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Notes - Spreading the Word: Outreach and Dissemination Strategies
Gender and Science Digital Library (GSDL) Outreach Strategies
Sarita Nair, Education Development Center, Inc.
Some Background on EDC:
EDC is a large Research and Development organization outside of Boston, Massachusetts. We have approximately 700 staff working on 400 projects spanning health and human development, early childhood, technology, and education.
Gender and Science Digital Library:
The GSDL was launched in December 2002
GSDL Collection Objectives
- Equitable STEM materials, with an emphasis on female engagement
- There is a lot of research showing that what works for girls also works for boys, so the collection contains materials appropriate for both
- Interdisciplinaryall areas of STEM
- Materials speak to the intersection of gender with race, disability, culture
GSDL Audience
Our audience is extremely broad. Here are some examples of different audience members and applicable GSDL content:
- Researchers (national and international research)
- K-12 educators (equitable classroom models & innovative lesson plans)
- Higher education faculty (instructional issues & recruitment and retention)
- Teacher preparation and womens studies programs
- Informal learning environments
- STEM professionals (professional development resources, networks, & mentoring ideas)
Outreach Benefits
Reaching a broad, diverse audience gives the organization and project visibility. From this visibility, we hope to diversify funding sources as well as find collaborative partnerships and new projects.
GSDL Outreach Activities
We had to think of our audience in broader terms than just the traditional educators and learners. For example--district personnel, media specialists, etc.
On campus professional societies, community technology centers
It was very important to treat the collection like a product, using a for-profit model. We developed a business plan and talking points. Also, visual identity, like having a recognizable logo. Do this early on and disseminate widely. These materials can go where you might not be able to travel.
We wanted to leverage the visibility of our organization and our part in the NSDL through press releases and articles. You can tap into your organization to promote your work and extend your reach through others networks.
We identified publications that our audience members and funders would be reading. Ex: Christian Science Monitor, ERIC monograph, D-Lib
Expensive, so we tried to partner with other projects
- Listserv announcements
- Partnership building
We identified not just organizations that could disseminate our work but also those that had an area of expertise that we lacked: ITAA, SWE, WEPAN, NSTA, NAME
We picked people who could do more than provide content expertise, people who could help us get into partnerships. We wanted advocates who would promote our work during their own outreach
Went to others conferences, promoted each others collections on our sites
We built a simple database to keep track of conferences that we were going to and conferences that, although we couldnt go, others in our organization were attending.
Keep momentum going, build anticipation for availability of collection
- Reciprocal website linking
Having logos and brief site explanations available for others to put on their sites
Outreach cant start once project is launched. It needs to begin with your proposal development. Outreach is critical to the sustainability of a project and being able to take it further.
Business Plan
We encourage everyone to think about a business plan. The slides concerning our plan will be up on the SWIKI. Some things were thinking about, for example: underwriting
Q & A & Comments
Q You are part of a large organization. For those of us who arent, of the outside communities that you worked with, could you rank them? What gave you the highest payoff?
A The professional societiesnot because of money, but because they could connect us to corporate contacts. ITAA and SWE and WEPAN
AVC User Communities
Christopher Klaus, Argonne National Laboratory
For our educational outreach, weve leveraged a number of communities:
- Eastern Illinois University (EIU) MS program: the teachers helped us create educational material, rubrics, classroom testing, workshop testing, and have used the AVC for thesis work. They get course credit. Weve tried to do outreach that gets K-12 teachers involved, and gives them something, too.
- Graduate students at the University of Utah: the grad students tested our visualization tools, and they could modify them and create new tools. Also, some used the AVC for their thesis. They produced automation tools that in turn made it easier for us.
- Undergraduate students at EIU: The undergrads did some basic research. They used visualization tools, got data, and produced searchable images
Partnerships Affecting AVC Communities
- NSDL Communication Portal: we put tools on the portal, and students could get accounts and post what they create. Then we could decide what to put them on our site.
- DLESE Community Review System: We gave teachers credit for workshops, and asked them to use the system for reviews at the end. Also, this helped us with metadata.
- Research Community: They give us data sets, visualization tools, and reviewed for us.
- Conference Workshops: We found teachers willing to be guinea pigs. For example--Annual Meteorological Society, DLESE. We introduced people to materials that teachers produced, as well as how to form teams, use the WIKI
We found that middle school teachers were the most interested in our material. So we focused on them for our workshops
Outreach with CD-ROM
- We handed out CDs of lesson plans at conferences.
For example, Susan Van Gundy took 1,000 to NSTA, and they were gone after 2 days.
Reaching international users
- Teachers in Puerto Rico were converting lesson plans into Spanish, and it took them a lot of time. We used AltaVistas Babelfish. The translation isnt wonderful, but it allowed us to go from 10 countries to 25 countries using our site. JCDL had tried using translators, but that was really expensive. So going partway on translations is a good compromise.
For the future
- Museum kiosks based on NSDL collections, with handouts
- Collaborating internationally. For example, the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia is interested in our materials, and we wrote a collaborative proposal.
