1. INTRODUCTION

We propose to conduct a national meeting of key leaders and educators in Earth and Space Science. The meeting participants will be charged to develop an action plan for the establishment of a national digital library to support undergraduate education in Earth and Space Science. (In this proposal, we use the term "national digital library" to refer to both a collection of electronic materials, and the community based organization that manages the collection, develops new software tools, and provides consulting and training services to library users.) This national digital library is recognized as the central organizing tool for dissemination and coordination of curricular materials and instructional methods, and for developing interfaces with primary data needed for effective inquiry based study of the Earth System.

1.1 Goal for the Meeting  [back to the letter]

The goal for the proposed meeting to is develop an action plan that

• articulates the need for a digital national library (as recommended in Shaping the Future, New Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology, National Science Foundation, 1996 (hereafter NSF96) supporting education in Earth and Space Science,

• states a vision for the state of this library in 2010,

• makes recommendations regarding

• the library`s initial scope, structure, and operating procedures, and

• a community based consortium to operate the library.

Recommendations developed at the meeting and through subsequent community wide discussion via the World Wide Web will be documented in a meeting report. This report will be formulated as a plan of action for establishment of a national digital library supporting Earth and Space Science education and operated by an open consortium with broad community support. The establishment of such a consortium is a key recommendation of Shaping the Future of Undergraduate Earth Science Education (Ireton et al., 1996; hereafter STF); the relevant section is reproduced in Appendix 1.

Copies of the meeting report will be provided to the sponsoring agencies, meeting attendees, and professional and scientific organizations with interest in the Earth and Space Sciences, and disseminated broadly through the Earth and Space Science education community.

1.2 Motivation - Why Call Such a Meeting?[back to the letter]

Over the past eight years, the Earth and Space Science education community has identified as high priority needs: 1) instruction of a much larger generation of Earth Science teachers as required for implementation of the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996; hereafter NRC96); 2) preparation of the next generation of Earth and space scientists for success in both traditional and emerging geoscience careers; and 3) use of Earth and Space Science as a vehicle for enhanced science education for all students (Scrutiny of Undergraduate Geoscience Education, 1994; STF). It has also been recognized that satisfying these needs requires that two obstacles be overcome. First, the Earth and Space Science community overcome its traditional fragmentation -- based both on the parts of the Earth traditionally studied by different groups of people and on institutional goals, size, and student body -- and work together to foster in students the development of understanding of the whole Earth System (STF, pg. 14). Second, instructors must employ best teaching practices including building inquiry and discovery into all courses and providing experience with the processes of science (STF, pg. 25).

The proposed meeting aims to establish a "national digital library" to support the Earth and Space Science educational community. The process of establishing this library, in and of itself, will be an important step in reducing fragmentation between the various parts of this community. Furthermore, it is recognized that the emergence of the "Earth System" concept as a unifying theme in Earth and Space Science education requires new tools for teaching. Rapid dissemination of high quality instructional tools to the entire community must be a priority at this time. Finally, two of the most powerful tools for integrating inquiry, discovery, and the process of science into Earth Science courses are 1) the use of real time atmospheric, oceanographic, and seismic data (STF, pg. 27), and 2) the use of Geographic Information Systems and image analysis techniques to assimilate and explore spatial data sets (including remote sensing data). Collection and maintenance of these data sets is a community effort carried largely in support of the research enterprise. A parallel community effort is needed to provide an effective and stable interface with these data sets for educational purposes. These community needs coincide with advancements in digital communications and information science that make it is possible to establish a national digital library (National Research Council, 1988 (hereafter NRC98); National Science Foundation, 1998 (hereafter NSF98); NRC, report in progress).

Thus we believe that a community meeting to formulate an action plan for establishing a national digital library supporting education in Earth and Space Science is the appropriate next step in implementing the agenda set forth in Shaping the Future of Undergraduate Earth Science Education. This plan will provide a community vision to guide respondents to the current request for proposals on "Applications of Digital Libraries to Undergraduate Earth Systems Education" (National Science Foundation, 1999 (hereafter NSF99)) and future efforts to build national digital libraries for other disciplines.

