Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE)

Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE)

The intent of this solicitation is to invite proposals from the community to provide four key DLESE services, which, together with the DLESE Program Center (a fifth core service), will constitute the comprehensive operational facility needed to support the building of the library.  The four services addressed in this solicitation are 1) Collections Services: Accessioning of high-quality Earth system resources into the library and to facilitating the early establishment of a rigorous peer-review system;  2) Community Services:  Outreach to the community and  nurturing the use of best practices to enable learning about the Earth system;  3) Data Services:  Engage projects involving the development and use of tools in order to facilitate access via DLESE to Earth system data sets; and  4) Evaluation Services:  Ongoing monitoring of efficacy of use of DLESE collections and its value in substantively improving learning.

The Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) is a distributed, community-based electronic library dedicated to improving the quality, quantity, and efficiency of teaching and learning about the Earth system at all educational levels.  It capitalizes on developments in modern information technology to make full use of, and bring order to, the World Wide Web for the purpose of empowering any teacher, learner, or citizen seeking to understand the Earth system to easily discover the right educational materials for their purposes and be assured of their high quality. 

DLESE is a product of the wide recognition of the need for improved science education across the national, state, and local levels and greater access to quality science education for all.  Emerging information and communications technologies present a means of maximizing investments in science education by providing the necessary integration services and community support to promote synergy across otherwise disparate projects.

 DLESE was founded at the seminal 1999 Portal to the Future workshop, at which the basic program structure and mechanisms for community-based governance were established.  The full program plan was subsequently articulated in the DLESE Community Plan, which laid out the community's vision for the first stages of library development; the plan was later codified in a DLESE Strategic Plan.  Both plans can be found at www.dlese.org under "Documents About DLESE".  The Strategic Plan articulates a pathway to a reliable, robust, operational library that is designed to integrate across distributed community collections.

Two NSF awards since 1999 have supported the initial phases of library development.  A DLESE Program Center (DPC) was established at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) as an operational hub to support the development of the technical infrastructure of the library (the scope of the technical support provided by the DPC can be seen at www.dlese.org under "About DLESE").  A collaboration of the DPC, Carleton College, Montana State, and the University of Colorado "in partnership with other important institutions and with extensive community input" has produced a working prototype library.  Over 2000 resources in the initial collection can be accessed by a discovery system that enables users to search by grade level, educational resource type, and keyword.  This version also contains a Resource Cataloger, community-oriented services such as discussion forums for established working groups and "discussion groups", and a community opportunities and announcements posting tool.   The working library prototype can be accessed via www.dlese.org.

DLESE has always been conceived as a grass-roots organization, community-built and community-governed.  Community governance is effected by the Steering Committee and its four Standing Committees: Users, Collections, Technology, and Services (see www.dlese.org under "About DLESE").  The Steering Committee provides guidance and oversight to an operational core.  As DLESE now moves into a fully operational phase, the operational core is to consist of five tightly-integrated service areas headed by an Executive Director.  The Executive Director will head a Management Council, on which each of the service areas is represented.  The first of the service areas is the DPC, hosted by UCAR.  NSF funding for the DPC is being sought through a stand-alone proposal separate from this solicitation.  Proposals for operation of the other four service areas are being invited through the present solicitation.  These are:

• Collections Services:  Extensive outreach to individuals and institutions to identify and enable the accession of high-quality Earth system resources into the library and to facilitate the early establishment of a rigorous peer-review system.  As presently envisioned, the system will enable multiple pathways to a reviewed DLESE collection.

• Community Services:  Extensive outreach to individuals and institutions to facilitate the use of and contributions to the library, to enable community interaction via the library, and to nurture the use of best practices to enable learning about the Earth system.

• Data Services:  Engage projects involving the development and use of tools in order to facilitate access via DLESE to Earth system data sets residing on remote servers, promote exemplary use of data in educational applications, and organize interaction between data providers and data users.
  
• Evaluation Services:  Ongoing monitoring of efficacy of use of DLESE collections and its value in substantively improving learning about the Earth system.

The nature of the DLESE core services will be elaborated in the next section.

