Pathways call summary - February 9, 2011: Collections Assessment Process and Learning Application Readiness

• URL for individual collection reports  - provided on request 

• Presentation for February 9 Pathways call discussion: 

http://nsdlnetwork.org/sites/default/files/2011 Feb9Collections Assessment-distrib_0.pdf

• Additional links from slide deck to controlled vocabularies (second-to-last slide): 
  • Type (resource): http://nsdl.org/collection/type.php 
  • Education level: http://nsdl.org/collection/educationLevel.php 
  • Audience: http://nsdl.org/collection/audience.php 
  • Access rights: http://nsdl.org/collection/accessRights.php 
  • Mime types: http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/
    
    

On the call: 

Pathways: Ed Almasy (AMSER); Miranda Byse (APS/BEN); John Moore, Jon Holmes (ChemEd DL); Tamara Ledley, Anne Gold, Mark McCaffrey, Sean Fox (CLEAN); Bruce Mason (ComPADRE); Jennifer Houchins, Jenny Jones (CSERD); Loretta Melhado (DLESE); Paul MacKinney (Engineering); Yinlin Chen, Rick Furuta (Ensemble); Rabbieh Razzouk (ICPALMS); Cathy Lowe, Laura Bartolo (MatDL); Lang Moore (MathDL); Tracy Lau, Betsey Peisach, Gail Long (MathPath); Mary Henton (MSP2); Darrell Porcello (SMILE); Ted Sicker (Teachers' Domain); JP DeWitt, Lynette Hoelter (TeachingwithData)

RC: Eileen McIlvain, Kaye Howe, Susan Van Gundy, Laura Moin, Mary Marlino, Laurie Smith (Project Tomorrow)

TNS: Letha Goger, Katy Ginger, Mike Wright, Tammy Sumner, Holly Devaul, Karon Kelly, John Weatherly, Anh Nguyen, Sharon Clark

NAB: Marsha Mardis, Robert Payo, Luti Salisbury

Letha Goger of NSDL Technical Network Services gave a presentation on the collections assessment process and the notion of "learning application readiness" (LAR) that has emerged from the process.

Learning application readiness refers to how closely educational resources, collections, and their related metadata are aligned to educational goals, curriculum, or professional development needs of users, and how readily those resources and collections can be embedded in tools and services that educators and students use (examples include: Science Literacy Maps, Curriculum Customization Service, content management or learning management systems), where the application uses a frameworks that characterizes resources by: subject, education level, resource type, audience, and educational standards (educational metadata). 

Letha's presentation explained the collections assessment process undertaken in 2010, as a next step subsequent to the deaccessioning effort of 2009, which refocused the library contents on resources suitable for teaching and learning. The next step was to determine exactly what the collections in NSDL consisted of, what metadata fields are in use, and also yielded results on collection longevity, aging of resources, and collections, and general collection growth. 

Questions/comments that arose during the presentation:

• Ed Almasy -> this process is of interest to us, how it was conducted, so that we might do something similar across our own collections.  
• Reveals inconsistent use of educational metadata (25% of collections have no educational metadata - this roughly conforms to the number of collections that use OAI-DC rather than NSDL_DC
• Ed inquired about guidelines for standards fields for higher education? Katy noted that technology standards and geography standards can be helpful at the higher ed level. It is also worth exploring developments in the Advanced Placement arena - there may be new recommendations from AP that could be helpful, transitioning from high school to undergrad. 
• Letha -> Use of fields that have controlled vocabs - consistency in completing the educational metadata fields ini NSDL_DC would be substantial. If descriptions alone included reference to the desired learning outcome, that would be a big help. 
• Kaye Howe -> NSF has been asking us to demonstrate educational impact. Helpful for all projects to note that the NSDL Accessioning Board's responsibility is to look at the quality of metadata in collections, especially in these educational fields, and to make judgements about the work of their colleagues across NSDL. This is difficult. It is important to think of the impact of the weak point on the whole enterprise. If we don't want to undercut our own sustainability, credibility, and competitiveness, we must make these difficult decisions. This way of thinking is a sea change for NSDL. 
• Rabbieh Razzouk -> best way to enhance existing metadata (that you don't own)? Katy -> use of annotations frameworks 
• Darrell -> TeachEngineering is learning app ready - can eventually see a subset of collections that adhere to this guideline. A plan? prototypes? motivation and recognition. And what of interoperability possibilities? What is the carrot? more use cases needed.  
• Mike Wright noted that the opening up of restrictions - i.e. ability of TNS to accommodate native metadata formats - this gives us more flexibility to deal with legitimate variation. 
• Susan Van Gundy also commented that initiatives like STEM Exchange, Learning Registry, development of Math Common Core collections; these are all exchanges that rely on the use of well-defined educational metadata. 
• Continuing discussion of these issues is critical.