1. Contributing Collections: How To
2009 Annual Meeting

2. NSDL Collection Priorities
Convey new library focus impacts on collection building
Promote the use of existing tools & services for collection building
Encourage metadata creation that supports new library focus
Provide community feedback on collections (collections assessment)

3. NSDL Evolution Of Collections
Past: broad STEM scope repository
Transition: educationally focused scope supported by NSF at reverse site visit
Present: scope redefined with an emphasis on resource quality
Future: resource selection targeted to educational purposes; emphasis on finer granularity; improved resource description for learning applications

4. Library Focus Impacts on Collections
Library focus: supports study & teaching of STEM concepts & research on STEM learning
Goal: provide access to materials that foster demonstrable educational impact
Impacts:
updated NSDL Collection Policy
deaccessioned out of scope collections (results shown later)
NSDL Pathways collections are more discoverable (now 56% of library, up from 2.74%)

5. Library Scope
NSDL collects resources designed for teaching, learning, conducting research relevant to STEM education
NSDL collections support the content, skills, or understandings that are likely to be important to STEM educators and learners

6. Goals of NSDL Resources
Learning called for in U.S. national or state educational standards
Learning on a topic of societal importance
Mastering of foundational skills needed for advancement in a discipline or career
Understanding of a concept central to a STEM discipline
Understanding of linkages and interactions among or within STEM disciplines, or between STEM and other disciplines

7. Collection Builder Responsibilities
Select resources within NSDL scope.
(Collections are reviewed for approval)
Determine a method for metadata creation.
Create quality metadata.
Provide metadata to NSDL.
Provide collection information, owner and collection logo to NSDL.
Maintain collection (metadata and resources).

8. Benefits of Contributing
Use existing & stable infrastructure for digital discovery
Meet Criterion 2 of NSF proposals
Multiple paths of discovery and re-use of resources from services that use NSDL resources

9. Tools & Services for Collection Building (1)
Collections are groups of metadata records that have a consistent topic, theme, organization or audience
Collection builders provide metadata to NSDL by:
NSDL Collection System (NCS): catalog directly into NSDL
OAI: share metadata records from cataloging applications (e.g. CWIS)
Webfeed Ingest : indicate RSS or atom feeds for a collection (coming soon)
Repository API: communicate directly with NSDL application programming interface

10. Tools & Services for Collection Building (2)
Tool Hosting: NSDL can host NCS and provide a mechanism for creating a portal for search and discovery of metadata
Training: telecons to install, use and customize NSDL supported tools (NCS, DDS, Wiki, ExpertVoices, EduPak)
API’s: use the NSDL Data Repository (NDR) as metadata storage for your native metadata

11. What is Quality Metadata?
Educational Metadata: include education level, audience, resource type, educational standards and appropriate related resources
General Metadata: includes title, description, language, keywords, URL to resource
Lifecycle Metadata: creator or publisher, rights information, access rights
Metadata format: prefer nsdl_dc/ msp2 over oai_dc
Controlled vocabularies: use NSDL terms for consistency and better discoverability

12. Collections Assessment: Update 2009
Current information on library size, # of collections and library content over time
Show impact of deaccessioning 2 million items in 4 months
Illustrate gaps in coverage topically, educationally and audience-wise
Illustrate needs for metadata to better support new library scope & focus
Begin instrumenting the library for collections assessment and use

13. Collections Assessment: Library Size
month
# of managed records
# of collections
# of new collections added in previous month
Nov 1, 2009
115,692
113
Oct 1, 2009
118,835
114 1
Sep 1, 2009
153,725
131 2
Aug 1, 2009
1,657,659
160
July 1, 2009
2,186,256
170

14. Pathway Collections at NSDL.org
Jan & Oct 2009
# of collection
Jan/ Oct
# of items
% of library resources
Amser 1
7410
9555
0.37%
8.25%
BEN
11,842
12,404
0.59%
10.71%
ChemDL
703
714
0.03%
0.62%
comPADRE
2053
5531
0.10%
4.78%
CSERD
1146
1171
0.06%
1.01%
DLESE 25
14,690
14,134
0.73%
12.21%
Engineering 10 12
10,214
14,212
0.51%
12.27%
MatDL
470
0.02%
0.40%
Math 3 6
1165
1516
1.31%
MSP2
2282
2171
0.11%
1.87%
SMILE, Teaching with Data, Ensemble, CLEAN, Math Path
Teachers’ Domain
3098
3101
0.15%
2.68%
TOTALs 45 50
55,073
64,979
2.74%
56.11%
Use library number as ,779 for
Use library number as 2,012,278 for Jan