1.3. The Challenge - Establishing A National Digital Library To Support Earth and Space Science Education

We envision the key aspect of the digital library to be access to 1) instructional materials (e.g., exercises for discovery and inquiry in large classrooms, laboratory exercises, summary papers to assist in preparation of instruction on particular topics, etc); 2) data sets and software tools to allow students to explore major aspects of the Earth System; and 3) materials and training that will assist faculty in implementing the most effective methods for instructing students.

A national digital library is the best tool for providing such access because it can 1) provide convenient, stable cross-platform access to instructional materials, 2) establish standards and foster the development by the community of software tools for accessing, manipulating, displaying, and interpreting archived and real-time data sets, 3) provide a structure for review, organization, and dissemination of instructional materials, and 4) providing training and assistance to faculty nationwide.

In establishing such a facility there are four key areas that must be addressed:

• Collecting materials. This potentially includes materials of vastly different types, e.g., from big, fairly concentrated data sets (weather and climate data) to small, widely distributed materials such as laboratory exercises developed by individual faculty.

• Organizing materials. This leads to questions of how the library will be structured to facilitate easy access, and includes information science issues such as indexing, annotating, reviewing, and preserving the collection. Related questions include searching across sub-collections, using standard or controlled vocabularies, and establishing appropriate standards for metadata and interoperability.

• Evaluating materials. Faculty have repeatedly called for easy access to high-quality instructional material (STF, p. 27; UCAR, 1998). Thus we envision that the library will necessarily include a rigorous system for evaluation of materials. This will likely include not only peer review and user comments, but also a significant component based on measures of student learning. Instruments to measure the effectiveness of materials and methods will need to be developed to fully implement such and evaluation system. Evaluation data, reviews, and users' comments could be part of the metadata associated with material stored in the library. Ideally, admittance of one's work into the library will come to have the prestige of a traditional journal publication. Community involvement in designing and implementing the evaluation system is required.

• Obtaining and Maintaining User/Community Buy-In. If the library is to become highly used and self-supporting, it is essential that it be community-owned and -maintained. The facility will have to evolve to respond to formative evaluation, as well as to meet changing community needs. Establishment of such a facility, even if much of it is distributed, will be expensive. Further, given the rate of turnover of hardware and software, routine operating costs and periodic upgrades to maintain currency will be costly. To be successful, the community must value the library sufficiently to pay for its services in some way (user fees, decreased budgets for other projects at funding agencies, etc.) Thus, a fundamental priority is establishing community ownership at the outset.

2. PLANNING THE MEETING AND OTHER PRE-MEETING ACTIVITIES

2.1 Organizing Committee 3. CONDUCT OF THE MEETING back to the letter

A "first impressions" report summarizing the main points of the plan of action devised at the meeting will be available to the funding agencies by 1 September.

Dr. Cathy Manduca, Dr. David Mogk and Dr. John Snow will prepare the meeting report. They will compile and edit material produced by the working groups and add introductory and concluding material as needed. They will be charged with extracting the vision, conclusions, and recommendations from the workshop.

In mid September, a draft of the meeting report will be posted to the World Wide Web for community review and comment. The opportunity to review and comment on the report will be advertised widely via e-mail list servers such as geo-ed@arbuckle.geo.utulsa.edu (which reaches over 200 Earth and Space Science educators). Comments will be received for a 60-day period (cutoff at the end of July).

Comments for the community will be considered in preparing the final draft of the report.

4.4 Report Review

The authors will have a final draft report prepared by mid January. This will be provided to all meeting participants for final review and comment (cutoff mid February).

6.0 REFERENCES

Appendix 1[back to the letter]

Recommendation from Panel 7

In

Shaping The Future (Ireton et al., 1996; hereafter STF)

1. Speak with a common voice to affirm and promote NSES and Earth system science.

2. Publicize and promote implementation of the NSES and Earth system science at the K-12 level, on college campuses, to society memberships, to the general science community, to informal educators, and to the public at large through publications, workshops, and public presentations.

3. Develop a coherent, sustainable, and open consortium, linking the educational missions of K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and informal science communities. All participants in the consortium should share in and reinforce common efforts in faculty development, curriculum development, and dissemination. (Joint recommendation with Panel 5).

Appendix 2

Sample Questions To Be Addressed

Typical community concerns to be addressed include…