Improving Education through the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) and the Computer Science Teaching Center (CSTC)

Edward A. Fox

Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0106
http://www.ndltd.org
etd@ndltd.org

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. NDLTD
  • 2.1. Background
  • 2.2. Vision, Benefits, Approach
  • 2.3. Concerns, Problems, Solutions
  • 2.4. Plans
• 3. CSTC
  • 3.1. Background
  • 3.2. Vision, Benefits, Approach
  • 3.3. Concerns, Problems
  • 3.4. Solutions, Plans
• 4. Conclusions
• 5. References
• 6. Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

As worldwide activities in the area of digital libraries [FOX98] expand, and as discussions continue regarding international cooperation in this field [ACKS98], a key point of focus should be on education [MARC95]. Digital libraries containing resources that are helpful to learners will reduce costs and promote mutual understanding, as well as speed up the transfer of knowledge and encourage international collaboration in the academy [FOX97b]. Essential properties of such efforts are that they be:

• beneficial, leading to increases in access, learning, collaboration, and understanding;
• sustainable, so they will continue, which follows naturally from becoming an integral part of some regular activity like students pursuing graduate degrees or faculty updating courses on computing;
• scalable, so they will grow and expand without problem, which follows from being highly distributed and being undertaken directly by large numbers of individuals without extra follow-up processing or bottlenecks; and
• automatible, so technological aids actually reduce labor and cost relative to prior approaches, especially when viewed end-to-end.

In the sections below we explore two such digital library initiatives, the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) and the Computer Science Teaching Center (CSTC). The first relates mainly to graduate education and research while the latter is particularly focussed on undergraduate learners, especially in connection with US National Science Foundation (NSF) efforts toward a national digital library for Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Education (SMETE) [NSF98b].

2. NDLTD

The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is open for all universities as well as other supporting institutions to join. As of July 1998 it included three national efforts, in the USA, Australia, and Portugal. Members [NDLTDc] are drawn not only from the United States but also from Canada (including one group of three universities [TUG]), Germany, Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, and South Africa - with other members likely to join in scores of universities around the world. St. Petersburg State Technical University was the first to join in Russia. All other universities in Russia are invited to join, as explained in the subsections below.

2.1. Background

In November 1987, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, the first public meeting occurred about the use of electronic document processing methods, in particular SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), for theses and dissertations. The meeting was hosted by UMI, and included representatives from the University of Michigan, SoftQuad, ArborText, and Virginia Tech. Over the next year, Virginia Tech funded and worked with SoftQuad to develop a DTD (Document Type Definition) for theses and dissertations. This has been refined and used for a small number of dissertations, and is documented at a Virginia Tech WWW site [NDLTDf] which gives extensive instructions so students can create Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs).

SGML-based ETDs are highly desirable, and should become feasible in the next few years as XML becomes popular and well supported by producers of word processing software. That is one of the goals agreed upon in a 1994 meeting in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA attended by representatives of a number of universities interested in ETDs. The other goal, which became feasible by 1995, is submission of ETDs using Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF), which affords a fully-rendered and directly readable version of student research results.

Once it was clear that these goals could be met, and once funding was secured from the Southeastern Universities Research Association and from the U.S. Department of Education for piloting the concept of ETDs, the National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations was launched [FOX96]. Since then there has been extensive news coverage on this project [NDLTDb], which has attracted a good deal of interest. However, since some parts of the news stories are misleading, usually overly sensational or controversial so as to attract attention, it is important to give below a more accurate description. Also, because the project has expanded in a short period into an international initiative, now called "Networked" instead of "National" [FOX97a], that could provide important benefits to scholarship in Russia and around the world, it is appropriate to explain the goals, problems faced, solutions and plans of NDLTD. For more information about NDLTD, the reader is referred to an online bibliography and to copies of key papers [NDLTDd]; related projects are also cited [NDLTDe].

2.2. Vision, Benefits, Approach

The goals of NDLTD include:

• to enhance graduate education;
• to help ensure that all future scholars are information literate, with skills to produce electronic documents and use digital libraries, as well as some basic understanding of issues relating to intellectual property rights;
• to improve the availability and content of theses and dissertations;
• to help universities unlock more of their intellectual resources;
• to serve as a model digital library project that is not only beneficial but also scalable and sustainable; and
• to serve as a model project demonstrating how universities can collaborate.

