Metadocuments as Communicative Artifact to Enable Use of a Research Digital Library in Undergraduate SMET Education

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

A digital library constructed in support of a research community's activities contains material of direct relevance to undergraduate SMET education. However, its organizational structure reflects the conventions established by the research community, not the needs of the undergraduate student. This project is researching and developing software tools to organize and contextualize information in a research digital library so that it may better reflect the needs of undergraduate learners and the pedagogical goals of faculty. The project uses the metaphor of a "path" or "guided tour" for these organizing and contextualizing tools. The content testbed on which the use of "guided tours" is being demonstrated is a large body of Web-based material centered initially on WWW-based floristics and extended recently to include entomological materials. The tool development extends previous investigations into the application of paths in K-12 classrooms to include the creation of more complex structures, collectively known as metadocuments.