What Works: Digital Resources

Institutions taking appropriate advantage of digital resources:

  • are wrestling with the nature of community in a world in which technologies are transforming how people interact and access information
  • have a comprehensive plan that shapes how digital resources are selected and incorporated into the learning environment, as a means to connect to content and as a pedagogical tool
  • are encouraging local adaptation of digital resources developed in other settings as an efficient and cost-effective way to move quickly into the world of information technologies
  • are encouraging risk-takers within the community to explore new worlds opened by information technologies

Departments taking appropriate advantage of digital resources:

  • see significant opportunities for their students to gain access to primary sources of information and data, connect to colleagues around the world, and make real-world connections
  • are linked, intellectually and electronically, to advances in science and technology
  • have arrived at a common understanding on what students should learn and which digital resources facilitate that learning most productively

Faculty taking appropriate advantage of digital resources:

  • see interesting opportunities to link what students learn to how students learn
  • recognize new possibilities to meet needs of students with different styles of learning
  • are becoming part of a national and international S&T community

Spaces that accommodate the advantageous use of digital resources:

  • are designed to support different levels of technological sophistication
  • support the anywhere, anytime use of these resources
  • become themselves laboratories for learning, making the doing of science visible
  • anticipate the future with their flexibility and adaptability

Connections to make best use of digital resources include those with:

  • students, understanding the level of interest, experience and expertise students bring to their undergraduate career
  • business and industry, bringing contemporary tools from the workplace into the learning environment
  • colleagues creating and using the National Science Digital Library