NationalScienceDigitalLibrary/ProgramSolicitation2004

1. Available funds
2. Program focus
3. Interesting, relevant phrases from RFP
4. What's currently happening at the NSDL
5. Current Assessment

Should the InteractiveUniversity put in an application for the NSDL Program Solicitation 2004, html version. Some basic facts of the program:

• Letter of Intent Due Date(s) (optional): March 14, 2004

• Full Proposal Deadline(s) (due by 5 p.m. proposer's local time): April 14, 2004

The program officer is Lee Zia. Phone : 703-292-5140 Email : lzia@nsf.gov

Resources for Proposal Writers

Available funds

Quotes from the program solicitation:

NSF anticipates that approximately $11.5 million will be available in FY2004 for awards made through this solicitation. The program expects to make approximately 30 awards, depending on the quality of proposals received. The anticipated distribution of awards in the program's three tracks is as follows:

• Pathways: 3 to 4 new awards, up to $3,000,000 each;

• Services (Selections): 4 to 6 new awards, up to $1,000,000 each;

• Services (Workshops): 4 to 6 new awards, up to $750,000 each;

• Services (Other): 6 to 8 new awards, up to $750,000 each;

• Targeted Research: 4 to 6 new awards, up to $500,000 each.

Awards in the Pathways track may have a duration of up to 48 months and will be made as cooperative agreements. Awards in the remaining tracks may have a duration of up to 36 months and will be made as standard or continuing grants as appropriate. The estimated program budget, number of awards, and average award size and duration are subject to the availability of funds.

Program focus

There are three areas of focus: pathway (i.e., collections development), services, and targeted research. Our ScholarsBox work fits best under services and maybe targeted research. Some of our partners might be more interested in the Pathways section.

Interesting, relevant phrases from RFP

Through its distributed digital library building strategy, the NSDL program is fostering the creation and development of a comprehensive cyberlearning infrastructure.

the articulation of standards that promote stability, interoperability, and reusability of a wide variety of learning objects

New NSDL projects are expected to coordinate their work with those of current NSDL projects and other educational digital library projects, such as the U.S. Department of Education's Gateway to Educational Materials (http://www.thegateway.org) or projects supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (http://www.imls.gov). The impact of the NSDL program will depend largely on how well funded projects can leverage related efforts and demonstrate value to significant audiences so as to achieve sustainability after the period of NSF funding.

Furthermore, interoperability and reusability of learning resources are more promise than reality; and the construction of new learning objects with executable content from "building block" component pieces (e.g., Java applets or application software macros) demands additional coordination requirements for seamless performance.

These efforts are distinct from original content development supported by other NSF programs such as the Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement program, the Instructional Materials Development program, and similar curriculum and materials development programs funded by NSF or other agencies. NSDL projects start from the assumption that materials, resources, modules, and other digital learning objects are already available.

All new and continuing content contributors are expected to supply records for harvesting via the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) protocol,

Partnerships or collaborations are strongly encouraged among digital library stakeholders, such as pre-K to 12 schools, two-year colleges, four-year colleges, universities, professional societies, public or community libraries, museums, industrial and business concerns (including commercial publishers), and other non-profit and for-profit organizations.

Cost recovery and for profit models are welcome. Sustainability is also often fostered through partnerships involving academic, business, government, and other organizations.

New awardees are expected to collaborate with one another and with previously funded projects, particularly the Core Integration effort. NSF expects that the results and approaches of projects in the Pathways, Services, and Targeted Research tracks will influence the tasks of the Core Integration effort and how they are accomplished throughout the duration of the NSDL program and beyond.

Services that will have a broad impact across an array of other NSDL projects are particularly encouraged.

Projects that propose to use a web services framework should expect to provide web service definitions (e.g. WSDL) and appropriate web service interfaces (e.g. SOAP or REST) to aid in service discovery and use.

In FY2004 the NSDL program is particularly interested in encouraging two specific types of services proposals: 1) Selection services, and 2) Usage development workshops. However, other types of services may also be proposed and examples are described below.

Services supporting users might include:

• synchronous and asynchronous mechanisms to exploit collaborative learning environments using shared resources;

• mechanisms to help content developers combine resources by different authors and from different collections; and

• "push" or "pull" processes that present users with specialized content.

Services supporting existing collection providers or Pathways projects might include:

• "middleware" to support acquisition and incorporation of content from different sources;

• mechanisms to associate commentary and other annotations with resources;

Service track projects are expected to cooperate closely, both among themselves and with the core integration activity.

From communications portal:

= What are selection services (a key emphasis for this round)? =

The aim of this type of services project is to increase the amount of high-quality STEM educational content known to NSDL. These resources may vary from individual learning object items such as images or simulation applets to an entire set of digital content available as a web site. A project in this track is expected to use existing criteria and mechanisms for identifying and selecting content within a particular domain. Similarly, projects that seek primarily to develop new technology are not appropriate. [emphasis mine] While such processes do not necessarily have to be associated with expanding existing NSDL projects, it would be important for proposals to demonstrate familiarity with these efforts. Selection services providers would also be expected to coordinate their efforts with new projects in the Pathways track once the funding period commences.

The selection process assumes that materials, resources, modules, and other digital learning objects are already in existence. The task of the selection services provider is to select and tag this content, with placement of the associated item-level metadata into the NSDL central metadata repository and, as appropriate, other repositories. Building on these selection efforts, other providers may then develop and offer more extensive and value-added annotation and review of the suitability of the digital resources for particular user audiences. Furthermore, support for personalization of finding aids and other discovery tools is enabled.

I don't think that the work that we would want to propose falls into this arena.

What's currently happening at the NSDL

• spreadsheet of current projects

• summary of program

NSDL projects that are related to the ScholarsBox:

• Integrating and Extending the Instructional Architect: An Instructional Service for NSDL (including co-PI DavidWiley)

Current Assessment

NSDL is doing a lot that is of relevance to the ScholarsBox work. Even if we don't apply for NSDL money, there is lot of work from NSDL for us to be aware of. However, I have the sense that the ScholarsBox might be a great addition to the NSDL infrastructure. It would nice to lay out exactly how to integrate SB into NSDL. Better yet than a conjection would be a little prototype that integrates what we know about the NSDL, validate our design arguments, and makes a good basis for a grant proposal.

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