ChemEd Digital Library: An NSDL Pathway for Chemical Sciences Education

Report to NSDL Resource Center and Pathways PIs

Chemical Education Digital Library, 2010

We describe here the major accomplishments of the ChemEd DL during its four years of existence. We emphasize accomplishments during the past year, which has seen great strides in the breadth of offerings from ChemEd DL

A Repository, not a Referatory

It is important to point out that the ChemEd DL is mainly a collection of digital assets, not just a collection of links. Unlike referatories, which store metadata only, the ChemEd DL has content in its repository. We can update and enhance our digital assets, and they are not subject to URL decay—they will be available in the same way for a long time. Each digital asset has passed peer review before being added to the ChemEd DL. Some have been even more thoroughly evaluated, and the evaluations have been published. We have now consolidated our ability to house resources in an Alfresco data repository and are actively seeking to add new resources: videos, courses, textbooks, and other items. We are also actively seeking and adding pedagogic documentation for learning components and in the near future we will make such how-to-teach-it information available in several ways.

ChemEd Content, the content and metadata repository of ChemEd DL, is based upon the open source enterprise content management system, Alfresco (www.alfresco.com). Alfresco provides a highly scalable, robust, standards-driven content repository. Records management, library services (check-in/check-out), version control, content transformation, and workflows are just some of the services offered by ChemEd Content via Alfresco. ChemEd Content is capable of supporting a large-scale, chemistry-specific digital library and we have integrated it with the NSDL technology base to share metadata. This content repository also enables easy linking of different kinds of resources into new packages, such as our Periodic Table Resource Pak, that greatly expand the applicability and usability of ChemEd DL resources. The Alfresco data repository and well-defined content models for our various types of digital assets (including chemistry-specific models for data, elements, and molecules) enable developers to incorporate digital assets of all kinds into their own lessons and other materials. By handling not only metadata but also storing content, ChemEd DL is better able to manage such problems as broken links, usage rights, and sustainability of the content.

The ChemEd DL Portal

The ChemEd DL portal provides access to 17 collections and 11 communities. There are also online services such as podcasts, ChemEd Courses (Moodle), and ChemEd Collaborative (wiki). ChemEd Courses currently contains 12 courses, some of which are being offered to students at institutions other than those directly involved in the project. ChemEd Collaborative includes workspaces for each of our communities and each of our services and provides for communication among developers of new communities and services.

The ChemEd DL portal was an instant success and has climbed steadily in the search-engine rankings. As of May 19, 2010 in a search for “chemical education”, ChemEd DL was ranked number 8 by Google, number 41 by Yahoo!, number 24 by Bing, and number 8 by AOL. Our partner JCE Online site, which prominently features ChemEd DL, is at the top of all of these lists.

We have used a strategy of implementing best-of-breed open source technologies wherever possible. Wikis, blogs, and learning management systems are familiar technologies provided by open source software. We now describe specific ChemEd DL services and learning components.

ChemEd DL Digital Assets

Since its inception in January 2007, ChemEd DL has added to its content repository, ChemEd Content, more than 30,000 peer-reviewed articles from the Journal of Chemical Education, about 2500 streaming video clips and more than 10,000 still images showing chemical phenomena from the award-winning Chemistry Comes Alive! video collection, the JCE QBank collection of more than 4000 homework/quiz questions that can be delivered through course management systems such as Moodle, a complete, digitized general chemistry textbook, part of a digitized physical chemistry textbook, a digitized introductory college chemistry laboratory manual, and more than 1000 molecular and crystal structures in our Models 360 collection selected especially for their ability to demonstrate molecular concepts in a 3-D, interactive environment..

ChemEd DL Services

Courses in Moodle

ChemEd Courses is an implementation of the Moodle open-source course management system (http://moodle.org). Chemistry content developers within the ChemEd DL community have instituted several courses and we have developed and delivered workshops using ChemEd Courses. The Moodle site now includes about 20 courses from four different institutions. ChemEd Courses also makes available the collection of more than 4000 general-chemistry, physical-chemistry, and organic-chemistry questions mentioned above.

Wiki Collaborative Development

ChemEd Collaborative is an implementation of the MediaWiki wiki software. Within ChemEd Collaborative we have enabled the collaborative, open development of a periodic table and general chemistry textbook. Both services have been augmented for use by chemists with support for Jmol (http://jmol.sourceforge.net/) molecular model viewing and for math equations (MathML, MathType, TeX conversion). Each service also supports QuickTime movies to allow integration of the Chemistry Comes Alive! collection of streaming video clips.

