Establishing Digital Collections of LTER Educational Resources

Educational digital libraries house unprecedented, high-quality collections of resources submitted by stakeholders  like graduate and undergraduate students, scientists and teachers. Anchored by the best practices in teaching and learning an LTER Educational digital collection could potentially include educational resources and instructional materials, educational data sets, multimedia, visualizations and more.  It would align with the National Science Education Standards (NSES)/Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and cross multiple platforms to be accessed by both formal and informal educational communities, scientists and the general public.

This working group will be inspired by earlier talks from Teresa Mourad, Director of ESA’s Education and Diversity Programs Life Discovery digital library, Anne Gold / Tamara Ledley from the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) and Stephanie Bestelmeyer from Jornada Basin LTER EcoTrends and Desert Data Jam projects. Joining the discussion via telecommunications will be Dr. Bryan Cooper the Associate Dean for Technical and Digital Services at Florida International University. 

This group will be highlighting examples of exceptional digital library models (ESA Life Discovery Education Digital Library, CLEAN network) and identifying the components that best suit the needs of our LTER Education community.   We will identify the means to cross post LTER educational resources with other high-quality digital library collections (ie. ESA, CLEAN and FIU). We will scope out which scientific and pedagogical criteria help to review submissions.  We will discuss the potential to utilize in-house LTER scientists, site education coordinators, graduates and undergraduates in the process of evaluating submissions and identify the potential to house these collections on our LTER education webpage.

Outcomes will include:

1.    Identifying which digital avenues are best suited for LTER Educational resource collections.

2.     Outlining a peer review process that works

3.     Identifying network level assistance

4.    Recognizing affiliated costs, time commitments and collaborations