Although each of the non-DPC services is conceived as a high-priority focus for DLESE in its own right, close interaction among the services and especially between each service and the DPC will be crucial to the effective operation of the DLESE core in building the library.  Coordinating and promoting the effective interaction of the core services will be the job of the DLESE Executive Director.

DLESE operates within the framework of the NSF-sponsored National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Digital Library (NSDL) (www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/DUE/programs/nsdl).  DLESE is the geoscience disciplinary component of NSDL.  Members of the DLESE community are part of the NSDL leadership.  It is a fundamental principle that DLESE collections must be interoperable with NSDL collections, and that in general DLESE technical standards are compatible with NSDL standards.   It will be important that each of the DLESE core services interface closely with NSDL.

The intent of this solicitation is to invite proposals from the community to provide four key DLESE services, which, together with the DLESE Program Center (a fifth core service), will constitute the comprehensive operational facility needed to support the building of the library.   Awardees will be providing a service to the community, not as an isolated activity, but as part of a larger, well-integrated team.

Thus, PIs whose proposals are rated as highly meritorious in peer review will be expected as a condition of award, in a post-review process of negotiation involving the relevant parties and NSF, to coordinate their work through the DLESE Executive Director with other potential projects and the DPC.  It is anticipated that a Letter of Agreement (LOA) will be developed between a potential PI's institution and that of the Executive Director that  1) specifies the goals of the service and a time line for achieving them,  2) describes how the PIs will operate their service once it reaches operational readiness, 3) spells out how a particular service will collaborate with and support other services, and 4) specifies how the DPC will support the service.  PIs will need to agree via the LOA to adhere to the overall guidance of the Executive Director and also adhere to agreed-on time lines.  NSF will assist in the process of generation of draft Letters of Agreement and will approve the final documents.  

Lest this guidance seem overly restrictive, within the constraints needed to ensure good coordination and a well-integrated operation, it is also anticipated that PIs will have much latitude to operate creatively on behalf of the community; this will be welcome.

The leader of each function will be expected to participate as a member of the DLESE Management Council (MC).  Through regular meetings and conference calls, the MC fosters communication and coordination, assesses progress toward common goals, and develops policy options for consideration by the DLESE Steering Committee.

NSF invites proposals seeking to operate one of the four non-DPC core services:  1) Collections, 2) Community, 3) Data, and 4) Evaluation.  The services are described below.  Awards are expected to be made for 36 months duration.  For expected award amounts and anticipated numbers of awards for the four services, see Section IV ("AWARD INFORMATION") below.  NSF plans to issue a new program solicitation during year three to continue support for DLESE core services beyond that time.

Partnerships or collaborations are encouraged.  While each service will involve one coherent "project", it may well be collaborative in nature, involving multiple institutions.  This may come about via the submission of a priori collaborative proposals.  Or NSF may encourage collaborations among PIs of independent highly-rated proposals post-review.

Proposers for each of the service areas described below should include in their budgets support for anticipated expertise necessary to support technical interoperability and effective communication with the technical staff at the DPC.  They should also build in to their budgets travel expenses for an anticipated two Management Council meetings per year (in Boulder), two Steering Committee meetings per year (location varies), and the annual DLESE Community Meeting (location varies).

Collections Services

Management of the collections service involves extensive outreach to individuals and organizations holding valuable educational materials in digital form and facilitating the process of bringing these materials into the DLESE collection.  Such materials will take a wide variety of forms, for example:

• tools to use data in educational applications       
• text (scientific papers, summaries, indices and abstracts)       
• images, models, simulations       
• animations, videos, multimedia       
• lesson plans and curricula, including assessment tools       
• guided inquiry sets, modules, problem sets, classroom and lab activities       
• tutorials about the Earth for students       
• interactive mini-tutorials about pedagogy for faculty       
• virtual field trips       
• student portfolios

Over 2000 individual resources have already been contributed to the DLESE collection.  Current accessioning practice for individual resources involves development by the contributor of metadata records following standards that assure interoperability within DLESE, with NSDL, and with other libraries (for information about the process, see the Metadata Working Group site, dlese.org/Metadata/index.htm).   