Streaming Video

A streaming video server delivers JCE’s Chemistry Comes Alive! (CCA!) collection of chemistry videos. (Chemistry Comes Alive! won the 2006 Pirelli Internetional Prize for best online resource in chemistry.) Several titles within the ChemEd DL collections (General Chemistry Multimedia Problems, ChemPages Laboratory, Periodic Table Live!, What’s This?) have been converted to use the streaming video. In collaboration with an NSF-funded Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) project we have incorporated CCA! video into an online textbook. The video is also useful for developing other collections, and our data repository makes it straightforward for others to incorporate the video into their projects.

ChemEd DL Deliverables

Textbook Tables of Contents

Textbook Tables of Contents (TToC) uses metadata to link chapter and section headings from the tables of contents of standard textbooks with online resources in the ChemEd DL (http://content.chemeddl.org/alfresco/service/org/chemeddl/ttoc/ttocs_all?guest=true).  TToC currently includes about 30 textbooks ranging from middle school to undergraduate level. More tables of contents are now being assigned metadata and will be included soon. TToC allows a student or teacher to choose a textbook, click on a chapter, click on a section heading, and then see a list of ChemEd DL resources appropriate for that particular section.  Resources included currently are videos from Chemistry Comes Alive!, assessment questions from the JCE QBank collection, JCE articles, and molecular structures from Models 360.

ChemTeacher

ChemTeacher is a collection of interactive lesson plans that link to existing digital assets and learning components. These are designed to help teachers with just-in-time support that will enable them to quickly and conveniently locate and use digital assets and learning objects within the ChemEd Content repository. This approach is especially useful for new teachers and substitute teachers as a means to easily access online resources without having to search for and evaluate the assets. ChemTeacher is at http://www2.chemeddl.org/labs/chemteacher/. Its structure has been laid out, and we are adding resources; so far the Gas Laws section is the most complete. ChemTeacher also provides an interface by which users can contribute links to each ChemTeacher lesson plan; that service is being connected with our Alfresco data repository so that we can add links, have them reviewed, and include the best materials in our collections.

Each lesson plan provides fundamental information such as definitions and mathematical formulas relevant to the subject. More importantly, each plan links to resources, such as Chemistry Comes Alive! videos, that are available in ChemEd Content. (See the Videos section of Gases>Gas Laws>Boyle’s Law, where CCA! videos have been included.) Other features also draw upon ChemEd DL resources.

Periodic Table Resource Pak

A section of ChemTeacher is devoted to resource paks. Each resource pak lists all digital assets from the ChemEd DL and other NSDL Pathways that are relevant to a specific topic. Currently we have one resource pak—the periodic table (http://www2.chemeddl.org/periodic_table.php).

Periodic Table Live! (PTL!)

Periodic Table Live! is our interactive periodic table that has been specifically designed for pedagogic use. It is the winner of the MERLOT Classics Award 2010 for chemistry online learning materials  (http://taste.merlot.org/MERLOTAwards/ExemplaryLearningMaterials.html). The original design was developed by a group of experienced teachers as a means for introducing more active and discovery learning into chemistry curricula. We are just completing a major update of the software so that videos, molecular and crystal structures, and other information are drawn from ChemEd Content, rather than being hardwired into PTL!. This allows better integration of data within Periodic Table Live! with other ChemEd DL resources, such as the ChemPRIME/ChemPaths online textbook (see following sections).

We are also creating much more extensive pedagogic documentation to accompany Periodic Table Live! For example, we have created multimedia instructions for faculty and students as well as student worksheets to guide students toward discovering chemical principles related to the periodic table. Links to these materials are collected in the Periodic Table Resource Pak. In addition we have partnered with a middle school teacher, Dan Toomey, to relate Periodic Table Live! and lessons based on it to science education standards, both state and national. Developing these materials has made it obvious that more such pedagogic documentation is needed, that such documentation should include alignment with standards, and that much better means are required for collecting and disseminating how-to-teach-it information.

ChemPRIME

ChemPRIME places each topic in a typical general chemistry course into a variety of contexts that will pique a variety of student interests. For example, the topic density has exemplars in these contexts: geology; physics and astronomy; everyday life; sports, physiology, and health; biology; culture; environmental/green chemistry and sustainability; and forensics. These exemplars complement the typical general-chemistry treatment of density, which is referred to as “CoreChem”. Each exemplar examines the same topic but uses examples from, say, geology, or culture. Thus a student who is interested in or plans to major in a particular field can study chemistry in the context of his or her interests. We are partnering with Ed Vitz (Kutztown University) through a CCLI grant to build this resource, which is based on our online chemistry textbook. ChemPRIME is located at http://wiki.chemprime.chemeddl.org/. A workshop to introduce others to ChemPRIME and teach them how to enter exemplars into the wiki was held Monday, August 2, at the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education in Denton, TX.

ChemPaths

ChemPaths is a service by which teachers at all levels can build online textbooks that provide an integrated, flexible, multimedia experience for their classes. ChemPRIME is creating exemplars in each of six or more contexts for each concept in the textbook, thereby building for each topic a substantial learning object. These learning objects can be used in different orders and different ways to create different online textbooks. Using ChemPaths, each teacher can specify a different path along which students will encounter and interact with the ChemPRIME objects. For example, a teacher could specify Chapter 1 first, then Chapter 7, Chapter 8, and Chapter 9; then Chapter 13, part of Chapter 18, Chapter 14, and the rest of Chapter 18. Each such path constitutes a new and different section, chapter, or even entire textbook. ChemPaths has been tested in two different, large-enrollment chemistry courses where two different online textbooks were created and used by large numbers of students.

ChemPaths combines the traditional content benefits of a printed textbook with the inter-connected structure of the Web. For instance: a traditional textbook will have a periodic table, a glossary, and an index. These are all present within ChemPaths, but the periodic table is Periodic Table Live!, which will continually be updated by addition of new information and data by contributors to the ChemEd DL. In ChemPaths, mousing over a word in the glossary brings up a definition, and a student can search the entire textbook for a word or phrase. The two textbooks just mentioned include many videos from the Chemistry Comes Alive! collection and many molecules from the Models 360 collection of Jmol interactive molecular structures. Thus our online textbooks are interactive multimedia experiences that can be designed based on constructivist pedagogy. ChemPaths is available at http://chemed.chem.wisc.edu/chempaths/. The two textbooks that have been used in UW-Madison courses are available in the left side-bar: Chem 109H (~100 students) and Chem 104 (~350 students).

Outreach

The ChemEd DL has always had a strong program of outreach. Workshops done to date are summarized in the table below. Our Pathways II grant has a major outreach component, and many workshops are scheduled for the next year and a half. We are also collaborating with CSERD, which is proposing an extensive new workshop program. The quality of our outreach programs has been attested to by independent groups: the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh and the Society of Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh, which have provided additional support for new workshops.

Evaluation

ChemEd DL is beginning an intensive evaluation program that will involve both our online learning materials and our workshops (together with pedagogical ideas developed by workshop participants). Our evaluator for the Pathways II project is Diane Bunce, Catholic University, Washington, DC. Diane is eager to collaborate with evaluation programs of other Pathways and especially the Resource Center.

Collaboration

ChemEd DL is interested in collaboration with other Pathways, TNS, and the Resource Center in any ways that will further the aims of the NSDL.

We currently are collaborating with two NSF CCLI projects: IONiC/VIPEr, a collaborative group of inorganic chemists that is exploring Web 2.0 techniques for communication among individuals on may different small-college campuses; and ChemPRIME (see above) which is using ChemEd DL’s online general chemistry textbook to develop multiple exemplars related to many other disciplines.

We are collaborating with Robert Belford, who has been funded by the NSF NSDL program to develop and incorporate into the ChemEd DL a WikiHyperGlossary (WHG). The WHG allows glossaries to be created by ChemEd DL communities and turned into links that bring up the definition or other information. For example, by using the names of the chemical elements as glossary entries, the WHG will be able to automatically annotate a document so that each time an element is mentioned a link is provided to the information about that element in the Periodic Table Live!. We see the WHG as another tool on the same order of utility as our Textbook Table of Contents browsing tool.

We are also collaborating with several Pathways regarding workshops and other outreach and aiding in evaluation of resources. We have collaborated with the Resource Center (RC) to provide videos in iTunes U, worked with the Metadata Working Group to develop restricted vocabularies in several areas, participated in outreach through booths at meetings and NSTA Web Seminars, and helped develop a connection between RC and ChemEd DL with the Georgia Department of Education through its online GALILEO project. We are initiating a collaboration with the NSDL Pedagogic Service to collect and develop pedagogic information through ChemEd DL workshops and then archive that information in the Pedagogic Service data repository. We will also be collaborating with the Resource Center to explore the use of Facebook for communication among teachers and dissemination of pedagogic information.