April 2004 -- Dave Fulker, Core Integration, will conduct a survey of NSDL projects and partners in person and by phone to build a qualitative analysis of common values and infrastructure needs. Characterizing what present and future projects and partners hope to gain by growing the NSDL will be a first step in defining a formal NSDL membership or partnership model in conjunction with a task force identified by the Policy Committee: Gerry Hanley, Katherine Hanson, Ellen Hoffman, and Steve Weimar.

Fulker's study will create a backdrop for developing CI plans for new or improved infrastructure focusing on projects that offer services, tools, and other capabilities that stretch or do not fit the current metadata-centered collection-integration paradigm.

This change in Fulker's work with the NSDL was announced on April 1, 2004. Leadership and administrative responsibilities for NSDL Core Integration have been assumed by Kaye Howe who will hold the lead PI responsibilities for UCAR.

April 2004 -- The PIDL Workshop was held in Philadelphia in February. The report from the workshop edited by Sarah Giersch, iLumina Digital Library, Eugene A. Klotz, The Math Forum @ Drexel, Flora McMartin, MERLOT, Brandon Muramatsu, SMETE.ORG, University of California, Berkeley, K. Ann Renninger, Swarthmore College, Wesley Shumar, Drexel University, and Stephen A. Weimar, The Math Forum @ Drexel is available at http://pidlworkshop.comm.nsdl.org/. Send comments to Sarah Giersch and Steve Weimar .
Related Link: http://pidlworkshop.comm.nsdl.org/

April 2004 -- At the National Central University in Taiwan, Alice Agogino, from the SMETE Open Federation, and Sherry Hsi, from the Exploratorium, participated in an alliance for global mobile learning called G1:1, "A Global Network of Researchers Collaborating to Advance 1:1 Educational Computing." Building on their prior collaboration for the workshop "Learning in the Palm of Your Hand" (http://www.smete.org/smete/public/dimi/), SMETE.ORG and The Exploratorium are working to make classrooms, museums, the outdoors, and other spaces accessible to wireless digital libraries. SMETE.ORG (http://www.smete.org) is compiling an index of mobile learning resources developed by G1:1 partners, whille the Exploratorium (http://www.exploratorium.com) focuses on designing wireless technologies to support nomadic inquiry for informal science learners and educators.
Related Link: http://www.smete.org/smete/public/dimi/

April 2004 -- In an effort to grow the MicrobeLibrary curriculum resources collection, participants in the American Society for Microbiology Conference for Undergraduate Educators (ASMCUE) were invited to submit innovative microbiology laboratory exercises to be discussed in small groups at the meeting. "Facilitating Student Learning in Diverse Environments" is the theme of the 11th Annual ASMCUE meeting, to be held May 21-23, 2004 at Xavier University of Louisiana. Over 200 educators are expected to attend. Authors of the laboratory exercise and a faculty facilitator will work with assigned groups in order to prepare these "Blue Ribbon" exercises for the submission and review processes of the MicrobeLibrary ( and ).
Related Link: http://www.MicrobeLibrary.org

April 2004 -- Physical Science and Engineering collections are now complete and live on http://www.teachersdomain.org/. TEACHERS' DOMAIN brings WGBH's programming and media material into K-12 classrooms via the Internet. The site provides teachers with new and archival video, primary documents, still photographs, interactive activities and lesson plans with embedded media - all of which they can use to augment their existing curriculum. TEACHERS' DOMAIN resources are aligned with the national and state standards for K-12. Teachers Domain currently has about 10,000 people registered across the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Armed Forces overseas, and the Armed Forces Pacific region.

The launch of the new collections of physical science and engineering and a re-launch of the Life Science collection, utilizes a new back end database design that allows resources to be referenced and shared across disciplines. We are working on aligning the new database metadata for OAI harvesting.
Related Link: http://www.teachersdomain.org

April 2004 -- The organizing committee for JCDL 2004 will recognize a limited number of student volunteers by awarding them work/study scholarships for the conference. Student volunteer awardees will receive complimentary conference registration, breakfasts and breaks, plus admission to the opening reception, regular conference sessions (excluding tutorial and workshop sessions), the poster and demo session, and the conference banquet scheduled for Wednesday night at Old Tucson Studios. Student volunteers also get a copy of the conference proceedings. Travel and lodging expenses are the responsibility of the volunteers.