Q & A & Comments
Q How many people do you have working with you?
A When we first produced the site, we had 9 people. When you count teachers, 100 signed up, but maybe 10-15 really do stuff on the WIKI. It doesnt take that many people. We put up a basic outline or idea, and they flesh it all out, adding details and standards
DLESE Outreach
Rajul Pandya, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
DLESE is an NSF funded project and is free. (free is a key part of the message) Through DLESE, you can reach over 5,000 resources about the Earth.
This is a nice, short message that you can deliver quickly to people.
DLESE has taken a phased approach to outreach efforts:
- We began with a target audience of 1,000 people per month. Mostly early adopters
- Now we are going to Phase 2: 10,000-100,000 uses per month, and a broader audience
We are moving from depending on community participation to providing opportunities for community development
Goals:
- increase the number of DLESE use sessions. Our vision is that if NSF cuts DLESE, that teachers will protest.
- become reputation systems broker. People will need brands that they can trust.
- Enhance diversity of DLESE users, and encourage new users. Not everybody needs to be involved all the way.
- Contribute to the reform of Earth Science education
Outreach Continuum
- This is a conceptual framework for understanding participation that we use. (See presentation for graphic)
- Awareness, Interest (how can this contribute to my classroom?), First use (first visit to web site), Regular Use, Advocacy (telling colleagues, Congress people, etc.)
We divided our Audience along the continuum
- Prospective Users: teachers, students, informal and pre-service educators, librarians
- Current Users: We want to allow for innovation without alienating current users with too drastic changes.
- Contributors, so that people with dollars know who we are
New Activities
- Target teachers who havent heard of DLESE
- Pilot program: target users w/ immediate needs, develop materials to meet those needs and evaluate.
Tammy Sumner arranged Focus Groups to talk about quality of resources and what people want from library like DLESE. Where is the line between what goes in and what gets left out of the collection?
- We found that K-4 teachers value age appropriateness and content for beginning readers, while teachers 5th grade and up prioritized scientific accuracy. Scientific accuracy is our strength, so we focused here
How do we indicate scientific accuracy to this group?
- Outside consultant talked with 5th grade and up teachers: No one had heard from DLESE. The consultant had them comment on messages, images, and give-aways. No DLESE member attended, and we avoided the immediateBoulder area.
Resonant Messages:
- Discover online resources about the Earth resonated positively
- To focus group participants, Community-based digital library sounded like a chat room where students might meet pedophiles
- NSF association implies credibility, means a lot to teachers
- Free is important, but NSF doesnt automatically imply free to the teachers
Positive and Negative Connotations
- Positive Words: NSF, NASA, PBS, USGS (NOAA was neutral; people didnt recognize it)
- Selected and quality were both negative (everyones high quality, even the discount carpet dealer)
- learners wasnt good (then its not for me, Im a teacher)
- educators didnt mean anything, K-16 better
- Searching DLESE by standards didnt turn out to be usefulthey wanted state standards, national standards werent useful
Visual Elements:
- Dynamic earth events
- Student/teacher interaction (all levels of students)
- Pictures of students/teachers interacting with technology cant look outdated and needs to depict all levels of students to choose from (if a picture shows third graders clustered around an activity, a college professor will pass it right by)
- Teachers arent so concerned with the driving DLESE concept of interactive air-water-land system
- Earth from space seems clich
Freebies:
- Yes: squishy earth balls, book covers (spandex or nylon bands that they use to mark books), around-the-neck lanyardsnice ones!, drawing to win telescope (can ask for contact info here, remind them of website later, great potential)
- No: bookmarks, miniCDs (may think their computer cant play them, need too many cautionary messages), flyers, kaleidoscopes
Pilot Programs
- Develop and test model
- Connection between collection development and user needs. Often by the time a resource makes it into classroom, feedback takes long time to come back. We want to shorten this. We want to be able to incorporate best practices into cataloging as well.
Choosing Partners
- Key characteristics: school district with immediate need for ESS resources, a diverse population, and internet access
Partnership
Tchrs call them Teacher Boxes
- Richmond City School District
- West Contra Costa County
- California Science Teachers Association, etc.
Systematic evaluation through watching students use the boxes. We can use this data in our outreach
Q & A & Comments
Q How much did the focus groups cost, who was involved?
A $2500. We got 13 teachers--5th, 6th, 9th-12th, community college and private college professors. All were from the Denver metro area.
Q Drawings: could that be extended for awards for contributions?
A Yes. We have a DLESE newsletter, but it is virtually content-free to anyone outside of DLESE community. This might help us make it more useful. We are also encouraging school districts to give job credit (in reviews) for participation.
NSDL Education and Outreach Goals
Susan Van Gundy, NSDL Outreach
Broad goals
- Increase Audience Awareness
- Facilitate Audience Engagement Along User-Contributor continuum
- Support Audience Needs--once theyre engaged, be careful not to alienate them.
It is helpful to go back and check as you go forward to be sure youre staying on target. It was great to have different collections represented in this session because you can see that theyve established firm goals. There are so many opportunities that outreach can be scattered, so goals are important.
