Developing a Strategy for Evaluating the Educational Impact of NSDL Purpose is to get community feedback on these preliminary recommendations at an early stage in the strategy development process

NSDL Mission Encourage and sustain continual improvements in the quality of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education for all students, and serve as a resource for lifelong learning Collective effort to build a national digital library of high quality STEM educational materials for students and teachers at all levels, in both formal and informal settings bullets are from Lee Zia’s paper (Background on web site)

Overview – Workshop Purpose and Approach Outcomes Strategy White Paper - framework for NSDL Proposals, Projects, and NSF efforts related to NSDL Evaluation Annotated Bibliography (review of prior research) User Friendly Guide to DL Evaluation (methodology) Approach Gather Participants NSDL Program, NSF, Program Evaluation, Educational Research, Educational Technology, Cognitive Science, Digital Library Evaluation Position Statements (reviewed by Program Committee) Preliminary Teleconference Workshop in DC Post-Workshop writing and review In keeping with the spirit of collective building effort, we are using the sane approach to develop the evaluation strategy not time to desribe process - spent most of two days in small groups identifyinf, describing and making recommendartinos for critcial evcaluation questions there were nine fleshed out. These will be covered in future docus here I am reporting on the cross cutting issues in terms ofd actual and intended NSDL

Actual NSDL Documentation efforts need to start now Recommendations day-in-the-life, lighthouses and birds of paradise, baseline metrics case studies - documenting best practices and classroom use emerging at the project level Recommendations Projects - articulate educational rationale NSDL - coordinate distributed evaluation efforts NSF - encourage and financially support evaluation components in project plans Everyone acknowledged that NSDL is inherently develpomental nd that we need to leverage the learning and experience that is taking place in the projects nsf recognizes that this is now busoiness as usual for program or roject evaluation that new models are needed

Intended NSDL - Values What is the value of the NSDL program to NSF and Congress? Recommendations NSDL - Mutual education needs to begin now Program can better match perceptions Perceptions need to be aligned with capabilities and opportunities Very important to not wait to tell NSF and congress how good program is but need to find out how they define and measure good now this is a dialogue / mutual education process that needs to begin now

Intended NSDL - Research Community Inquiry Lab Characterize unique affordances and identify benefits for teachers and learners Using library to support new models of research in education and educational technology Better research designs to guide integrated design and evaluation activities Recommendations NSF - emphasize and fund research and evaluation as integral part of project activities NSF / Projects - consider creative forms of library instrumentation NSF / Broader research comm - NSDL as lab for fundamental research in technology-supported learning And NSF promote the fundamental research lab idea in their eREC and ROLE programs