About the NSDL Community Network site

The NSDL Community Network site is the primary mechanism for NSDL news and information: an interactive, participatory community platform and information source enabling sharing of ideas, announcements, updates, project activities, conversations, and collaboration for the community of projects, services, people and partnerships that comprise the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), and that are recipients of funding from the National STEM Distributed Learning program. The Community Network site also serves as an information source for stakeholders and groups with an interest in STEM education, cyberlearning issues, and in partnering with NSDL.

About NSDL Whiteboard Report

Published from 2000 to September 2009, NSDL Whiteboard Report Archives provide access to prior issues of the bi-weekly newsletter published by NSDL. To subscribe to current news and information about NSDL, go to the NSDL Community Network site, register as a user, subscribe to and participate in selected features found there.

About NSDL Annual Reports

NSDL published a series of Annual Reports from 2003-2006, available in PDF format from the links below. Distributed at NSDL Annual Meetings, these reports present a valuable record of the NSDL community and activities through these early years.

From 2007 on, NSDL continues to report to its community through a the NSDL Community Network site, the Expert Voices blogs, online web seminars and Brown Bags, the NSDL Annual Meeting, Twitter feed, or via special announcements as needed.

2006 Annual Report: Leveraging Collaborative Networks

Highlights the multiple roles that NSDL plays in support of STEM education, serving as resource repository, provider of services and tools, education and outreach source, locus of digital library research, and as a scaffold for collaboration - building and expanding partnerships and collaborative opportunities nationwide.

2005 Annual Report: Examining NSDL's Impact

Profiles NSDL as a key piece of national educational infrastructure at work in classrooms and communities addressing the need to prepare a STEM workforce for the future.

2004 Annual Report: Highlighting Successful Strategies for Growth

Explores applied educational achievements as leverage points for sustaining growth.

Progress Report: Fall 2000-Summer 2003

Highlights historic milestones and summarizes initial growth and development of the Library.

About Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears

The Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears (BPPB) cyberzine aims to maximize the impact of International Polar Year research on elementary classrooms by capturing student interest and fostering the ability of K-5 teachers to integrate polar concepts into their teaching by

  1. selecting, augmenting, and contextualizing learning resources from the National Science Digital Library, the Ohio Resource Center, and other IPY-funded projects;
  2. creating 20 issues of a multimedia online magazine with a combined focus on inquiry-based science and content-rich literacy learning;
  3. modifying NSDL communication and production tools based on Fedora that amplify resource discovery and access to resources and increase the ease of reuse and re-purposing of content;
  4. disseminating deliverables through presentations, publications, and Web technologies; and
  5. evaluating the impact of project deliverables on teachers and students.

At the conclusion of this project the "parts and pieces" from 20 BPPB issues will be available in multiple combinations. For example, a fourth-grade teacher will be able to find everything from the BPPB collection, including images and rich media, about "Polar Bears" as he or she develops a unit about mammals.

BPPB is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation International Polar Year (IPY) Program (DRL-0733024). An interdisciplinary team from Ohio State University (OSU), College of Education and Human Ecology; the Ohio Resource Center (ORC) for Mathematics, Science, and Reading; the Byrd Polar Research Center; COSI (Center for Science and Industry) Columbus; and the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Core Integration team at Cornell University and University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) are working together on this project. Content and education specialists from OSU, ORC, Byrd Polar, and COSI are creating content as well as adapting and contextualizing existing content. The NSDL Core Integration team is adapting Fedora-based tool to facilitate editorial workflow, dissemination and promotional activities. The Evaluation and Assessment Center at Miami University, Oxford, OH will conduct project evaluation.