DIGITAL CHEMISTRY LIBRARY

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project establishes a digital chemistry library composed of tightly integrated learning objects drawn from distance learning resources in use at UC Berkeley. Beyond merely collecting these objects, the project addresses two important open questions facing digital libraries: 1) How is interoperability engineered into resources that carry extensive, domain-specific metadata or tightly integrated educational connections? 2) How can collection design encourage new contributions and promote resource reuse? The answers to these questions advance the NSDL as an educational resource. By applying techniques from other disciplines such as Document Engineering, the project offers a fresh approach to the problem of integrating domain-specific learning objects into generic digital libraries. A major focus of the project is to enable the passing of educational connections between learning objects across multiple collections. The development of chemistry learning object vocabularies identify analysis methods, models, and context machinery that can lead to significant interoperability when replicated in other domains. These descriptive vocabularies make it possible for library users to reassemble content into cross-disciplinary curricula in new ways that replace earlier labor-intensive techniques. More importantly, these methods enable students to reassemble what they are learning into organizational structures that are optimized to meet their learning objectives or goals. This project's collection is also designed to reach under represented students and under resourced community colleges and high schools with high quality, accessible, usable educational material. In addition the integration of multiple media types (audio, video, text, images) into each learning object makes the library accessible to students with disabilities. The resulting digital library of tightly integrated learning objects promises to be a valuable contribution to the NSDL that leverages the work of partner libraries (the J. Chem. Education Digital Library and the Biology, Physics and Chemistry Advanced Placement Digital Library). The Office of Multidisciplinary Activities in the NSF Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences is providing significant co-funding of this project in recognition of the importance of a digital library for the support of the learning of chemistry.