In addition to university-level goals, many students have their own goals regarding ETDs. Electronic documents can simply be the electronic version of a document designed for paper distribution, saving students the cost associated with photocopying and the hassles related to shipping if the student is not on campus but does have access to the Internet for file transmission. Of greater importance may be the goal of having works quickly and widely disseminated. Since ETDs often include a student's resume, and represent some of their finest work, rapid distribution may help students secure jobs or quickly become well known in their fields. This seems quite feasible, since the rate of distribution may increase by a factor of 100 or more when electronic instead of paper means are used.

While there were about 37K accesses to the Virginia Tech collection in 1996, there were 248K in 1997 and 218K in January-May 1998. That amounts to a growth in average daily rate from 102 to 685 to 1432. The number of PDF files downloaded (approximately equal to the number of full ETDs downloaded, since most are made up of a single PDF file) rose from about 5K in 1996 to 73K in 1997 to 118K in the first part of 1998.

Even more exciting to some students is the possibility of an ETD being more expressive than traditional works [KIRS97]. Electronic documents may, if the faculty members involved permit, include color, multimedia, hypertext links, data files, and other valuable resources usually only described in paper publications. Students can upload files for network access that previously could only be shared on CD-ROM or diskette. Experience at Virginia Tech indicates that roughly two-thirds of submissions have multimedia components. Thus, there are works with audio and video files, Java programs, a tutorial for the AuthorWare system, and VRML files for chemical structures.

Some faculty members are particularly interested in improving the quality of theses and dissertations. The University of South Florida has an active writing center that hopes to boost the quality of the writing [USF]. Electronic tools to help diagnose and suggest fixes to problems, as well as systems that enhance collaboration with writing experts or scholars in the discipline, may be of value.

A key idea in NDLTD is to have students carry out the full activity, so they learn by doing. Besides preparing and submitting their ETDs to NDLTD, they also should learn about their intellectual property rights. Accordingly, Virginia Tech ran a seminar in spring 1998 on scholarly publishing, with special emphasis on ethics, copyright, and other matters related to ETDs [VTRGS]. Audio files as well as transcripts are available from the series, for individual or group use at other universities. It is hoped that many institutions will undertake similar public discussions, since moving to ETDs has opened up a broad range of little-considered concerns.

Another key dimension of the approach that is taken by NDLTD members is for the university to, according to its local policies and structure, develop a climate and infrastructure that supports the efforts of students to prepare ETDs, as well as handling the requirements of the graduate school and library. This often occurs in stages, beginning with the formation of a representative committee, followed by a small group of staff adapting the tools and WWW sites developed at Virginia Tech. Next there is a pilot study by a department or center that has particular interest, voluntary submissions going on for some period to spread the concept to those with greatest aptitude, and then a well-publicized shift to requiring submissions, sometimes initially just for a particular college. Since

• theses and dissertations are approved by different groups at different universities (e.g., by each college in cases where there is no graduate school);
• providing assistance to graduate students is handled by varying groups (e.g., a computing center or library help service); and
• library processing [SCP] varies (e.g., regarding cataloging, preserving, and locating theses - in a departmental vs. college vs. central library);

In summary, many benefits may result from switching to ETDs, which can occur in a flexible fashion suited to the local circumstances at a university, in a time frame that fits with other related activities and priorities.

2.3. Concerns, Problems, Solutions

Some of the most challenging problems associated with digital libraries relate to social or cultural concerns [BORG96]. Since our aim with NDLTD is to have a profound effect on scholarly publishing, university sharing of information, dissemination of knowledge, and graduate education, it is not surprising that people have voiced concerns or identified problem areas. Those working on NDLTD accept the challenge of developing model solutions to such concerns and problems, like those discussed below.

2.3.1. Cultures and Languages

One set of issues deals with variations between cultures and languages [BORG97]. Since theses and dissertations are written by graduate students worldwide, usually in their native language, often describing or set in the context of local culture, and can more effectively carry their message when multimedia content is included, ETDs will vary regarding language, cultural portrayal, and use of multimedia forms. Fortunately, there are systems for multilingual searching and mechanisms for handling multimedia information. Similarly, universities already handle cataloging, indexing, search, storing, distributing and preserving of paper theses and dissertations. These can form the basis for similar activities with ETDs. These challenges can be met by each university operating autonomously, using appropriate information technology for its local efforts, and cooperating with others in NDLTD to ensure interoperability.