15. Collections Assessment: Query Analysis
Provides a before & after picture of collections deaccessioning affect on user search queries
Uses 15 popular search queries from Apr/May conducted at NSDL.org
Classified each resource with 1 education level & 1 resource type
Looks at top 10 items in each search query such that 150 resources were classified

16. # resources not accessible
Query Results
query
total # of results
Jun / Oct
# from Pathways
# resources not accessible
# broken
Air pressure
9,299
1,672 3 9 7 1
Algebra
37,651
6,167 2
Bernoulli equation
728 97 4
Chemistry
497,773
10,012
Climate change
17,523
4,612
Ecology
151,908
9,555
Genetics
161,509
5,003 6
Gravity
9,215
2,723
How do cells make proteins
6,160
648
Minerals
26,287
2,575
What are blood types
9,532
680 5
What are the layers of the earth
2,165
1,653
What effects the smell on taste
172 83 8
What is life
42,878
12,560
Where are bacteria found
6,959
824
TOTALs (out of 150 resources) 27 71 45

17. Analysis of Query Results
Pathway results more than doubled (27 to 71)
More duplicates appear in top 10 results because different URLs are cataloged for the same resource
Number of results that go to a metadata record decreased by half (54 to 24)
Number of results not accessible dropped (45 to 8)
The # of results per query dropped dramatically
40% of resource results in Oct were on Jun results

18. Analysis of Resource Type
Resource types for the top 10 search results
learning resources, dataset, pedagogical & education standards doubled
animations, videos, visualizations almost quadrupled
articles, journals, books, abstracts, conference proceedings decreased by 38%
Granularity can be improved
university & corporate homepage & lists of links increased

19. Analysis of Education Level
Education level for the top 10 search results
undergraduate rose slightly
graduate decreased threefold
high school, middle and elementary tripled
general and informal doubled
Representation across the library is more balanced
more education levels are represented in each query result rather than concentrated at one education level

20. Assessing Use of Resources and Collections
Using Google Analytics over search results, Science Literacy Maps and Google landing pages to:
Characterize collection use relative to library
Characterize resource use within a collection
What else would be of value to you in terms of use?

21. Contacts, URLs, More Info
NSDL Collection Development Team:
Tim Cornwell, Katy Ginger, Karon Kelly, Laura Lusk
Tools:
NCS, EduPak, DDS, Wiki, ExpertVoices
Contact:
Handout and Comment:
Provide feedback on the NSDL Community site

22. Results for General Characteristics
query
total # of results
Jun / Oct
# from Pathways
# are metadata
# no access
# broken Jun / Oct
# on Jun
Air pressure
9,299
1,672 3 9 1 7 4
Algebra
37,651
6,167 10 2
Bernoulli equation
728 97
Chemistry
497,773
10,012
Climate change
17,523
4,612 5
Ecology
151,908
9,555
Genetics
161,509
5,003 6
Gravity
9,215
2,723
How do cells make proteins
6,160
648
Minerals
26,287
2,575
What are blood types
9,532
680
What are the layers of the earth
2,165
1,653
What effects the smell on taste
172 83 8
What is life
42,878
12,560
Where are bacteria found
6,959
824
TOTALs (out of 150 resources) 27 71 54 24 45 60

23. Query Results by Resource Type
article/
jour/conf/
book/abs
Jun / Oct
dep-uni/
corp/
link list Jun / Oct
data/ped/
edu std
student
learning
viz/ani
video
news/glos/encyclo
Air pressure 6 1 3 9
Algebra 4 5 2
Bernoulli equation 8
Chemistry
Climate change
Ecology
Genetics
Gravity
How do cells make proteins 7
Minerals
What are blood types
What are the layers of the earth
What effects the smell on taste
What is life
Where are bacteria found
TOTALs (out of 150 resources) 90 33 15 22 24 55 13

24. Query Results by Education Level
Grad
Jun / Oct
Under
grad
High
Middle
Elem
General/
informal
Air pressure 7 1 2 4
Algebra 6 5
Bernoulli equation 10
Chemistry 3
Climate change
Ecology
Genetics
Gravity 9
How do cells make proteins
Minerals
What are blood types
What are the layers of the earth
What effects the smell on taste
What is life
Where are bacteria found
TOTALs (out of 150 resources) 84 27 32 41 30 12 21 13

25. Collections Assessment: Recommended Resources
** 30 from same domain and declined
* 25 from Pathways for NSF OLPA collection
Appears the number of recommendations are dropping off
month
# of recommendations
Oct 2009 7
Sep 2009 12
Aug 2009
43** (13 real )
Jul 2009
39* (14 real)
Jun 2009
May 2009 10
Apr 2009
Mar 2009
Feb 2009 22
Jan 2009 8
Dec 2008
Nov 2008 25
Oct 2008