About NSDL

Information on this page feeds to both the nsdl.org user site and to the nsdlnetwork.org site. Links and pages may reflect a different brand and style (look and feel), depending on which site you are viewing.

 

NSDL's mission is to provide quality digital resources to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education community, both formal and informal, institutional and individual.

NSDL's collections are continuously refined by an extensive network of STEM educational and disciplinary professionals. Their work is based on user data, disciplinary knowledge and participation in the rapid evolution of digital resources as major elements of effective STEM learning.

NSDL advances teaching and learning by providing:

  • High quality, interactive resources that help educators bring cutting-edge, real-world science and math into their classrooms and stimulate excitement for science in today's digital learners
  • Web-based applications that help teachers and learners to optimize their experiences with digital content
  • Software tools and services to help school districts, museums, educational non-profits and other digital learning enterprises to organize, manage, and disseminate digital educational content
  • Promotion of professional development opportunities for educators by networked partners
  • Research-based findings and best practices on teaching and learning with digital content
  • Partnerships with STEM stakeholder groups, organizations, and coalitions that promote dissemination of educational technology use and digital content expertise

Organization

 

NSDL Network

The NSDL network includes several hundred STEM research and education organizations, providing openly available digital resource collections, services, partnering opportunities, distinct audiences, and connections with multiiple communities of faculty and teacher practice, and student users.

Network partners are currently collaborating with NSDL to create a production network for embedding and dissemination of high-quality standards-aligned resources in platforms and systems used communities of practice, and 

The primary website for network information and interactions is NSDLnetwork.org, where news, information, discussion forums, topical areas of interest (e.g. evaluation, special initiatives) and information for developers and potential proposers to NSF-funded programs or other funding opportunities of interest, can be found.

NSDL Network partners include NSF-funded projects for content and services for specific, large communities of users (also known as Pathways). These are education-level or discipline-specific portals providing resources, tools, services, and professional development for educators. NSDL’s partner projects represent dozens of universities, professional societies, educational foundations, several educational and research organizations, science centers, and two public television stations. 

NSDL includes projects funded by the National Science Foundation to develop and evaluate innovative new applications and services and to conduct targeted research on teaching and learning with digital content. See the list of current NSDL funded projects.

 

NSDL.org

NSDL.org is the primary digital library site providing access to collections of resources for STEM teaching and learning, for educators and learners. 

NSDL.org also provides documentation and support for the creation and contribution of metadata, paradata (use information), or annotation collections to NSDL, for inclusion in the library.

Other featured collections and services are also available: