POSE: Phase I: Open Source Ecosystem of Inclusive Interactive Media with PhET's MVC (Physics Education Technology's Model-View-Controller) Framework

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This project is funded by Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) which seeks to harness the power of open-source development for the creation of new technology solutions to problems of national and societal importance. Over the past 10 years, the PhET (Physics Education Technology) Interactive Simulations group at the University of Colorado Boulder has developed an open-source codebase, the PhET Model-View-Controller (MVC) Framework. This codebase has been used to create a suite of interactive simulations used around the world for teaching and learning science and math topics. This project will examine the potential for building an open-source ecosystem around the PhET MVC Framework. The project’s novelties include an emphasis on the technical infrastructure and design patterns supporting visual, auditory, and haptic displays with diverse input modalities including traditional mouse and touch, alternative input, and through computer vision, object tracking and naturalistic gesture. These features can support users of interactive media created from the PhET MVC Framework across a broad span of human diversity in sensory, mobility, and cognitive abilities. This project will also serve as a critical catalyst, enabling the discovery of specific user, contributor, and governance needs for growth. The project’s impacts will include an amplification of the awareness and use of accessibility features for educational media, potentially leading to greater inclusion of people with disabilities in educational contexts and beyond.In this project, investigators with expertise in open-source licensing, PhET’s codebase, and qualitative research methods will advance multiple avenues of investigation to inform the transition of the PhET MVC Framework to an open source ecosystem. These include: 1) identifying existing community characteristics, community needs, and potential growth of new communities through surveys, focus groups, and market research; 2) exploring existing and potential member processes, structure, and governance models through workshops, discussions with the board of advisors, and participation in NSF training on open source ecosystems; and 3) developing community building mechanisms across existing and new communities through surveys and focus groups; and 4) exploration of utility and feedback on exemplar documentation, onboarding materials, and structures for regional community supports.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.