It is recognized that it is important for DLESE to have the capability of accessioning large, specialized, thematic collections developed by organizations such as government agencies, professional societies, and publishers.  This will include high-quality content produced through special agency competitions such as NSF's NSDL, Geoscience Education, and Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement programs at NSF and similar programs of other agencies.  The DLESE Collections Standing Committee is heading the development of policies governing the process; the collections core service will be an important contributor to this ongoing effort, and will have an important role in outreach to such organizations.

The DLESE Strategic Plan calls for a two-tiered library containing 1) a "broad" collection consisting of a large number of meritorious resources or collections of resources intended to fill the needs of a wide range of users (which may be in various stages of development and may include valuable "work in progress") and 2) a reviewed collection consisting of resources which have been through a rigorous peer review process.  An ongoing process is envisioned in which resources in the broad collection can make their way into the peer review process and potentially be added to the reviewed collection.  For DLESE to become the "Portal of Choice" for anyone seeking resources pertaining to the Earth system, attention to quality control is crucial.  This applies to the broad collection as well as the reviewed collection.

With regard to the ongoing development of the broad collection, operators of collections services will be expected to :

Resources within the DLESE Reviewed Collection will be limited to those that have been through a rigorous peer review process.  The peer review system will provide a valuable means for contributors to improve their materials  and ultimately gain professional recognition for their contributions.  Projects are under way that aim to develop rational pathways to the Reviewed Collection.  (see dlese.ldeo.columbia.edu and www.usra.edu/esse/jesse/nsf9944.html ).  It is expected that other peer review processes will be developed and become part of the DLESE peer review system.  The Collections core function will work closely with them, and with supporting tool development efforts at the DPC, to bring the DLESE peer review system on line at an early date.

Other activities of the collections core service, in collaboration with the DPC,  will include, but not be limited to:

• Development of controlled Earth system science vocabularies and thesauri       
• Incorporation of tools for building personal collection developed by UC Santa Barbara, NSDL, or elsewhere as they emerge in collaboration with the DPC       
• Cataloging for the DLESE Broad Collection, enlisting the aid of professional catalogers where necessary       
• Collections partnerships with journals, professional societies, and federal/state agencies       
• Cataloging and authoring components for existing resource development tools or course management systems

The collections function will interface strongly with the DLESE Collections Standing Committee in the ongoing process of developing policies and procedures for this area.  Proposers should consult the committee's Web site (www.ldeo.columbia.edu/DLESE/collections), which is rich in information on policies (Collections Policy, Scope Policy, Terms of Use) and collections-building concepts.

The DPC will support the collections function through a close collaborative effort.  Currently-planned related technical work at the DPC includes:

• Extending metadata resource description framework supporting AAAS Benchmarks, Geography for Life standards, and an expanded Earth System Science vocabulary       
• Developing strategic partnerships (including NSDL) to capitalize on emerging automatic metadata generation techniques       
• Creating collections development and management tools       
• Extending resource characterization tools to support indexing by temporal and spacial dimensions (geo-referenced discovery)       
• Developing tools to support community peer review mechanisms       
• Refining and automating quality assurance processes

Community Services

The concept of DLESE as a grass-roots organization is of basic importance.  The rationale is that substantive participation of the geoscience community in  its broadest sense, not only in using the library, but in building it, will result in an operational library that optimally meets the full spectrum of community needs and have the greatest impact on learning.   

Community Services is envisioned as having a primary responsibility in this context in  three ways:  1) in pursuing an aggressive outreach program aimed at engaging a wide range of individuals and organizations with DLESE, thus building the community, 2) in operating a community center that facilitates the use of a variety of communications networks serving users and builders of the library for the purpose of optimizing its benefit to the community, and 3) increasing diversity in the geoscience community. 

While the process of outreach to the community in order to engage individuals and organizations with the library is a large and multifaceted task that necessarily needs to be shared by all components of the DLESE core, Community Services will have special responsibility for leadership in this important area.  Proposers should present an outreach plan that extends, not only to individuals and organizations engaged in Earth system education at all levels, but to other important sectors where partnerships are important to building the library, such as companies and groups carrying out IT research related to digital libraries, other digital libraries, publishers, software developers, and the traditional library community.   The outreach activity should rapidly increase awareness in the community, promote wide usage, facilitate quality contributions, and bring important external resources to bear on the library-building process.

