ComPADRE: Communities for Physics and Astronomy Digital Resources in Education

American Association Of Physics Teachers, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), the American Physical Society (APS), the American Institute of Physics/Society of Physics Students (AIP/SPS), and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) are creating an interconnected set of digital collections of educational materials and providing specific learning environments accessible to learners and teachers from elementary school through graduate school. The initial collections include resources for introductory astronomy, quantum physics, pre-college physical science teachers, undergraduate majors or prospective majors in physics and astronomy, and informal science education. These topics were chosen for their impact, diversity, breadth of audience, extent of discoverable materials, and interest of groups within the societies. To develop and maintain the collections, the project is utilizing the expertise of the societies' members as editors, content experts, reviewers, and professional technical staff. Physicists and astronomers add value to existing learning materials through selection and organization, annotation, review, and feedback on their use. The project supports these collections through technical, publication, and librarian services. A dynamic, database-driven Web services solution provides template-based delivery of the collections for flexibility, rapid development of sites, and user-enabled maintenance. The different topical collections employ a unified interface and link their resources wherever appropriate. ComPADRE's services include the discovery and collection of resources, and helping authors and collections with standards-compliant meta-tagging. The project is working closely with existing resource collections--e.g., online journals, astronomical databases, university courseware, student sites, and public science information sites, as well as other digital library projects to share collections and tools. The resulting set of high-quality collections will have an impact on members of the professional organizations, the broader community of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics educators and students, and the public at large.