THE DLESE COMMUNITY SERVICES CENTER: SUPPORTING NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR USING HIGH QUALITY DIGITAL RESOURCES IN DIVERSE EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS

The DLESE Community Services Center (DCSC) is one of several centers recently funded by the National Science Foundation to promote greater and more effective use of Digital Library resources. The primary goals of the DCSC are to: (1) increase the current resource user and contributor base to include greater numbers of K-12, informal, and college educators and students, (2) diversify the DLESE user and contributor base to include rich and robust representation of ethnic, cultural, and differently-abled groups, (3) improve the ability of users and contributors to easily find, adapt, and use high quality digital resources in their classrooms, laboratories, and communities and (4) demonstrate how DLESE can support community activity addressing issues in geoscience education.

Our strategies to achieve these goals include: (a) the solicitation, creation, and dissemination of “exemplars” that highlight effective digital resource use in a variety of diverse educational settings, (b) continued support for existing on-line community services, (c) development and piloting of new services for a broad spectrum of DLESE users and contributors, and (d) the creation of a DLESE ambassadors program involving educators, scientists, and students working across the Earth, space, and environmental sciences. Collaborations with the DLESE Evaluation and Data Centers, collection builders, the DLESE Program Center staff, as well as diverse audience groups will be a key focus of our efforts. These collaborations will insure that DLESE services are of the highest quality, meet the needs of current and future DLESE users, and are sustainable.