NSDL Online Science: Bringing the Field to the Classroom–Birds
http://institute.nsta.org/NSDL/webseminar2.asp
Start the school year by reinvigorating curricula on the scientific method with a focus on the study of birds. NSDLs monthly series of free Web Seminars with the National Science Teachers Association begins again on Tuesday September 26 with featured experts and resources from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has teamed up with NSDL to present a series of free web seminars that showcase NSDL partner organizations, and provide professional development in science content and the use of digital libraries.

Next Tuesday, September 26, join experts online for NSDL’s next seminar in the series, that will focus on the study of birds as a context for understanding the scientific method. Participants will use NSDL resources to learn the basics of birdwatching and hone observational skills in order to record results for citizen science projects such as Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s BirdSleuth http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdsleuth and Urban Bird Studies http://www.birds.cornell.edu/programs/urbanbirds/projects, which collect data from students across the nation. Registration for this free seminar is on a first-come, first-served on NSTA’s website. 

Shodor’s CSERD Featured in Sept. Issue of DLib Magazine
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september06/tanase/09tanase.html
In an article by Diana Tanase, David A. Joiner, and Jonathan Stuart-Moore the authors explain that trust is a key issue in opening the “virtual library shelves” of the NSDL Computational Science Education Reference Desk (CSERD) to those interested in educational resources for computational science. While the lack of quality control on the web is not an issue unique to computational models, the many computational models that are on the web have their assumptions, their logic, their very science hidden beneath the veil of the graphical user interface, and the user often does not even have any text to read to discern whether or not they should believe the information they are receiving. CSERD addresses this issue through the use of both professional and community reviewing built into the portal infrastructure.

New Look, Content, and Functionality at NSDL Middle School Portal
http://msteacher.org/default.aspx
The NSDL Middle School Portal takes an in-depth look at teachable concepts in science and math for middle school students. Features include lively text and graphics along with background for teachers, interactive online activities, data analyses, and links to related topics. Updated features include new math and science articles with associated resources, and mini-collections of “just-in-time” resources designed to help teachers find high quality classroom information streamlined for easy-access.

NSDL Annual Meeting Previews
http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org/
FOR A COMPLETE LOOK at what’s in store during this year’s Annual Meeting to be held at AAS in Washington, D.C. Ocr. 18-20, please see the schedule available at http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org/schedule/.

GOOD NEWS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT YET SUBMITTED A POSTER for the lively NSDL poster reception to be held this year from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on October 18: the submission deadline has been extended until Friday Sept. 22,2006.

DAN ATKINS, DIRECTOR, NSF OFFICE OF CYBERINFRASTRUCURE will offer opening remarks from 8:30-10:30 a.m. on October 19.

MEETING WEB KIDS ON THEIR OWN TURF: Expanding Online Social Spaces for Scholarship, is a panel discussion exploring different views of how we might imagine digital spaces for scholarship with leaders from publishing, educational gaming, and educational research from 10:45-12:15 on October 19. Check out the blog here

TAKE A PRACTICE LAP WITH PROJECT TESTDRIVE will include participants in a brainstorming session to discuss successes and challenges of marketing NSDL resources to K-12 educators with Julie Evans CEO of NetDay/project Tomorrow from 4:00-5:00 p.m. on October 20. NetDay has surveyed thousands of teachers and students nationwide about their views on educational technology since 2002.

Feedback from interested stakeholders who are developing and/or marketing National Science Digital Library resources to K-12 educators will be incorporated into Project TestDrive. Project TestDrive is being conducted in cooperation with the National Science Digital Library and the Digital Libraries go to School Project at Utah State University. During the 2006-07 school year Project TestDrive staff will work with 50-100 teachers and their students to solicit feedback about the classroom effectiveness of K-12 NSDL resources.

STAY-TUNED FOR THE 2005-2006 ANNUAL REPORT Since 2003 NSDL has released an Annual Report at each year’s Annual Meeting that details the breadth, depth, and geography of NSDL projects as well as providing information about NSF funding for the general public.

2006 is a landmark year for NSDL. The Library has become an integrated national network of partners that include Pathways projects, targeted research and services projects, educators, researchers, publishers, and library builders. As NSDL 2.0 technologies (Fedora-based NSDL Data Repository and allied tools and services) are tested and released, NSF-funded NSDL Pathways projects strategies and priorities have also been solidified. To adequately report on emerging strategic priorities that will include outcomes from community discussions during the 2006 Annual Meeting, Core Integration will delay publication of the 2005-2006 Annual Report until the end of January 2007 to focus on this unique network of partnerships as well as on NSDL’s key position in the national landscape as the source for STEM educational content, tools, and services. The Annual Report Committee and members of the community will continue to advise and contribute to the development of the Annual Report.

ECDL Best Paper Award for NSDL Core Integration Team
http://www.citebase.org/abstract?id=oai%3AarXiv.org%3Acs%2F0603024
The NSDL CI team received the best paper award at the European Conference on Digital Libraries (ECDL http://www.ecdl2006.org) on Sept. 19 in Alicante, Spain.  Authors Carl Lagoze, Dean Krafft, Tim Cornwell, Dean Eckstrom, Susan Jesuroga, and Chris Wilper presented recent work related to the importance of contextualization–”relations, metadata, annotation–for the pedagogical value of a digital library. This new architecture uses Fedora, a tool for representing complex content, data, metadata, web-based services, and semantic relationships, as the basis of an information network overlay (INO). The INO provides an extensible knowledge base for an expanding suite of digital library services.”

The NSDL Metadata Registry
http://metadataregistry.org
The NSDL Registry Project will be an important presence at the upcoming International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, October 3-6 2006 http://dc2006.ucol.mx/. This year’s conference theme is “Metadata for Knowledge and Learning,” and attendees are expected from the IEEE LOM metadata community in addition to Dublin Core. Members of the NSDL Registry group will be presenting a paper: “A Metadata Registry from Vocabularies Up: The NSDL Registry Project”–available from: http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.DL/0605111 and demonstrating the current version of the Registry http://metadataregistry.org at the Dublin Core Registries Working Group meeting at the conference. Co-PIs of the NSDL Registry project are Stuart Sutton (U. of Washington) and Diane Hillmann (Cornell University), working with developers Jon Phipps (Cornell University) and Ryan Laundry (U. of Washington). Joseph Tennis, on the faculty of the University of British Columbia,is also associated with the project. The NSDL Registry will also be demonstrated at the NSDL Annual Meeting in November.