Progress on Educational Digital Libraries: Current Developments in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program

Abstract

Technological advances in computing and communication continue to challenge the “why, where, and when” of the educational enterprise. Policymakers and advocates from organizations such as EDUCAUSE2, the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)3, the European Schoolnet partnership4, and UNESCO5 have long argued for the potential that information technology has to transform education by improving access — both spatially (“anyplace”) and temporally (“anytime”), by redefining the nature of the classroom and learning, and in some cases by changing cost structures. In recent years various consortia of higher education institutions have formed to explore international collaborations in distance learning, for example: Universitas 21 (http://www.universitas.edu.au/) and the Global University Alliance (www.gua.com) both of which involve institutions from Asia, Europe, and the United States. Many individual institutions have also embarked on distance education ventures and efforts in the K-12 sector are growing as well (see http://chronicle.com/indepth/distance/ players.htm#virtual). Development of online course management systems continues to progress on the commercial front, e.g. WebCT (www.webct.com) and Blackboard (www.blackboard.com), and more recently an open-source effort called the Open Knowledge Initiative (http://web.mit.edu/oki/) has begun.