2.3.2. Autonomy and Interoperability

Universities involved in NDLTD often elect to adapt the WWW, automation, and training materials developed at Virginia Tech to suit their local culture, policies, and procedures. Any of a large number of search tools can be deployed by a participating institution so it can become part of the simple "federated search" system developed at Virginia Tech [POWE] and accessible at the central collection site [NDLTDa].

For universities wishing to afford access to their ETD collections, local search engines are of value. Virginia Tech used the Free WAIS software initially, which is adequate for the task, but then shifted to the more powerful OpenText system that was licensed for general searching efforts around campus. OCLC has donated a copy of their SiteSearch software, which can provide another alternative. SiteSearch supports Z39.50, which enables access through a variety of clients [LYNC97] and which affords users varying views of distributed collections [PAYE97]. It also can be adapted to enable federated search of all ETD repositories in parallel, with client or gateway merging of results from remote sites.

The University of Virginia has taken the initiative on adapting the Dienst system (developed at Cornell, and used in another federated search environment, the Networked Computer Science Technical Report Library, <http://www.ncstrl.org>) to use for ETDs. Work is underway at Virginia Tech to use IBM Digital Library to afford access, since it has strong support for protecting intellectual property [GLAD97].

Since there are many places in which tools and other resources play a role in activities involving ETDs, and since it is important to adapt each of those to local contexts, Virginia Tech's WWW materials related to ETDs have been organized into three parts, to discriminate clearly among the following:

1. NDLTD (talks and papers about the project, information about members, and instructions on joining; see <http://www.ndltd.org>);
2. student submission (including training materials, checklists, policies, and supporting scripts) [NDLTDf]; and
3. the federated searchable collection [NDLTDa].

2.3.3. Support

When a university joins NDLTD, it begins to develop infrastructure to support its students as they learn about electronic publishing, digital libraries, intellectual property rights, and other key concerns necessary for them to function effectively in the Information Age. This often includes a small WWW site, typically adapted from the pages in use at Virginia Tech [NDLTDf]. If students use the online WWW-based submission software provided by Virginia Tech to upload the files that make up their ETDs, the university may support that as well. Typically it provides storage of the files while their work is being checked for conformity with graduate policies and is being cataloged for library handling. If the university elects to itself make ETDs available, some type of digital library support is needed too.

Probably the most elaborate infrastructure involved in the ETD initiative is provided by institutions encouraging the use of multimedia content in theses or dissertations. Devices for capturing, converting and manipulating images, video, audio, virtual reality environments, etc. can be provided by libraries, computing organizations, or in a variety of places around each campus. At Virginia Tech this is handled through the New Media Center in the Library as well as in a number of computer laboratories.

At a more basic level, students need word processing software to create their documents. Adobe's Acrobat products support the handling of Portable Document Format (PDF) files, the format usually chosen for ETD submission. Use of SGML is encouraged, aided by Virginia Tech's document type definition (DTD) for ETD-ML, the markup scheme which has been repeatedly refined to be easy to use and yet powerful enough to capture the important metadata and structure of ETDs. Efforts are underway at the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan to apply the guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative and their DTDs for students willing to include much more extensive markup. Virginia Tech will have guidelines by 1999, when XML solutions will become feasible for large numbers of students, so authors working with Microsoft Word and other packages can export their ETDs into that emerging archival form.

In addition to hardware and software to support NDLTD, Virginia Tech also has a rich network infrastructure, including a vBNS (high speed Internet research and education backbone) connection through "Net.Work Virginia," the statewide ATM network with over 220 nodes that it runs and which includes educational institutions all over the Commonwealth. Since Virginia Tech has offered to provide archival support for NDLTD members in the short term, through an IBM-donated server with four terabytes of storage, it is useful to have such comprehensive infrastructure, though that is certainly not required for NDLTD members.

Indeed, since UMI has a business activity that provides preservation and access services for theses and dissertations, involving paper, microforms, and now electronic services, institutions can elect to just support student submission and local approvals, paying UMI to handle other matters [UMI]. The NDLTD Steering Committee is pleased that both UMI and OCLC have indicated interest in long-term archival support, and encourages an open competitive environment in which a variety of efforts evolve to maintain and expand access to ETDs.

2.3.4. Access and Publishing

More serious concerns arise in connection with publishers. We argue that ETDs are a separate and unique genre, which should operate independently of other types of publications. Thus, an ETD is much longer and more detailed than a paper that might appear in a conference proceedings or journal. Similarly, a humanities dissertation usually goes through substantial refinement and enhancement before appearing through a university press as a monograph.

