local government; private industry; foundations, and other funding sources.
  4. Calendar of Events: Updated daily, LINCS calendar is the most comprehensive national calendar of conferences, trainings, and other major Professional Development opportunities.

Building capacity and strengthening the literacy community through:
1. Creating a Robust National Technical infrastructure that has resulted in a seamless integration of the work of all LINCS partners in the network. Five dedicated, high capacity LINCS web servers currently host and maintain:
  - 150 regional and national web sites,
  - 325 public and private electronic lists with over 15,000 subscribers,
  - 8 major LINCS databases, and LINCS Thesaurus,
  - 5 LINCS search programs,
  - 6 LINCS multimedia servers for streaming audio and video plus multiple interactive sites. National and regional LINCS created initial web sites for most state and local LINCS partners and provided them technical assistance and training to enable them update and maintain their own sites. As a result, most of state partners are currently maintaining their own sites.
2. Building capacity by setting standards and Tools for organizing and access: LINCS standards and guidelines are the infrastructure needed to ensure an effective, efficient, compatible, and seamless national system for the literacy community. The following LINCS standards offer uniform requirements for accessing and sharing resources so that users will have easier communication and enhanced research and information retrieval capabilities.
  - Standards for quality control: LINCS general "Selection Criteria" was created and has been evolving since 1995, to establish standards for quality control of LINCS materials and new resources. The selection criteria guide LINCS partners in developing resource collections that support the adult and family literacy community's goals for learning, instruction, policy implementation, program development and research. More specific and higher quality control standards are developed for LINCS Special Collections and LINCS HOT Sites.
  - Cataloging tools: LINCS was among the pioneers in the Internet community in developing online, web-based cataloging tools for organizing resources on the web in a uniform format. The cataloging tool is designed to enable a non- technical person at the state or local level to catalog and organize resources in the LINCS databases. The LINCS database allows contributors to have local access and full control over their resources, while disseminating them globally.
  - Controlled Vocabulary: The LINCS Literacy Thesaurus (LT), with more than 2,000 main ABE/literacy terms, is a comprehensive list of controlled vocabulary and subject terms. In 1995, NIFL was among the very few sites on the Internet developing a thesaurus, which is constantly evolving today. The Literacy Thesaurus is an effective tool for defining and organizing resources on LINCS in a consistent manner. It is also used to help the end-users find resources in national and regional LINCS sites with key words.
  - Search Programs: LINCS' five major search programs are powerful tools to retrieve literacy- related resources from the LINCS network and from major national and international databases.
    - Material Search
    - Global Search
    - America's Literacy Directory
    - List Search
    - Grant Search
  - Web page template: LINCS includes a seamless web template that is adaptable for any national, regional, and state sites. This template is currently in place for national and regional LINCS. In addition, 35 state agencies have adopted the template.
3. Building capacity by providing technology training and technical assistance
  Training: Over past seven years national and regional LINCS have provided technology training to several thousands practitioners every year with the goal of strengthening research and practice of the literacy field through using the new technology. LINCS national and regional activities are focused on building the capacity of state partners and local users - teachers, administrators, learners - through implementing various types of training, including:
  - Train the Trainers: Creating a corps of expert trainers throughout the country that can work with programs nationwide to help staff gain the knowledge and skills they need.
  - Training on integrating technology in teaching and learning: These workshops have helped practitioners examine strategies for integrating the Web into successful teaching practice.
  - Training on technology planning for state and local programs: Program administrators and teachers have been trained to develop and write a technology plan for their programs.
  - Web publishing training: This has enabled many practitioners throughout the country to design and develop materials for the use in classroom on the web. Students have participated in some of these efforts.
  - Web-master training for states with their own servers: This training has enabled states to create and maintain their own web sites.
  - Other advanced technical training workshops: Training has also been provided on other technical matters, including: cataloging resources on the Internet (conducted by the LINCS library team), establishing a discussion board, developing a web-based calendar, and streaming video.
  Technical Assistance: National and regional LINCS staff has provided a wide range of technical assistance to support the needs of users through the establishment of a technology team, 1-800 number, and email services.
4. Building capacity through building partnerships: The strongest aspect of LINCS - which accounts for its success nationwide - is the active collaboration that exists among its many partners. These partnerships have resulted in more and better products of all kinds, as well as enhanced capacity and visibility for the partners. Many LINCS activities are carried out through cross-state teams helping to further the goals of national and regional LINCS. Committees, made up of experts, practitioners, and learners, are an integral part of the project coordinated by the LINCS staff.
  