Beyond providing high-quality educational resources for teaching and learning in Earth system science, DLESE is envisioned as an intellectual commons where users can interact and collaborate in a wide variety of contexts, including the sharing of information on effective methods of teaching that link pedagogy and content, methodologies for assessing impacts on learning, results of research on learning in the geosciences, and special educational initiatives related to focused research programs.  Toward such ends, operation of the community center will involve the facilitation of the development and use of effective communications networks.

It is expected that Community Services will work with the DPC in ongoing development of tools to support topical networks called working groups or discussion groups (a number of such groups have already been formed: see "Find/Join a Group" at www.dlese.org)  that can address issues, create an information exchange, and generally facilitate discussion.  It should be possible for community members to start up new networks of special interest.  It will also be important for the community center to work with the DPC to continue to develop a clearing house for sharing community information and opportunities.  

It is expected that the community center will support community members in effectively using DLESE resources to improve teaching and learning.  Community Services can 1) work with Collections Services to locate, catalog, and promote development of resources that provide information on effective pedagogy, successful teaching practice, and assessment of learning and 2) with the DPC explore mechanisms that  support users in integrating this information with their use of DLESE resources; this may extend to organizing workshops--both traditional and virtual--for this purpose. 

DLESE has the potential of contributing greatly to the cause of increasing diversity in the geosciences, an important and formidable challenge.  Organizing this effort must be an important part of the Community Services part of the DLESE core, and proposers to this element should include a plan for organizing a DLESE diversity initiative.  Proposers are encouraged to consider the formation of partnerships that effectively serve this purpose.

The information technology behind DLESE will allow the aggregation of quality materials that are most appropriate and effective for a given learning situation and individual learning styles, thus supporting a wide diversity of learners.  It will be possible to disseminate reviewed and tested materials that have proven to enhance learning across a wide spectrum.  It can provide a forum for discussion of diversity-related issues, and tools for organizing action addressing particular issues.  DLESE can help to overcome the digital divide by identifying components of the collections that are suitable for use by those with limited access to Web technology and by offering training to educators in use of available technology to access DLESE in order to improve teaching and learning in all venues.

DLESE has made a start toward a diversity initiative and made it a high priority.  A diversity workshop was held and a report issued, a focus group was formed, and an initial diversity Web resource was established.  Proposers should consult the DLESE diversity site, which can be found via "cross-cutting issues" for the Web site; the discussion area is under Find/Join a Group.  They may also wish to consult the NSF Geosciences diversity site at www.geo.nsf.gov/geo/diversity.  A diversity "workspace" is being developed for the NSDL Communication Portal  (comm.nsdlib.org), and may be available to proposers.

It is envisioned that Community Services will interface with the Steering Committee in the development of library policies and procedures via the Users Standing Committee (oceanography.geol.ucsb.edu/dlese) and the Services Standing Committee www.atmos.uiuc.edu/dlese.

Data Access Services

Research in the geosciences is typically based on the use of large, rich data sets.  Use of such data in Earth system science educational applications is of such high pedagogical value that the challenge of accessing and using such data is included as a DLESE core activity.

DLESE began an initiative in this area by establishing the DAtaset Working Group (DAWG).  A workshop was held in February, 2001, to organize a collaboration among some formidable partners to pursue the challenges of tool development for data access and easy use in educational applications.  Proposers can see the results of this workshop via www.dlese.org under "Find/Join a Group."

Another important data initiative is the NSDL-sponsored Thematic Realtime Environmental Data Distributed Services (THREDDS) project (www.unidata.ucar.edu/projects/THREDDS/Overview.htm), also a collaboration of numerous formidable partners.  The idea of THREDDS is that advances in the technologies of scientific data management and digital libraries have made it in principle possible to discover widely distributed data sets and to use subsets of data with analysis tools to 1) visualize complex multidimensional data, 2) integrate and overlay data from multiple sources, and 3) easily deal with  multiple coordinate systems, measurable quantities, units, and sampling.