Visit the "student volunteers" portion of the JCDL 2004 web site (http://jcdl2004.org) for more information about applying for a student volunteer work/study award. The application period closes on April 5th, 2004.
Related Link: http://jcdl2004.org

April 2004 -- European Conference on Digital Libraries (ECDL) 2004
http://www.ecdl2004.org
September 12-17 2004, University of Bath, UK
Full papers, panels, tutorials, and workshop proposals: April 5, 2004
Posters and demonstrations: May 19, 2004
Final submission date: June 11, 2004

2004 International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications
http://dc2004.library.sh.cn/
October 11-14,2004, Shanghai, China
Paper submission: May 1, 2004
Acceptance notification: June 1 2004

MLEARN 2004, "Learning Anytime Everywhere"
http://www.mobilearn.org/mlearn2004
July 5-6, 2004, Rome, Italy
Paper submission: April 16, 2004

Thirty-eight Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu
January 3-6, 2005, Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort, Hawaii
Contact Minitrack Chairs: March 31, 2004
Paper submission: June 15, 2004
Related Link: http://www.ecdl2004.org;http://dc2004.library.sh.cn;http://www.mobilearn.org/mlearn2004

April 2004 -- In fall 2003, the National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) program2 made its fourth set of grants in three basic tracks:Collections, Services, and Targeted Research. Along with earlier efforts funded in fiscal years (FY) 2000-02 these new projects are creating and developing a national digital library of high quality science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational resources intended for use by learners at all levels. By supporting broad access to reliable and authoritative learning and teaching materials and associated services in a digital environment, the National Science Digital Library will encourage and sustain continual improvements in the quality of formal STEM education, and also serve as a resource for informal and lifelong learning.
Related Link: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march04/zia/03zia.html

April 2004 -- Related article: http://www.charlestonco.com/features.cfm?id=150&type=ed Much of the coverage of scholarly publishing suggests the future of scholarly publishing is an either/or proposition: open access initiatives vs. commercial publishers. Not so, according to University of Virginia (UVA) University Librarian Karin Wittenborg, who worked with the learned societies that drafted the recently released DC Principles. "The scholarly societies that signed the DC Principles have been publishing high quality content for a long time and have been early adopters of electronic capabilities," Wittenborg told the LJ Academic Newswire. "They also have an excellent track record for making most of their content free within a very short time of publication." In other words, the current system may be ailing, but may not be completely broken. "By and large, the scholarly societies agree that a subscription business model works," Wittenborg explained. "They have serious reservations about an 'author pays' model." Wittenborg said the societies are interested in experimenting with new "free access' initiatives, but want to remind stakeholders that society publishers have generally remained an excellent value over the years. "The societies have a deep commitment to scholarship," she said, citing society publishers' involvement with innovative ventures, such as Stanford University Libraries' award-winning Highwire Press. --Library Academic News Wire, Mar. 23, 2004
Related Link: http://www.charlestonco.com/features.cfm?id=150&type=ed

April 2004 -- whiteboard-focus_on_ed@comm.nsdl.org This monthly e-publication features NSDL news and announcements, use cases and tips from actual educators, Resources of Interest and an AskNSDL question of the week.
Related Link: http://nsdl.org

April 2004 -- http://crossroads.georgetown.edu/vkp/ Located at Georgetown University, the Visible Knowledge Project (VKP) "aims to improve the quality of college and university teaching by focusing on both student learning and faculty developments in technology-enhanced environments." By drawing on the strengths of their 12 partner schools (which include large research universities and community colleges), the various faculty from each institution involved with VKP document the impact of their various pedagogical and technological innovations on student learning and present them in a variety of formats. Many of these engaging projects and tools are available on the website, and may be searched by institution or discipline title. Quite a few will be of interest to instructors, as they feature such topics as Dante and the Journey to Freedom and Multiple Media for Cultural Analysis. Along with these helpful resources, visitors can learn more about the project, read the quarterly newsletter, and learn about individual participants who have taken these ideas to heart throughout the duration of the VKP. [KMG]
Related Link: http://crossroads.georgetown.edu/vkp/

April 2004 -- http://www.google.com/webalerts Google Web Alerts are sent by email when there is new information on the web matching the search you specify.
Related Link: http://www.google.com/webalerts

April 2004 -- Download this book by Stanford University's Lawrence Lessig. In his latest book, FREE CULTURE, Lessig argues that an increasingly strict copyright regime is harming innovation (see LJ Academic Newswire 1/22/04) and, possibly, sales. In a real-world test of his theory, FREE CULTURE is available in digital format for non-commercial use for free, under a Creative Commons license. That means that users can download the book in a variety of e-book formats, print it, copy it, cut, paste, and email chapters to a friend, all at no charge. "It's an experiment," Lessig noted in a statement. "It is my view that exercising less control over at least some content is a better way to drive demand."--Library Journal Academic News Wire, March 30, 2004
Related Link: http://free-culture.org/freecontent/