The first solution we have adopted regarding confusion about affording widespread access is to work with publishers. We have spoken at a number of conferences and participated in many meetings to explore this topic. Through our training materials and workshops we help educate students about the broad area of intellectual property rights and the specific issues relating to copyright and right of first publication.

Four publishers have provided policy letters, which we have scanned and made available at our WWW site, so students understand their conditions on making works available through NDLTD while at the same time publishing derivative articles in the journal literature. We hope that other publishers will provide similar statements that we also can make available so large numbers of students will not have to contact individual editors to discuss this issue.

Second, we developed an Approval Form [NDLTDg] that is signed by students and their faculty committee. It allows them to:

• restrict access completely, in case a patent is sought;
• restrict access to campus, in case a publisher requires an article to appear in their publication before the related ETD becomes available through NDLTD;
• restrict access to part of the work, while affording open access to the rest, for cases when one chapter or other component is similar to a journal submission; or
• allow free worldwide access.

The Approval Form protects students from being penalized by publishers. However, it is very easy to just restrict access by checking a box, which then substantially delays or reduces the number of people who will read an ETD. Further work with publishers on policies, and social pressure from the increasing number of universities in NDLTD to allow ETDs to be more freely shared, is needed.

2.4. Plans

In the future, NDLTD will continue to help universities work together, with the aim of rapid scale up. All research universities have theses and dissertations, and all colleges have bachelor theses and other major papers. These parts of the "gray literature" are largely ignored and disappear from view, except in the case of about fifty thousand dissertations per year in North America. With hundreds of thousands of students involved in the creation of such documents, often spending months or years in preparing them, there is strong motivation for making them more accessible. With significant faculty time and other university resources going into the development of these works, there is an incentive at the university level to proceed with NDLTD, especially since it ensures some basic level of electronic publishing skills among graduates, and reduces overall costs.

With these motivations in place, and with a number of universities interested in helping others ensure that ETDs increase in quality as well as quantity (e.g., through writing enhancement and inclusion of multimedia components), it appears that there are incentives for universities to collaborate.

Since there are few other venues in which universities worldwide can cooperate and all benefit, and since working on NDLTD will ensure that participating universities develop at least a basic infrastructure in the digital library arena, it appears that NDLTD may be a good vehicle for both university cooperation at the international level and a means for the digital library field to advance.

Further, it should be noted that since the digital library field is new, and since our systems and services are still largely prototypes, there is considerable room for evolution. This actually fits in well with the development of NDLTD, which is naturally gated by the rate of joining (which can be done by part or all of a university, with flexibility to begin with only a pilot or optional program), the training efforts on local campuses, and the implementation of services by different institutions. Since universities can start small, and since the collection is still in its early growth phase, there is time for additional funding and research investigations to be launched. This is valuable, since requirements are just becoming obvious, and prototypes as well as evaluation efforts are in their early stages.

It is clear that we have many challenges, regarding training students about digital libraries, working with publishers to allow an increase in access, developing better archiving mechanisms (e.g., using XML), and enhancing search services (with better multilingual, multimedia, and federated search capabilities). Many of these improvements will arise more rapidly if there is worldwide involvement in this global enterprise.

3. CSTC

The Computer Science Teaching Center (CSTC) was launched early in 1998 through funding from the National Science Foundation and ACM Education Committee to improve teaching and learning in the computing field. Like NDLTD, it is open to all, and hopefully will expand and improve in upcoming years. The sections below explain its origins, goals, activities, challenges, and plans.

3.1. Background

One thread of interest in digital libraries in the USA began in 1991 with a white paper authored by Lesk, McGill, and Fox that recommended an electronic library to support undergraduate learning; this thread continued through late 1993 when the NSF/DARPA/NASA Digital Libraries Initiative (DLI) was called for [FOX93]. As DLI proceeded over the 4 year period starting in 1994, simultaneous with the emergence of the WWW and the widespread growth of the Internet, the NSF Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) became increasingly interested in the effects of information technology on Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Education (SMETE) [NSF98a]. DUE's advisory committee called for significant reform and use of technology, including developing new systems to support learning [NSF96]. In 1997, DUE sponsored a workshop to see if indeed a digital library should be developed to support SMETE [NRC]. Based on the recommendations from that meeting, a second workshop was help in July 1998 to clarify the users and scope, develop further plans, and prepare a prioritized feature list for the national digital library [NSF98b]. The core of the charge to the group of almost 100 attendees, which included students but was mostly made up of educators and educational reformers, was to increase access to digital materials for SMETE and to improve their quality. Meanwhile, some related projects, like CSTC, were funded by DUE. These will apply digital library technology to help with undergraduate learning, and should provide examples or early prototypes of the future SMETE library.

