Collaborative Research: Sustaining the Pathway for K-Gray Engineering Education

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The K-Gray Engineering Pathway (EP) serves as the engineering "wing" of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) and provides resources and services to users and collection developers from a broad spectrum of engineering constituencies. During the last several years EP substantially grew its user base and number of catalog records in both content and functionality. This two-year NSDL Pathway II project focuses on the following goals: 1) Stewardship - Continue to provide stewardship over the Engineering Pathway metadata, search, library services, currency of resources, and evaluation; 2) Economic Sustainability - Realize a sustainable income stream by offering value-added educational digital library services, with increased linkages to the NSDL, to professional societies, publishers, companies, government agencies and new collection developers; 3) Workshops, Outreach and Dissemination - Offer a portfolio of in-person workshops and webinars using a "train the trainer" model and NSDL Resource Center (RC) services; 4) Evaluation and Improved Evaluation Metadata and Tracking - Provide improved mechanisms for documenting student and teacher usage of EP's top tier of resources; and 5) Move to Open Source Platform and Services - Convert from proprietary digital library services to open source platforms with support and tools provided by the Technical Network Services (TNS) team of the NSDL, thereby increasing accessibility and reducing future operation costs of EP.Intellectual Merit: This Pathways II project is enhancing knowledge and understanding within and across all disciplines of engineering by capitalizing on educational components of cutting-edge engineering research including for example, biotechnology, energy, sustainability, security, nanotechnology, water resources, and new modes of communication with a new focus on the National Academy's Grand Challenges. These resources are being reviewed and linked to educational scholarship. EP continues to offer its prestigious "Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware" and its new "Premier Curriculum Award for K-12 Engineering" in a way that provides in-depth understanding of learning outcomes and impact. All relevant resources continue to be tagged with K-12 and ABET standards and pedagogical innovations (e.g., inquiry-driven, projects-based, active, engaging, learning-outcomes driven, gender/culturally-sensitive) in the cataloguing and metadata fields.Broader Impacts: Many important studies continue to stress the importance of increasing the number and quality of engineering graduates to meet the demands of the future and to stimulate the innovation needed to improve U.S. competitiveness and address key engineering challenges. EP provides educational resources for K-12, undergraduate, graduate, professional and general public education. The EP community focuses considerable attention to issues of diversity in higher education and inclusion of underserved communities. Several collections in EP are specifically targeted to K-12 and broadening participation.