w w w. i l u m i n a – d l i b. o r g iLumina: A Digital Library of Educational Resources for Science & Mathematics National Science Digital Library All-Projects Meeting December, 2001 Washington D.C. Funding provided by the National Science Foundation DLI-Phase 2, NSF Award # A Digital Library of Reusable Science and Math Resources for Undergraduate Education

w w w. i l u m i n a – d l i b. o r g iLumina’s Vision The situation: e-learning will create a huge demand for high-quality digital course content Publishers will meet some of this demand through ebooks Instructors will still need informal digital modules to complement and tailor ebooks to specific courses The opportunity: The Internet now provides a scalable way to implement peer- centric sharing of informal digital content iLumina is a digital library that will realize this opportunity

w w w. i l u m i n a – d l i b. o r g iLumina’s Main Themes Featuring diverse, small-scale SMETE resources, especially ones created by instructors Promoting sharing, reuse and re-construction of resources through selected services and tools Using IMS’s rich and standard metadata to describe resources Developing services underpinned by IMS metadata (e.g., recommendations as well as search and browse) Implementing a partially centralized (metadata) and partly distributed (content) architecture

w w w. i l u m i n a – d l i b. o r g What has iLumina Accomplished to Date? Implemented IMS metadata information model (v 1.2) Developed metadata tools based on IMS model Cataloged 700+ granular SMETE resources Included 6 distinct special collections in iLumina –3 resident (content and metadata in iLumina) –3 distributed (content remote and metadata in iLumina) Implemented essential library services (search, browse and contribute), underpinned by IMS metadata Began extended library services (collection display, review and ratings) Coordinated with SMETE for federated cross-repository search

w w w. i l u m i n a – d l i b. o r g Non-iLumina/IMS metadata iLumina/IMS metadata Digital Content Existing Repositories … CSTCSECDLOther Individual Contributions iLumina Open iLumina Content Review Cataloging Tool final Informal Collections UNCW Mathwright … Other Mapping Tool Cataloging Tool * * Construction Services Community Services Search Services User metadata Architecture Overview Recommendations Personalizations Formal peer review User ratings/review General forums Suggestion Boxes Flexible Retrieval Browsing Faceted Search Basic Search Resource Integrator Author Cataloging

w w w. i l u m i n a – d l i b. o r g How does iLumina Support Reuse and Sharing? By supporting each step in the reuse cycle: iLumina Intent to reuse Locate Resources Share new resource Comprehend Resources Modify as needed See Sumner & Dawes JCDL ‘01 Relevant iLumina features and services: Membership in a trusted federation (SMETE.ORG) Review and rating services to assure relevant quality resources Low barriers to resource access Flexible metadata-driven search and browse tools improve discovery Metadata provides guidance on effective usage Reviews and discussions improve understanding, appropriation Metadata describes component structure Technical usability requirements documented (No composition/decomposition/refinement tools at present) Contribution tool reduces cost of packaging for sharing iLumina distributes labor of packaging & cataloging iLumina will manage resources as well as metadata, as needed

w w w. i l u m i n a – d l i b. o r g IMS Metadata Implementation in iLumina Nominally simple: relatively easy to implement the full IMS information model Selective support: iLumina can import IMS compliant records with any elements, but creates (metadata tool) and uses (search, etc.) records with only a subset of elements Local limitations: many elements non-essential (e.g., SemanticDensity); others inadequate (e.g., Rights) Few element additions: just General.Thumbnail and Technical.MediaType Many vocabulary changes: less standardization than elements

w w w. i l u m i n a – d l i b. o r g Metadata Results and Issues in iLumina Multiple uses: metadata underpins not only core search services (for granular discovery) but extended ones (for comprehension and evaluation) Cost reduction: use multiple approaches to making metadata generation productive: automation, distributed creation roles, collection-level descriptions, increasingly efficient metadata tools Flexible tools for different communities: tools should permit multiple element sets and vocabulary schemas, and support vocabulary mapping across federated repositories Less is more: extended descriptions (e.g., reviews, annotations, agents) should be modularized in other records, not bundled into core catalog metadata entries

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w w w. i l u m i n a – d l i b. o r g What’s Next for iLumina? Open iLumina to contributions from all instructors and users, possibly for-profit publishers Continue cataloging of new collections, including CSTC, SECDL, Mathwright Complete extended library services, including reviews, peer ratings, personalization, collection-level services, and community discussion forums Conduct usability studies and formative evaluation of sharing and reuse Participate in development of a generic, flexible metadata tool with the SMETE Open Federation (SOF) and other NSDL groups Participate in fully-federated SOF search and cross-repository NSDL harvesting Continue work within NSDL on methods of efficient metadata creation and new services using metadata

w w w. i l u m i n a – d l i b. o r g References and Sources Our project website: Project papers on the site: –JERIC: Towards a Sharable Digital Library of Reusable Teaching Resources: Roles for Rich Metadata. Journal on Education Resources in Computing (JERIC). –JCDL: Developing Recommendation Services for a Digital Library with Uncertain and Changing Data. Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL) –JLibAdmin: Library Services Today and Tomorrow: Lessons from iLumina, a Digital Library for Creating and Sharing Teaching Resources. Journal of Library Administration. Recent and upcoming presentations: –IMS, Redwood Shores (11/15/01): Demonstration of iLumina and IMS metadata at Members Exchange –CLIR, New Orleans (1/24/02): Invitational Meeting on Courseware Systems, Integrated Library Systems, Content Strategies. Council on Library and Information Resources, Academic Library Advisory Council –NLII, San Diego (1/27/02): Featured panel session on learning object repositories –AERA, New Orleans (4/02): Interactive symposium: The National Science Digital Library for Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education: A technology demonstration and discussion