3.2. Vision, Benefits, Approach

The Computer Science Teaching Center (CSTC) combines a number of streams of educational innovation. At Virginia Tech, an NSF CISE Education Infrastructure (EI) project "Interactive Learning with a Digital Library in Computer Science" (http://ei.cs.vt.edu) that ran over the period 1993-98 developed tools and courseware which led to over 10 million accesses by summer 1998. This ongoing effort provides a base of materials to feed into CSTC. At the College of New Jersey, work has been proceeding for several years to construct a repository of laboratory support information to help with computing courses. At University of Illinois, Springfield, a collection of visualizations and visualization tools has been growing to facilitate learning about computer science. In addition, another DUE-funded project for "Curriculum Resources in Interactive Multimedia" (CRIM) [CRIM], led by Virginia Tech and The George Washington University, provides another stream of resources to help with teaching about interactive multimedia. These four streams form the initial core of CSTC.

Ideas and efforts toward CSTC include:

1. developing a digital library as a distributed system based at several locations, each focussing on a particular topical area or pedagogical goal;
2. encouraging interested parties, who are leaders in their field and who want to build such a distributed library, to launch and support a center in their area of expertise (e.g., laboratories, visualization, interactive multimedia);
3. having each center take stock of what is available in their subject domain, both commercially and as free- or share-ware, and creating a set of pointers, preferably along with cataloging and browsing support, so those interested in the area have a place to start exploration;
4. developing a worldwide mechanism for collecting and reviewing new submissions for CSTC, so at least a portion of the content is peer-reviewed;
5. connecting with the research community so that new results, especially in the form of demonstrations given at conferences, flow naturally into pedagogically useful resources for education;
6. starting with CRIM, and possibly spreading to other areas, having pairs or larger groups of institutions explicitly form teams to help with developing, generalizing, porting, and packaging high quality materials, involving not only the site that creates an item, but also sites that wish to adapt and adopt it;
7. approaching appropriate professional associations, e.g., ACM, to launch some type of electronic journal in connection with CSTC, so that authors of courseware can gain the benefit of having a publication as a result of their efforts, reviewers can obtain credit as they would for reviewing articles, and those engaged in collection and handling of submissions can achieve the status of journal editors;
8. having a central site, initially at Virginia Tech, perhaps later moving to the ACM Digital Library, for access to the emerging collection; and
9. integrating this effort into the emerging SMETE library.

It is hoped that CSTC will lead to significant improvement in CS education by ensuring that teachers and students can find and adapt high quality materials that support specific learning objectives. Once CSTC becomes widely used, and is established as an essential part of the infrastructure supporting formal and informal learning about computing, it should evolve into a sustainable and beneficial enterprise.

3.3. Concerns, Problems

Establishing CSTC in particular, and the SMETE library in general, requires facing a number of challenges. This effort is a significant innovation, and will affect both the publishing and learning practices now prevalent; related changes in the world of publishing over the ages have been highly influential in the world of research and scholarship but now may lead to even greater upheaval [GUED98]

At the July 1998 workshop discussing a future SMETE library [NSF98b], many questions, concerns, and problems were voiced. Following is a brief summary of some of the issues along with alternative views concerning them.