  Through ongoing communication and support (mostly non-financial), LINCS staff has built effective working relationships with state partners. In several states, regional LINCS have established excellent partnerships with state social service agencies. Twenty-six major national organizations, with varying degrees of involvement contribute to the different aspects of LINCS activities. Increasing numbers of businesses are lending their support to our network. Several million dollars in equipment, in-kind services, and cash has been secured for the project during the last 8 years, including:
  - Verizon (GTE) funding for LINCS - $1.35 million for the regional LINCS and Virginia State Literacy Resource Center,
  - Verizon providing $350,000 to support America's Literacy Directory,
  - 40 free Pacific Bell ISDN lines for literacy programs in California,
  - A top-of-the-line, high capacity Sun Microsystems web server with technical support, and
  - IBM equipment donated to LINCS partners.

LINCS STATISTICS
September 2001-October 2002

The following information lists the combined statistics of web activities for National LINCS, Regional LINCS Technology Centers and LINCS Special Collection, during the past year:

6,265,237 - Monthly average hits (does not include LINCS state partners' numbers)
3,064,721 - Monthly average user (does not include LINCS state partners' numbers)
607 - Number of presentations and training on LINCS and use of technology
13,002 - Number of participants in the LINCS training and presentation sessions
19,219 - Number of responses to TA needs
8,715 - Number of resources cataloged (with abstracts) in LINCS Material database.
880 - (approx.) funding resources were made available through national LINCS Grants and Funding database.
1120 - (approx.) events were posted on LINCS Calendar of Events
1500 - (approx.) literacy and long life literacy news from all over the US were posted on the LINCS News Flashes.
426 - Online discussion lists (private) and bulletin boards were active on LINCS network (including regional and national LINCS only), linking hundreds of literacy practitioners (including teachers, administrators and learners).
5,208 - Number of messages posted to the national LINCS public Discussion lists (does not include NLA, Library and Science and Numeracy lists).

WHAT MAKES LINCS SITES UNIQUE:

Among the factors that make LINCS unique are:

Comprehensiveness of content: Relevant, timely information is key to persuading literacy stakeholders to use the Internet. LINCS provides a publishing arena and a means of access to locally produced materials that might otherwise be difficult to find. Through the distributed LINCS Network, regional and local level partners identify high-quality locally produced curricula, training modules, project reports, etc., and make them available online - and in full text, whenever possible - to a broad audience.

Ease of access to information: LINCS partners have developed uniform standards for collecting and organizing online resources in order to provide users with the greatest ease of access to the information they need, regardless of the geographic origin or authorship of that information. The adoption of these standards by all LINCS contributing partners has enabled the building of a system that provides users with easy access to information.

Consistent formatting of information: While each homepage found on the LINCS Network contains unique information and design features - all page developers have followed LINCS guidelines and similar design programs to present users with a seamless, clear, and uncomplicated information and communication system.

Availability of support services: Training and technical assistance continue to be critical to expanding the use of Internet technology. NIFL and other partners in the LINCS Network provide both on- and off-site training to state and local level programs on developing and maintaining Web pages and resource collections. Technical assistance is also available through the LINCS Network on a number of technology applications and "best" literacy practices.

Customizable features at all levels: LINCS has created several features that are available to national and state organizations enabling them to customize the features based on their audience and their subject areas. LINCS Calendar of Events, News Flashes, material and global Search functions are examples of the features. In addition, NIFL established "MY LINCS" to provide a highly sophisticated customized service for LINCS individual end users based on their information needs.