You know who your audience is, but some questions can help:
- Audience specifics? (roles, geography)
- Their needs?
- Ways to reach them?conferences, email lists, mailbox (carefulsummer @ schools. Ask them.)
Answering further questions may cause you re-answer earlier question about audience.
Focus Groups and working with partnership organizations are a great way to establish needs.
- Particularly with the K-12 audience, we do a lot of assuming. What they truly need is often not what we might plan to give them. Identify what are their barriers to using your resource. How to influence them?
- Sometimes, the best way to reach your audience is not the same as the best way to influence them, because they might not have decision-making power. Are your efforts best targeted toward decision makers?
- What key messages are important? What is the 15 second blurb that they really need to know about you? Key message will vary from audience to audience. Teachers: that we have resources, that we can be trusted. Supporters: that we are making a difference, that we are a good investment.
- What are we asking them to do? Change teaching practice, go online, what?
Awareness:
- Brand management (logo thats easy for people to use, consistent messages, look and feel.)
- Audience Networks: even if you are a national project, get involved with your state. In my experience (Colorado, Oregon) states are open to outside people from the informal sector. Usually there is a key group of movers and shakers, and connecting to this group is important.
Increased Community Input, Improved Quality, Greater Educational Impact, More Financial Support: spiraling continuum to use and support high quality stable resources. Start small, spiral up and out. (See presentation for graphic)
Engagement
- There need to be specific reasons for people to be involved. Establish concrete opportunities, and you will be more likely to build community more quickly.
I want to encapsulate what you will need from CI, and what you will be able to contribute.Here are some tools weve been developing to assist the projects and for our own outreach efforts:
- NSDL Ambassadors: this program will recruit volunteers from the NSDL community and beyond to assist core integration with Education and Outreach efforts. If anyone would be interested in forming a small working group, please let me know. We need people to share the NSDL message and coordinate our efforts and presence at different conferences.
- Brochure for K-12. Also, we are developing a general brochure, and there will be others, based on what the community says the need is.
- CD-ROMSNSDL sampler. Tour and examples of specific collections. We will be developing a series of these and asking for contributions from the collections. Funding is an issue. We are looking for sponsorship outside of NSF.
- Info Packets: articles, testimonials. For K-12, higher ed, etc. Avail as .pdfs, and PowerPoint presentations, so you can pick what you need for presentations
- Annual reports: tool for sharing successes to date.
- Distribution of Project Literature
- Shared Exhibit Space At Conferences
- Logos and Templates: up on website. We reconfigured how you can access NSDL logos, added a style guide (part of consistent look and feel) that addresses things like fonts, colors, say NSDL not the NSDL, guidelines for use of logo, etc. Poster presentation w/ blank panel to change out projects as needed. Literature racks.
- System for requesting these materials so I can get them into your hands
When I am talking about the NSDL, one of the strength is being able to point to amazing projects and being able to tailor handouts to person Im talking to at a conference.
Q & A & Comments
There is an Outreach handbook coming. It will be online, in .pdf
What else do you need from CI and how do you want to be involved?
Q When talking with teachers, calling it the National Science Digital Library, puts off technology and mathematics teachers. Can we have literature that emphasizes National STEM DL??
A Yes, I've run into this too.
Comment Information packets that will target K-12--that's like targeting engineering. We need to develop subsets. We need to show compelling reasons for middle school teachers, elementary school teachers working on literacy, etc. to use the NSDL. They need to see themselves.
Q Do we have an idea of how large the ambassador program would be?
A No, not really. I want to hear from the projects. What is needed, what would be effective, what is possible.
Q What is the role of ambassador? What do we need them to do/what message should they deliver?
A These questions are why Id like to get a working group together. We need very specific goals. What should they do, and what will they get out of it?
Comment Id like to see teacher to teacher.
Comment We need campaign around "What is a Digital Library?" Even more baselevel than "What is NSDL?" People are unsure.
Q Could you elaborate?
A For example, what are the main steps for using NSDL? Series of templates, a tutorial. How to use it and some simple examples. Where to go, how to do a search. Ive been surprised at how little some teachers know about searching. They are used to going to Google and putting in one word. Anything else is complex.
Comment One thing to remember--NSDL is more than collections. Web services and communication opportunities, sense of community. We need to ensure that the messages we create emphasize all of the NSDL, not just the collections.
Comment It would be helpful to communicate the scale and trajectory of the NSDL program. This is a big interdisciplinary collaborative project with this number of collections, funded by this number of dollars, and generating these off-shoot projects. We need to get across idea that NSDL is a large resource.
A That's difficult at a booth, but possible in a workshop. Please look at the new outreach materials as they are posted, use them, and give feedback. What is NSDL: more than digitized pieces of text. Examples of video online, specific examples from projects. Coop effort of scientists, educators, etc. A Work in progress.
Comment We often target teachers, but our resources hopefully will engage young people, not just their educators. Is there a possibility of developing anything to reach students directly?
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