• How can professional associations, libraries, universities, and other diverse groups involved in education in connection with each of the areas in SMET, all be engaged in a cooperating manner in the project, so federal investment can be highly leveraged?
• How will this work relate to existing practices in publishing? Should all resources be freely available and included in their entirety in the digital library, or should some just be pointers to publisher collections that include their own support for electronic commerce?
• Should materials include only those items of the highest quality, entered in after rigorous review and refinement? Or should all relevant materials be added when created, while all quality certifications and annotations regarding use that accumulate are automatically linked in later as they become available, assuming that various processes to promote quality will operate synergistically?
• Should the emphasis be on collecting materials that support educational innovation and reform, that facilitate constructivist learning, involve interaction, and/or benefit from visualization - or should the policy be to stock a comprehensive repository that covers all the needs of undergraduates in SMET areas?
• Will (enough) people contribute to the library? Should NSF require submissions from all that are funded through DUE or other programs involved in education? Must there be new mechanisms for reward; if so, which will be most effective? How can existing mechanisms be extended or leveraged to achieve the greatest effect?
• Will a foundation of agreed-upon open technical standards emerge to help ensure interoperability in the SMETE library so it can operate as a virtual library built upon a federated distributed base? Will the IMS (integrated management system, supported by COLLEGIS and others) specifications for metadata, student profiles, and content be helpful in this regard?
• What special features of digital libraries are essential for the SMETE library? Is special support for authoring, collaboration, and reuse/adaptation of stored materials of primary importance? Are there particular capabilities regarding searching, browsing, retrieving, and archiving that must be developed? What extensions are needed to facilitate evaluation, assessment, ethnographic studies, and other research regarding use?
• What types of marketing or dissemination of SMETE library services will lead to the widest use? What efforts will be most effective with teachers and educators? What will work the best with undergraduate students and other learners?

Specifically regarding CSTC, concerns and problems include:

• How can a sufficient stream of contributions be ensured so that critical mass is achieved in the collection to warrant widespread use? Is there some collaboration with ACM, for example, that can leverage the review and reward structures already put in place by professional societies?
• What digital library features and services are needed so that users will be pleased and return repeatedly? Are there existing digital library systems that can be adapted to suit? What extensions should be made to ensure that it would be possible to measure its impact on learning and improving education?
• What policies, procedures and practices need be developed for CSTC to become a success? How can it expand to cover more of the field of computing? What will make it a model for the SMETE library?

3.4. Solutions, Plans

In the first six months of CSTC, good progress has been made. At Virginia Tech a WWW site has been developed for CSTC and one for CRIM. In the latter case the focus of activities has been on identifying WWW resources related to multimedia.

In September 1998, in connection with the ACM Multimedia '98 conference in Bristol England, a one-day workshop will be held to engage leading multimedia educators and researchers in CRIM activities. In addition to announcing plans for collecting multimedia resources that will go into the digital library, there will be discussion of curricula and syllabi to help with those planning courses and programs in the field.

In parallel with this effort, a proposal is being prepared for some type of electronic journal to complement and support the CSTC digital library efforts. This would provide a framework for submissions to be solicited, collected, reviewed, and suitably documented with metadata prior to inclusion in the digital library. Building upon work with the Dublin Core, the IMS project, and US Department of Education sponsored educational metadata specifications, it should be straightforward to catalog submissions to CSTC.

Other co-PIs in the CSTC and CRIM efforts are playing active roles in developing these projects; their assistance is acknowledged in Section 6 below. Only through the combined work of dedicated educators like these, who are actively engaged in educational innovation and reform, can the benefits that may result from a supporting digital library have any long term impact.

4. Conclusions

This paper has given a high level description of key aspects of two digital library projects aimed at improving education. The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations is spreading worldwide as a model project for universities to learn about digital library technologies, while at the same time advancing many of the goals of graduate education and increasing access to the new knowledge that is recorded in theses and dissertations. The Computer Science Teaching Center is a new effort to support learners and teachers in the computing field through laboratory materials, visualizations, visualization tools, curricula, syllabi, courseware, demonstrations and other materials that will be identified, cataloged, and when possible, reviewed and refined to ensure portability and reusability.

It is hoped that these efforts will serve their respective communities well, and become valuable aids to learners at all levels. Whether for those in formal courses, engaged in independent study activities, undertaking reference work, or pursuing distance or lifelong learning programs, these digital libraries should become valuable assets. All are invited to contribute to them, to make use of them, and to provide comments and suggestions. It is hoped that these will become part of larger enterprises, like the US initiative for a national digital library to support undergraduate students in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Education. Ultimately, global knowledge sharing and discovery should be enhanced through further work involving digital libraries to support education.

