Grant to improve access to national digital library

The Internet Scout Project, a 10-year-old UW research unit, has received a $2.6 million grant to improve access to the National Science Foundation’s National Science Digital Library (NSDL).

The aim of the NSDL is to create an online library of digital resources and services to help a wide variety of users access and use the library’s resources in their everyday environments.

The UW was among four recipients of NSF grants aimed at adding user-tailored access to the NSDL through NSDL Pathways. The Internet Scout Project’s Pathways project is the Applied Mathematics and Science Education Repository (AMSER). The project is designed to help meet the resource and service needs of community and technical colleges and forge a link between these communities and the NSDL.

AMSER will include a repository housing information about national applied math and science resources, and a variety of integrated services designed specifically to enhance the learning experience of community and technical college students and the teaching capabilities of instructors at those institutions.

The National Science Foundation has funded the NSDL Pathways to make it simple for teachers, students, researchers and lifelong learners to take full advantage of NSDL. The Pathways projects will create new bridges to connect users with math, science and education resources a online context that makes sense for them.

Since 1994, the Internet Scout Project has focused on developing better tools and services for finding, filtering and presenting online information and metadata by creating practical Web-based information and software solutions for educators, librarians and researchers. Scout’s Web-based reports reach more than 350,000 readers a week, helping guide educators and others to high-quality online resources. Open-source software packages created by Scout are used by hundreds of organizations around the world to help them organize and showcase their materials in the online environment.

For more information, visit the Internet Scout Project’s Web site.

In addition to the UW, three other organizations were funded by the NSF to develop NSDL Pathways projects: Mathematical Association of America and the Shodor Education Foundation. More information about NSDL Pathways Projects will be available in general and concurrent sessions at the NSDL Annual Meeting, to be held Nov. 14-17, in Chicago. For more information, visit the NDSL annual meeting Web site.