Friday, October 06, 2000

WILMINGTON, NC -- Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington received a $1.14 million grant from the National Science Foundation to create a digital library of reusable science and math resources for undergraduate education. The grant is one of the largest ever awarded to the university.

"This library will help improve science and math education by providing college instructors worldwide with the tools to develop better lessons," said Dr. Charles "Dick" Ward, lead project investigator and chair of the Department of Chemistry at UNCW.

While other digital libraries exist, Ward said this will be the first major project to employ the metadata tagging system developed by the Instructional Management Systems Project sponsored by EDUCAUSE, a not-for-profit professional organization whose members work with computer technology at the collegiate level. Each object included in the library will be assigned an IMS metadata tag which will allow a more precise search, enabling instructors to find materials quicker.

Ward said the library would initially be stocked with objects created at UNC Wilmington. Files to be catalogued range from still photos, animation and audio and video clips to instructional modules and digital lessons. He added that the library could eventually contain an entire digital course such as Chemistry 101.

"UNCW has a long history of incorporating technology into the teaching process. Since the late 1980s, university faculty have developed digital materials for use in math and science courses," said Ward. Assisting with the project will be co-investigators Dr. Jimmy Reeves, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry; Drs. Gabriel Lugo and Russ Herman, associate professors in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics; Dr. Ron Vetter, chair of the Department of Computer Science; and Dr. Richard Dillaman, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. UNCW graduate and undergraduate students from these departments will also be involved with the project working to create instructional materials and catalogue files.

When the library goes on-line, within the next six to nine months, educators worldwide will be able to search the database to locate resource materials, said Ward.

"Because the database is for educational purposes, the user will have a higher success rate finding materials than searching the entire World Wide Web," said Ward. "In addition, teachers who use the materials have the assurance that the information is accurate because of the independent review process that each object will undergo before it is catalogued."

In addition to UNCW researchers, Ward said the project would involve Dr. Deborah Knox from the Department of Computer Science at the College of New Jersey, Dr. Scott Owen from the Department of Computer Science at Georgia State University, Dr. Edward Fox from the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech and David McArthur from Eduprise, a company that designs education software. Knox and Fox developed a digital library for computer science materials (the Computer Science Teaching Center) and will work to make their materials compatible with UNCW's digital library. Owen is one of the principal developers of the SIGGRAPH Education Committee Digital Library (SECDL) who is also working to ensure SECDL material is compatible with UNCW's digital library. McArthur is involved in the research phase of the digital library working to develop databases and data collection systems for the library.

Ward said ultimately UNCW's digital library would accept content from universities worldwide. Prior to being added, submitted materials would undergo an independent review process.

Accepting future contributions for worldwide sources explains the "reusable" nature of the library. "Hopefully, instructors will take an image or other object from the library, use and build upon it to create a larger project and resubmit this new work to the library for consideration," said Ward.

While the goal is to maintain a library of free resources, the tagging system could accommodate copyrighted material which would inform the user of any restricted use, cost involved and contact information to obtain the material.

Before the end of the two-year grant period, Ward said he would seek corporate sponsorship to sustain the project. He said educational publishers and technological companies would be ideal partners to provide the necessary funding to maintain the project.

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For more information, contact Dr. Ward at 910/962-3216.