Abstract Submitted to Spring 99 AGU, Session U07

The creation of a digital library as a common repository for geosciences education is important, however the effort poses difficult challenges. There are several keys to realize success in this effort. Within the geosciences there are fundamental issues in dealing with the interests of different core geoscience disciplines; scientific content, semantics, data types and files, utility and applications of data, instructional practices, etc. Other than at the survey level there is little commonality of course content among classroom texts for degree majors in the geoscience disciplines. Even at the survey level the differences are much greater than the similarities. An assessment of common needs, differences and barriers that currently exist between geoscience disciplines must be made if mutual benefits are to be realized in education. There must be recognition of course content needs that are unique to each of the core geoscience disciplines. The question emerges: Will there be needs which drive the development of cross-disciplinary educational resources among the core disciplines? This contrasts with the common need of core geosciences and other disciplines for the development of inter/multidisciplinary educational resources for Earth System Science Education. Key to success here is the development of a community who understands the importance of addressing these issues for the core geoscience disciplines and Earth system science.

For the digital library to succeed, the various core constituencies representing educational level and disciplines must be identified and engaged. Questions of content and presentation by geoscience disciplines and likewise content and presentation for the broader needs of interdisciplinary Earth system science education must be addressed. Clear objectives for the core geoscience and Earth system science disciplines must be stated with time lines for development of educational resources by levels; K-12, undergraduate, graduate, outreach, etc. There must be a demand from the constituencies coincident with the establishment of ownership by the constituencies. There must be contributions by the constituencies. There must be a sharing of educational resources ranging from byte size to course size. These conditions can only be met if the digital library establishes itself as a unique resource in terms of data, information, content for the classroom and laboratory, and provides for collaboration among the users, and between the users and the digital library staff. The aim here is to ensure active participation by faculty and students in the classroom development and utilization of shared educational resources.

There needs to be emphasis on one stop shopping in the sense that this activity becomes central to accessing education resources and gaining information. The library, however, must point to other digital libraries where relevant quality resources reside. Since initially the educational resources and holdings will be addressed primarily to lower and upper level undergraduate courses, how soon and in what order will the priorities turn to K-12, graduate, outreach, etc.? The focus and time lines here will determine the constituencies. Within the framework of this activity, attention must be given to governance, accountability and evaluation by the disciplines involved and also by the sponsoring agencies.