Panel 8: Relationship Between Groups 

Original draft 8/9/99 
Revised 8/21/99 by Karen Kemp 
Revised 9/27/99 by Karen Kemp 

Members: Kemp, Semken, Dodds, Geary, Geer, and Ambos 

How will the library foster interactions between and among groups involved in Earth system
(science) education? 

RESOLVED: 

Given that Earth System Science focuses on the interfaces between disciplines, the Digital Library must
actively seek out opportunities for outreach and inclusion. Thus, the Digital Library will foster interactions among groups by defining areas of potential mutual benefit, and by approaching target groups to explore the opportunities for interactions with the library and each other. 

DISCUSSION: 

An important step in fostering interactions is to obtain support not just from groups directly involved in
Earth system science education, but also those who have influence on the policies, procedures, attitudes, and cultures of the digital library users/contributors. Such groups would include, but would not be limited to: academic administrators (school principals, deans, department chairs, promotion committees), NSF and NASA program officers, and the media (journalists). 

To develop this topic further, panel members identified barriers to potential DL users and contributors. In particular Earth system science research and education is often not acknowledged as valuable in academic units that hire faculty to develop focused, disciplinary research programs. Researchers in government laboratories may also receive negative incentives that prevent their participation in education product development.  

While the longterm goal of this project is to have an all encompassing, vertically and horizontally integrated library, the panel concluded that it would be most practical to begin with a concentration on the materials and services of most immediate value to the constituency of educators for grades 7 through 16. Clearly even these materials will be applicable to many other constituencies, and certainly to learners, but such a focus will be useful in helping the project move forward quickly in the initial stages. The primary domain for the DL should be Earth system science research and education. This means that materials on the "margins" or "interfaces" between disciplines or spheres are considered most, but not solely, appropriate for DL inclusion. 

The general policy for interaction is to research the mission(s) of the target groups, identify areas where the DL maps onto the group's mission and strategic plans, and open a dialog to explore the advantages and mutual benefits of the DL participation. 

1. How should the library interact with government agencies? 

The panel felt that the most important group to work with initially is the federal agencies because they are stable sources of abundant data and often support education. These key agencies include: USGS, NASA, NSF, BLM, EPA, FEMA, NOAA, DOE (both DOE's!), DOD, USDA, NPS, AASG. 

One core selling point would be that the DL should enhance the effectiveness of activities of those agencies that already have education components, and provide valuable education-related services to those agencies that don't have education components. The core content areas that the DL would like to acquire from these agencies span any "interface" areas (i.e., interdisciplinary bio-geo, etc.). The DL would encourage interagency cooperation to increase data interoperability and access to agency information. In return, participation in the DL would increase the public's valuing of agencies' services, an aspect of immense value to agencies who are answerable to taxpayers through the legislative/OMB process. 

1. The Steering Committee appoints an Outreach Coordinator who is responsible for coordinating the
   outreach activities. This should be a staff position. 
2. For each agency, the Outreach Coordinator will, in consultation with the Steering Committee  members and others, identify key contacts: these can include senior administrators, education staff, scientists, web/network specialists. Such contacts may be nominated from within the agency and/or by DL people with knowledge of the agency. (It is necessary to work within existing chains of command; it is also understood that senior-level contacts may soon delegate duties to subordinate staff, who will remain the active liaisons between their agencies and the DL.) 
3. The Outreach Coordinator will form teams to be confirmed by the Steering Committee that include the Outreach Coordinator, the agency contacts identified previously, and at least two additional outside specialists, each well-versed in geoscience-related research and education but connected to the DL project. One of these specialists will represent a field that is within the agency's mission (e.g., geologists, hydrologists, ecologists for USGS; meteorologists or oceanographers for NOAA), and the other will represent a related field (to ensure broader ESS relevance). 
   
