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Learning Application Readiness (LAR)

A Paradigm for NSDL. Learning Application Readiness (LAR). Katy Ginger 2011. LAR Definition. Refers to how educational resources, collections, and their related metadata are aligned to educational goals, curriculum, or professional development needs of users AND

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Learning Application Readiness (LAR)

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  1. A Paradigm for NSDL Learning Application Readiness (LAR) Katy Ginger 2011

  2. LAR Definition • Refers to how educational resources, collections, and their related metadata are aligned to educational goals, curriculum, or professional development needs of users AND • how readily said resources and collections can be embedded in tools and services that educators and students use.

  3. Learning Application Definition • Tools and services educators use to accomplish learning tasks AND • that have the ability to embed active & curated content from internal or external sources to support desired learning goals The goal is to support contextualized learning experiences, allowing users to find and use or deliver just the right digital content

  4. Curriculum Customization Service (CCS) External publisher content Internal school district content

  5. Why Learning Application Readiness • K-12 and Higher Ed reports emphasize critical missing pieces for educational & digital resources particularly: • Lack of coherent integration • Lack of platform interoperability • NSF has asked NSDL to demonstrate an educational impact

  6. LAR Guiding Principles: Resources • 21st century contexts: advance critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration & recognize the interdisciplinary nature of knowledge • Relevant and reliable for STEM education: authored, meet pedagogical needs of educators and interests of learners • Accessible: rights, licenses, permissions, & technical requirements clearly stated • NSDL policy: Meet Resource Quality Guidelines

  7. LAR Guiding Principles: Metadata • Complete: title, description, URL, educational level, resource type, audience, language, rights, access rights, creation date, contributors/creators, language, mime type and, if appropriate, educational standards • Concise: free of self-promotion; describes purpose and content of resource for comprehension • Accurate: the metadata is correct content for the field

  8. LAR & NSDL Scope/Collections • NSDL has collections that are library appropriate but LAR concepts may not be applicable • reference collections • dataset collections • Collection sustainability/maintenance is important in maintaining LAR • Not always easy to determine LAR

  9. Using LAR Resources • Done programmatically by learning applications • Learning apps using NSDL resources are filtering by: • education level • resource type • subject • audience • educational standards For NSDL currently, human-crafted metadata (resource, annotations & usage data) exceeds machine-created metadata in terms of accuracy and quality.

  10. Curriculum Customization Service (CCS) Teacher selected digital library resource Teacher added comment and rating

  11. Collections Assessment Process for LAR • Examined individual metadata records to get: • Collection size, growth & metadata format • Collection use of educational metadata fields • Readiness to embed collection in learning app • Analyzed educational metadata (fields in next slide) • Combined existing NSDL vocabularies & actual metadata values to create benchmark term set for assessment/categorization.

  12. 142,600 records; 131,342 resources; 121 collections

  13. Sample of Education Level Terms

  14. Benchmark Term Set: Audience • Administrator • Educator • General Public • Learner • Parent/Guardian • Professional/ Practitioner • Researcher

  15. Metadata is Paramount Used to make resource criteria decisions programmatically

  16. Most LAR Collections of NSDL • TeachEngineering • Math Common Core Collection • NSDL Science Refreshers • Harvard Smithsonian Digital Library Also: • TeachingWithData • Teachers' Domain • Compadre • SMILE • MSP2

  17. Examining NSDL Collections for LAR What do the resources and metadata look like for individual collections?

  18. Problem Resources & Metadata: GSDL Resources consist of: Metadata is missing: Education level Resource type Access rights Rights Mime type Creation date • Standards documents from the early 2000’s that are out of date or broken and not reachable • Reports that have been superseded by more recent reports on education issues • Good sounding career information but broken URLs • Not really learning resourcesbut career info is valuable if links are updated

  19. Good Resources - Metadata Needs Help: ChemCases Resources consist of: Metadata is missing: Has education level but it is in audience Has resource type (Text). Should include tutorial, instructional & reference material Audience Access rights Creation date • Web-based curriculum supplementsfor teaching the 2nd semester of general chemistry • Freely available • Textual tutorials with explanatory images/diagrams

  20. Good Metadata – Resources Need Help: Bridge Sea Grant Resources consist of: Metadata Has: Education level Language Creator/publisher Mime type Resource type Rights Title/URL Description/keywords Creation date (sometimes) Missing access rights (has cost instead) Missing audience • Has good resources also cataloged in other collections • These include: instructional materials, lesson plans • But: • Overwhelmed by the number of broken URLs • Too many departmental websites and landing pages in research journals

  21. Good Resources & Metadata: OPL Resources consist of: Metadata HaS: Has: Education level Language Creator/publisher Mime type Resource type Rights Title/URL Description and keywords Missing audience Missing creation date Missing access rights • Interactive resources for teaching psychology • Peer-reviewed materials • Studies, data sets, experiments, demonstrations • Teaching aid and instructor support • Some materials require class registration.

  22. LAR or Not? Resource Questions: Metadata Questions: What information is provided by the metadata? Are the metadata detailed and appropriate for educational use of the resource. Are metadata fields used correctly? Can the metadata be used effectively & programmatically by learning applications? • What are the resources? • What would be the perceived use of the materials? • Are the resources learning materials? • Are the materials only useful in an educational setting?

  23. Metadata Assessment of all Collections • All 8 metadata variables for each collections (Sept 2010): http://www.dls.ucar.edu/people/kginger/assessment/reports/ • Audience, Ed Level and Resource type instantaneous for all collections: http://www.nsdl.org/browse/?subject=All

  24. LAR Workshop Goals • The NSDL Resource Quality Guidelines exist for resources. What needs to be added if anything? • Develop NSDL Metadata Quality Guidelines to flesh out & formalize LAR ideas into criteria developed by and supporting the NSDL community • Develop a plan on how to apply the above docs/criteria across the heterogeneity of the NSDL? • How to promote LAR as a way of sustaining NSDL’s brand & reputation?

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