The present solicitation will not support development of data discovery tools or applications per se, but rather is aimed at supporting a service that will ensure that existing activities are actively pursued and brought to DLESE in an organized manner.  Specifically, the activities of this service on behalf of the DLESE community will include:

• Ongoing support for and organization of the efforts of the DAtaset Working Group in pursuit of the goals established at the DAWG workshop.

• Close interaction with the THREDDS initiative--and other such initiatives--to ensure full access via DLESE to the data discovery tools developed.

• Use of the DLESE Resource Cataloger to compile information on existing tools, Web resources, and projects involving integrated access to Earth data for educational purposes and applications of such data in exemplary educational modules.

• Organization of workshops and other meetings that bring together data providers, interface providers, and developers of educational resources.

In short, the intent of this service is to be a catalyst in advancing the frontier of use of  "real" data in Earth system science education.

Proposers to this element may wish to consult the NSDL "Using Data in the Classroom" Web site, usingdata.comm.nsdlib.org.

Evaluation Services

As DLESE evolves, it will be critically important to have ongoing measures of its success, so that the service provided to the community can be continually improved.  This will involve use of metrics and user feedback to evaluate how efficiently and effectively DLESE services are being provided, but must also include analysis of the impact of DLESE on improving student learning in Earth system science and the degree to which DLESE is contributing to the important cause of educational reform. The DLESE Community Plan identifies three key areas for evaluation: community, dimensions (collections, access to data sets, a discovery and distribution system, services for users, and communications networks), and educational improvement.   They will constitute the basis for Evaluation Services activities.

The starting point for this element is the DLESE Evaluation Plan (www.dlese.org under "Documents About DLESE/Plans"), which provides a strong platform for proposers under this element to build on. The evaluation plan calls for three types of evaluation work to judge the progress and achievements across the three areas identified in the Community Plan:

• Collections through expert review and comparison to requirements    
• Access to datasets through expert review and comparison to requirements    
• Ongoing application of the DLESE discovery/distribution system for  usability testing and expert review    
• Services for users through the administration of user satisfaction indices    
• Communications networks through expert review and survey of users    
• Development of priorities for future development of services

• Evaluation of the output of tools developed by the DPC for automated processes of counting and tracking usage and associated methods of asking for feedback during and after DLESE user sessions    
• Studies of science learning in selected test beds of DLESE implementation    
• Studies of samples of science teachers and learners and their reports of use across the broad potential client-base for DLESE

• Funding of small grants to conduct evaluation by faculty and teachers so as to stimulate evaluation and the sharing of results    
• Promoting research in the assessment of teaching and learning in Earth science    
• Developing a clear model of expected results

It is envisioned that this element will involve a planning period during the first year that builds on and extends the DLESE Evaluation Plan and that involves one or more community workshops, followed by the implementation of a final plan in years two and three.

It is also envisioned that while Evaluation Services will of necessity interact closely with other parts of the DLESE core, it will also need to establish an independent identity to ensure objective evaluation.

NSF expects to make one overall award for each of the four service elements described in this solicitation.  Each overall award may consist of multiple individual awards supporting a collaboration aimed at fulfilling the requirements of the service element.  Collaborations may take the form of formal collaborative proposals or agreements to collaborate among PIs having competitive proposals, following proposal review.  

Subject to availability of funds, NSF expects to have $1.2 million available for this activity in FY 2003, $1.5 million in FY 2004, and $1.7 million in FY 2005.  For FY 2003, the tentative distribution of funds among the four elements is anticipated to be:

• Collections Services:  $400,000               
• Community Services:  $350,000               
• Evaluation Services: $300,000               
• Data Access Services:  $150,000

Final distribution of funds will depend on the nature and quality of proposals received.  Awards will be made as continuing grants, with a duration of up to 36 months.  The estimated program budget, number of awards, and average award size and duration are subject to availability of funds.

B. Budgetary Information

As a condition of award, successful proposers will be required to develop, in collaboration with the DPC, a Letter of Agreement between the PI's institution and that of the DPC [University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)] that specifies agreed-upon deliverables of both parties and a schedule for realizing those deliverables. This requirement is aimed at achieving a solid mutual understanding of the requirements of collaboration that are necessary to ensure that service area goals are met.