   • Specialists will be nominated by and from within the memberships of the various professional societies allied with the DL. The DL reserves the right to select from among the nominees.
   • These teams may or may not be agency-specific (some specialists may be able to work with more than one agency). 
4. The team members will work together to
   • Specify mutual benefits of collaboration between the agency and the DL; 
   • Identify data within the agency's resources that facilitate learning about ESS; 
   • Determine how these data can be made optimally useful for learning; and 
   Determine how these optimally-useful data can be made available through the DL; preexisting
   models for this type of collaboration include Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC),
   AMS Data Streme, and JEI. 
5. Appropriate DL technical personnel will work with the agency's web/network specialists to bring
   the optimally-useful data into the DL. 

State, Tribal and Local Government Agencies 

The group recognized that state, tribal and local agencies may be important in providing local data. These groups should be addressed in a later phase of the DL, using approaches perfected through prior collaboration with Federal agencies. Wherever possible, representative or clearinghouse organizations such as the Association of American State Geologists will be contacted for assistance in organizing these collaborations. 

2. How should the library interact with professional societies 

Since the list of relevant professional societies is very long (including AMS, AGI, AGU, GSA, AAPG,
SEG, ACS, AAG, Sigma Xi, etc.) and there is considerable cross-membership amongst organizations, the panel suggested that the societies of geoscience educators, such as NSTA, NESTA, NAGT, NMEA, NCGE should be the first to be approached. As well, certain of the geoscience societies (such as the AMS, GIS (Geoscience Information Society) or GLA (Geoscience Librarians' Association) ) who do have very strong and active education divisions or missions might also be profitably included in the initial outreach. The benefits to professional societies would include: promotion of the mission of the society, probably through "marketing" the scientific/educational accomplishments of the members of the society and providing new services. The benefits accrued to the DL. through ties to professional societies would include the contributions of society members to content development and review processes, and possibly linkages to society web pages with "best of" links. As well, it should be recognized that the professional organizations can play a key role in helping the DL promote some of the innovations in tenure and academic credit which are needed to encourage individual participation in the project. 

1. The Chair of the Steering Committee with assistance from the Outreach Coordinator sends an invitation letter with a copy of the report from this meeting to each relevant professional Society's
   president and Executive Director. Letter will explain our interest in collaborating with Professional
   Societies, our ideas of the mutual benefits to be gained from collaboration and an invitation to
   participate. The letter will suggest some levels of participation which might include: 
   • Simply staying informed of the project's progress 
   • Providing contributions of education materials and data 
   • Assisting with community building for the DL by helping with outreach to their societies'
     membership 
   • Participating in development of components of the DL 
2. Society's governing board or council discusses whether and how to participate and respond to the
   invitation appropriately. 
3. Steering Committee responds to the Society's offers as needed. 
4. Outreach Coordinator prepares a letter to be signed by the presidents of key professional societies
   that strongly emphasizes that involvement in this library represents significant contributions to both
   teaching and service in the academy. 

Note that certain scientific institutions such as the Smithsonian Institute, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, American Museum of Natural History, etc. might also be approached in a similar manner for discussion of related mutual benefits. 

3. How should the library interact with other digital libraries? 

Some relevant digital library activities include the NSF-engineering database, ADL, IMS, and
clearinghouses of ERIC, Virtual Geography Department, Virtual Museum of Paleontology, Virtual
Geoscience Professor, etc. The panel defined mutual benefits including content exchange, linkage of
standards, sharing of protocols, lessons learned. 

1. The Steering Committee identifies a key DLESE person who is well informed about the DL
   community at large (eg. someone from the Alexandria Digital Library's Digital Earth Prototype
   (ADEPT) project). This person should be an active member of the Steering Committee of the DL
   project. Charge this person with the following tasks: 
• Initial effort will be to prepare a report identifying relevant DL projects and summarizing the
  critical relationships and similarities to this project. 
• Be the key person for coordinating negotiation of issues of interoperability between this DL
  and other DLs to ensure direct links to content (rather than links to other DL front ends). 
2. The Steering Committee forms bilateral working relationships with other DL projects for ensuring
   alignment of individual DL interests and components. 

