Shodor Honored by Cisco and ALA
http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/pathwaysnews
Shodor Inc., the NSDL Pathways partner for computational science, has been awarded the grand prize for nonprofit organizations in Cisco Inc.’s annual Growing with Technology Awards. “We’re honored to receive this national distinction for our work,” said Dr. Robert Panoff, president and executive director. “We started in 1995 with one Cisco router, one Cisco switch, and three computational science tools.” Today, Shodor’s website averages more than 3 million page views a month. Cisco’s awards recognize small and midsize organizations that use networking technology in innovative ways. A panel of 10 judges selected 15 winners in five categories from more than 570 applications. “Shodor is ahead of its peers in terms of being a smart business,” said Peter Alexander, vice president of Business Marketing at Cisco. “We hope other organizations will be inspired by Shodor’s creative and resourceful approach.”

When it rains, it pours. Shodor was also named as one of the Best Free Reference Web Sites of 2007 last week by the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of the American Library Association.

Comment on NDSL Privacy and Collections Policies
http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/policy_comment
The NSDL Policy Committee seeks community comment on two proposed NSDL policy drafts: a Collections Development Policy and a revised Privacy Policy. The Expert Voices blog contains links to both drafts, along with an accompanying non-policy document that provides recommendations supporting privacy policy implementation. Both policy drafts outline NSDL’s approaches to these critical areas of library development and interaction. The policies will be finalized at the NSDL Annual Meeting on November 8.

STARS Alliance De-Geekifies Computing
http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/roadreports
http://www.starsalliance.org
The STARS Alliance (Students & Technology in Academia, Research, and Service) is a NSF-funded program that proves that the next generation of computer scientists does not have to be, as one speaker put it, “white guys with glasses who talk in a monotone.” Although their total numbers are still small, the black and Latino college students studying computer science who gathered at the fourth Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing this week looked pretty much like college students do everywhere. Eve Powell, of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, described one recent student project that allows you to sketch out a routine for a break-dancing avatar. The STARS Alliance is active on about 20 college campuses in the Southeast, says Jan Cuny, program director for the Broadening Partipating in Computing program at the National Science Foundation.