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<< ComPADRE Project Meeting 2007

Contents 1 NSDL Structure 1.1 NSF Program 1.2 NSDL Governance Structure 1.2.1 Core Infrastruture 1.2.2 National Visiting Committee 1.2.3 Policy Committee 1.2.4 Standing Committees 1.2.5 Working Groups 1.3 NSDL Collaborations

NSDL Structure

The NSDL has a number of different forms, depending on the view taken.

NSF Program

As a funding program for the NSF, the NSDL has several contributing entities and tracts:

• NSF Program Officers - Lee Zia is the program officer in charge, and there are various other permanent and rotating officers involved.
• NSF Review Panels - Annual review panels help make decisions on the projects funded.
• Core Integration - The CI is a large collaborative project, consisting of UCAR, Cornell, Columbia, and San Diego (?). Their job is to build, design, and maintain the central infrastructure and to help everyone work together.
• Collection Projects - Collection projects were two year projects to build collections on specific topics or for specific audiences. The original ComPADRE funding was as a Collection. This funding tract has not be funded for three years.
• Services Projects - These projects are meant to build tools and services that will help other projects and/or users of the NSDL
• Targeted Research Projects - These projects are meant for research on some aspect of the library or its collections.
• Workshop Projects - Several workshops were held to help build the library. This funding seems to have been rolled into Services projects or as supplemental funding for existing grants.
• Pathways Projects - Pathways are larger three and four year projects meant to support the development of large pieces of the NSDL for specific topics or groups. Pathways are meant to gather and coordinate large amounts of material. The Pathway RFP's tend to use words like "Stewardship" and "Sustainability" quite a bit.

NSF-NSDL pages

NSDL Funded Projects

NSDL Governance Structure

There are several different entities involved in the "Governance" of the NSDL.

Core Infrastruture

The CI controls most of the development of the central infrastructure, and works with projects and potential external collaborators (publishers, for example) for the NSDL.

National Visiting Committee

The NVC is a group of experienced researchers, educators, business people, etc who review and make recommendations about the operation of the NSDL. They mostly work with the CI.

Policy Committee

The Policy Committee is elected by the NSDL projects as a policy review and recommendation group for the NSDL. I can't remember when the last election for the PC occurred.

Standing Committees

There are a group of 5 standing committees that make recommendations about specific areas within the NSDL. The standing committees are: Community Services, Content, Evaluation, Sustainability, and Technology. Membership on these committees is voluntary, and is not limited to NSDL projects.

Working Groups

There have been or are working groups on a range of topical issues, such as metadata, standards, and web metrics.

NSDL Collaborations

The NSDL projects are all supposed to work together to build a unified whole. Since the creation of the Pathways, this has mostly involved the Core Infrastructure team working with the Pathways on policies and best practices.