4. How should the library interact with the private sector (specifically their Education
Foundations)? 

Among the most appropriate private sector partners would be the education foundations of petroleum,
mining, telecommunications, technology, environmental assessment, remediation firms, and GIS
companies. DL would encourage private sector to contribute funds to support the DL, and access to
information that could be put in the DL. In return, private sector participants would benefit from the
enormous public relations value of good education outreach programs, which can translate to increased
market share. One example company is ESRI, which provides excellent education outreach and products,
and in return retains large market share. 

1. The Steering Committee identifies a person with interest and experience in fundraising, development
   in Education context. This person should be a member of the steering committee or DL staff. 
• Tap the collective knowledge of the DL steering committee to identify key institutional targets
  and the possible mutual benefits to be gained by their participation. 
• Solicit foundation and private sector support for the DL 

5. How should the library interact with publishers? 

One benefit to publishers through DL interactions might include identifying additional markets. Advantages to DL through publisher interactions would include expertise transfer in marketing and design. Since there is potential for high value in these collaborations, it is important to open communication channels with the publishers soon. 

1. The Chair of the Steering Committee sends a letter to Geoscience editors informing them of the DL,
   minimally of the cataloging activities, and invite them to participate to ensure their materials are
   properly identifies and located. 

6. How should the library interact with international community? 

The panel identified groups such as WHO, UNESCO, IRIS, ESSE, FAO, WMO, IMF, World Bank,
BGA, GSA, GLOBE that might be partners. Although collaborations with these groups are likely to be as valuable and useful as with US based groups, the panel felt that, in the spirit of getting the project moving as quickly as possible, international outreach could justifiably be delayed to a later phase of DL. 

7. How should the library reach out to users outside the traditional Earth science community? 

In addition to groups discussed above, the panel also identified museums, science centers, NGOs (e.g.
Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund), private educators, informal science venues as additional opportunities for collaboration. Again, panel felt that this build out would be best accomplished in later of DL, particularly once strategies for such partnerships have been devised. 

Timeline for action 

Since interaction with various communities is essential for the development and success of this library, the panel feels that efforts to reach out to government agencies, professional societies, and other digital
libraries, as described above in sections 1 to 3, should begin immediately. Other interactions can be
initiated once the project has made some visible headway and the benefits for participation of these others groups can be demonstrated to them. 

Quotes, literature citations, URLs, illustrations or images 

Here are my suggestions for supporting materials which are not likely to be on other people's standard lists.

Literature

Heywood, D. I., Kemp, K. K., and Reeve, D. E. (1999). "Interoperable education for interoperable GIS." Interoperating Geographic Information Systems, M. F. Goodchild, M. J. Egenhofer, R. Fegeas, and C. A. Kottmann, eds., Kluwer, New York,
443-458. This chapter contains a description of a vision of being able to create education "events" from a combination of interoperable education "objects" found on the web. Draft version available (unofficially) on the web at http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/ige98/chapter.html.

Kemp, K. K., Reeve, D. E., and Heywood, D. I. (1998). Report of the International Workshop on Interoperability for GIScience Education, IGE '98, Soesterberg, The Netherlands, May 18-20, 1998 , National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, University of California Santa Barbara, USA. This is the report of a workshop at which the GIScience community discussed a lot of related issues. Available on the web at http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/ige98/report/ncgia.html.

URLs

FGDC - http://www.fgdc.gov

Virtual Geography Department - http://www.utexas.edu/depts/grg/virtdept/contents.html

NCGIA's Interoperability for Geographic Information Science Education meeting report - http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/ige98

International Network for Teaching and Learning - http://www.chelt.ac.uk/el/philg/gdn/inlt/index.htm. Yet another group trying to connect distributed education materials through digital networks. This one focused on Geography with a heavy pedagogy focus.

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