What is the NSDL?
What is the NSDL? In the ![[WWW]](/www/moin/htdocs/classic/img/moin-www.png){kind=small}
About section:
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NSDL is a digital library of exemplary resource collections and services, organized in support of science education at all levels. Starting with a partnership of NSDL-funded projects, NSDL is emerging as a center of innovation in digital libraries as applied to education, and a community center for groups focused on digital-library-enabled science education.
While developing the ScholarsBox, we've been long interested in the NSDL for three reasons: 1) as a source of science learning materials, 2) as a hub of technical infrastructure upon which to build, and 3) as a source of funding for our work.
Because of the impending deadline for the NSDL Program Solicitation for 2004, I'm taking a closer look at the NSDL right now (reason #3). In the following section, I take up the question of how the ScholarsBox might be integrated with the NSDL infrastructure. Here are some preliminary thoughts.
Architecture
NSDL Library Architecture: An Overview (word doc) helpful in understanding the overall thrust of the architecture:
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Given the heterogeneous community of participants and technologies, the library is being developed with two key notions: a spectrum of interoperability and one library, many portals
The following diagram, extracted from the architecture document, is also very helpful:
Given this architectural diagram, I would think the ScholarsBox would be a type of "portal" (except that as a desktop client, it would not be communicating to users via HTTP). The ScholarsBox would need speak SDLIP -- and maybe SDSQL, which is mentioned in Search and Discovery Services: Architecture (probably a naive question -- but why another query language instead of adopting a more standard approach like XQuery, as recommended by the IMS-DRI specification?)
I've learned later that there are options other than SdliProtocol for ScholarsBox to use. I'm working the details out at ScholarsBox/NsdlIntegration.
On second thought, perhaps the ScholarsBox, as a provider of services, would be sitting in the "Services box" and therefore perhaps need to become a SDLIP and SDSQL server. I couldn't figure out the answer by reading the architecture diagram.
Next steps
If we go after the /ProgramSolicitation2004, we will certainly need to learn much more about how to work with the NSDL community. I'm starting to get an understanding of how to do so and am documenting my findings at ScholarsBox/NsdlIntegration (among other places)
There are some good notes about the 2003 meeting on the nsdl2003 Swiki.
To these various ends (of learning more about NSDL and for figuring out who to work with), here are some resources:
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NSDL Core Integration at Cornell -- which has the best overview that I've seen on what the Core Integration part of the NSDL is. The page links to two papers that might answer some of my questions:
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base URL for NSDL OAI server(?) via experimental OAI registry at UIUC
Since the InteractiveUniversity has a K-12 focus, I'm trying to understand the significance of the NSDL's focus on middle school in FY'04.
