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Joint project of the National Science Board and the National Science Foundation (2005), this project looks at the costs, technologies, and processes associated with long-term archiving of data collections and how this potentially impacts science. This page provides links to individual chapters of this report (in PDF format) along with the full report.

Paper by Reuven M. Lerner, Dept. of Learning Sciences, Northwestern University, Sharona T. Levy, Faculty of Education, University of Haifa and Uri Wilensky, Depts. of Learning Sciences and Computer Science, Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Northwestern University. Paper describes underlying principles of the Modeling Commons, a community for NetLogo modelers to share and collaborate.

Design principles for fostering public sharing and collaboration: Focus on artifacts; provide multiple entry points; be forgiving; maximize findability; provide flexible permissions; keep users informed.

A National Science Foundation Science of Learning Center, this site is a collaboration between the University of Washington, Stanford University, and SRI International, and is funded by the NSF. A quick scan of the Research tab shows publications in a wide-range of areas from "National Technology Plan 2010 - Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology" to "Learning Science in informal environments."

From their welcome, "The Public Science Project is dedicated to the advancement of participatory action research as a strategy for a more just world." The project is based out of CUNY's Grad Center (NYC).

Public Science Project has helped us to process some recent surveys (2011).

By David Hayward and originally published in April 2009 Integrating Technology column of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears; here it is part of the blog Expert Voices published by the National Sciences Digital Library. The post provides a great overview of Diigo, with advice on how middle school teachers can use it.

In ScienceDirect - Procedia Computer Science, Volume 1, Issue 2, Pages 2773-2998 (2010)

By Karon Kelly, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Colorado State University, Research Data Management Workshop, March 24, 2011. This is a PDF of a powerpoint describing the significance of data curation in the hard sciences.

Scientists have discovered proof that the evolution of intelligence and larger brain sizes can be driven by cooperation and teamwork, shedding new light on the origins of what it means to be human. The study appears online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B and was led by scientists at Trinity College Dublin: PhD student, Luke McNally and Assistant Professor Dr Andrew Jackson at the School of Natural Sciences in collaboration with Dr Sam Brown of the University of Edinburgh.

There really is a brain advantage to working collaboratively!

Based at the Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education at the University of Chicago, "RWB is a home for open research in education." The project promotes collaborative research, inviting participants to join one or more communities and to participate in events like online webinars. The Resources database appears to be expansive and allows users to rate the resources that they use.

On the home page, it says, "Hieroglyph is a publication, collective conversation and incubator for the "moonshot ecosystem" bringing together writers, scientists, engineers, technologists, industrialists and other creative, synoptic thinkers to collaborate on bold ideas in a protected space for creative play, science, and imagination."

This platform is surely of interest. Uses a forum format, each of which contains a "big idea" that is described and discussed. In addition, the wiki contains curated content about the project.

WHEN a college textbook, "Principles of Biology," comes out from the Nature Publishing Group in January, one place it won't be is on the shelves of school bookstores. Enlarge This Image An interactive graphic in "Principles of Biology," an electronic textbook from Nature Publishing, teaches students about the symptoms of a stroke. Enlarge This Image An interactive graphic from Wolfram Research lets readers change the display parameters of an oil spill. That's because the book was designed to be digital-only. Students will pay not for a printed edition at a bookstore, but for permanent access on the Internet ($49).

This edition of UPDATE focuses on partnerships, beginning with an interview with Dr. Gene Bottoms, founder of High Schools That Work (HSTW). Dr. Bottoms provides important insights into the ways partnerships were used to create HSTW, as well as the ways they are necessary to involving high schools and community colleges in the implementation of Programs of Study. This volume also includes two invited articles, one by Dr. Pamela Eddy, College of William and Mary University, and Dr. Marilyn Amey, Michigan State University, that give OCCRL readers a glimpse into their new book on partnerships and collaboration, and a second by Dr. Louise Yarnell, who shares a model that she and her colleagues at SRI are developing for the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

By M. Ginsburg and S. Weisband, Proceedings of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2004. Written in 2004, this article is somewhat dated (e.g. before the notion of the "social network" really took hold). That said, the article looks at a subscription-based virtual community, the Internet Chess Club, and finds that the real key to success is a carefully structured 3-tier approach to volunteering. Some volunteers help/coach new users; others are available to handle administrative tasks and volunteer managers run on-demand tournaments. Volunteers gain status and recognition, as well as the benefit of a private sub-community in which they can communicate with each other. NOTE: As of Jan 2012, the club is still in existence.

Librarian notes: While much here does not apply to the current manifestation of our e-communities, the structure and function of the various volunteer roles is very interesting, as is the "communication segmentation strategies" to filter out information overload. An impressive database of the community's work (in this case chess matches) is discussed as well.

Profile page from Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. Page includes tabs for publications and projects. There are also useful links from the overview page.

By Amanda Coffey, Cardiff School of Social Sciences. Coffey has conducted ethnographic research in a digital environment. This powerpoint hits on some keywords and key features of her projects.

Keywords/acronyms: CAQDAS (computer aided qualitative data analysis software); enthographic hypermedia environment. Interesting ideas: multimodality (different insights with different media); activity of writing interwoven with analysis; archiving data; managing complexity; readers can potentially interact with entire data set; secondary analysis; innovative publications; new ways of "reading" qualitative inquiry

Interesting academic opportunity in London, an MSc in Learning Technologies offered by the London Knowledge Lab. The program directors are Diana Laurillard and Alex Poulovassilis. The program focuses both on computer science and on learning theory. Link to application details on this page.

This is open access journal from the University of Regina (Canada) launched in December 2009, a a re-birth of Policy and Practice in Education, which published it's last number (15:1) under that title in August 2009. From Our Scope, "We envision works that augment the latitude and significance of the idea of education, while acknowledging the ubiquitous growth of the digital arts and sciences in the everyday practice of life and how that might (in)form notions of formal and informal education."

Dr. Kuhlmann is Professor of Foundations of Science, Technology\nand Society at University of Twente.

Chris Dede research projects include: Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) based ecosystems science curriculum models for middle school, virtual performance assessments and multi-user virtual environments.

This Carnegie hosted recorded webinar features panelists Anthony Bryk and Louis Gomez. They argue that the social organization of the research enterprise is badly broken and a very different alternative is needed. Instead, they support a science of improvement research and introduce the idea of a "networked improvement community that creates the purposeful collective action needed to solve complex educational problems." Webinar date, January 27, 2011.