5. References

[AKSC98] Akscyn, R. and Witten, I. (1998). "Summit on International Cooperation on Digital Libraries." Report of ACM Digital Libraries Workshop; June 27-28, 1998; Pittsburgh, PA; <http://www.ks.com/dl98>

[BORG96] Borgman, C.L.; Bates, M.J.; Cloonan, M.V.; Efthimiadis, E.N.; Gilliland-Swetland, A.; Kafai, Y.; Leazer, G.L.; Maddox, A. (1996). "Social Aspects Of Digital Libraries." Final Report to the National Science Foundation; Computer, Information Science, and Engineering Directorate; Division of Information, Robotics, and Intelligent Systems; Information Technology and Organizations Program. Award number 95-28808. <http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/DL/>

[BORG97] Christine L. Borgman (1997). "Multi-Media, Multi-Cultural, and Multi-Lingual Digital Libraries: Or How Do We Exchange Data In 400 Languages?" D-Lib Magazine, June 1997. <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june97/06borgman.html>

[CRIM] Curriculum Resources in Interactive Multimedia project team (1998). "Curriculum Resources in Interactive Multimedia." <http://www.cstc.org/~crim/>

[CSTC] Computer Science Teaching Center project team (1998). "Computer Science Teaching Center (CSTC)." <http://www.cstc.org/~cstc/>

[FOX93] Edward A. Fox, ed. (1993). "Sourcebook on Digital Libraries: Report for the National Science Foundation," Technical Report TR-93-35, Dept. of Computer Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, December. <http://fox.cs.vt.edu/DLSB.html>

[FOX96] Edward A. Fox, John L. Eaton, Gail McMillan, Neill A. Kipp, Laura Weiss, Emilio Arce, and Scott Guyer (1996). "National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations: A Scalable and Sustainable Approach to Unlock University Resources." D-Lib Magazine, September 1996. <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september96/theses/09fox.html>

[FOX97a] Edward A. Fox, John L. Eaton, Gail McMillan, Neill A. Kipp, Paul Mather, Tim McGonigle, William Schweiker, and Brian DeVane (1997). "Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations: An International Effort Unlocking University Resources." D-Lib Magazine, September 1997. <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september97/theses/09fox.html>

[FOX97b] Edward A. Fox, Robert Hall, Neill A. Kipp, John L. Eaton, Gail McMillan, and Paul Mather (1997). "NDLTD: Encouraging International Collaboration in the Academy." DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology, September 1997. <http://www.ndltd.org/pubs/dbit.pdf>

[FOX98] Edward A. Fox and Gary Marchionini (1998). "Toward a Worldwide Digital Library. Guest Editors' Introduction to special section (pp. 28-98) on Digital Libraries: Global Scope, Unlimited Access." Commun. of the ACM, Apr. 1998, 41(4): 28-32. <http://purl.lib.vt.edu/dlib/pubs/CACM199804>

[GLAD97] Henry M. Gladney (1997). "Safeguarding Digital Library Contents and Users: Document Access Control." D-Lib Magazine, June 1997. <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june97/ibm/06gladney.html>

[GUED98] Jean-Claude Guédon (1998). "The Virtual Library: An Oxymoron?" NLM and MLA 1998 Leiter Lecture, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, May 1998.

[KIRS97] Matthew G. Kirschenbaum (1997). "Electronic theses and dissertations in the humanities: A directory of on-line references and resources." <http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ETD/ETD.html>

[LYNC97] Clifford A. Lynch (1997). "The Z39.50 Information Retrieval Standard: Part I: A Strategic View of Its Past, Present and Future." D-Lib Magazine, April 1997. <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april97/04lynch.html>

[MARC95] Marchionini, G. and H. Maurer (1995). "The Roles of Digital Libraries in Teaching and Learning.", Communications of the ACM 38(4):67-75, April 1995.

[NDLTDa] NDLTD Team (1998). "ETD Digital Library." <http://www.theses.org/>

[NDLTDb] NDLTD Team (1998). "NDLTD in the News." <http://www.ndltd.org/news/>

[NDLTDc] NDLTD Team (1998). "NDLTD Official Members." <http://www.ndltd.org/members/>

[NDLTDd] NDLTD Team (1998). "NDLTD Papers and Publications." <http://www.ndltd.org/pubs/>

[NDLTDe] NDLTD Team (1998). "NDLTD Related Projects." <http://www.ndltd.org/related/projects.htm>

[NDLTDf] NDLTD Team (1998). "Virginia Tech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation home page." <http://etd.vt.edu/>

[NDLTDg] NDLTD Team (1997). "Virginia Tech Graduate School Electronic Submission Approval Form." <http://etd.vt.edu/submit/approval.htm>

[NRC] National Research Council (1998). "Developing a Digital National Library for Undergraduate Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education: Report of a Workshop." Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. <http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/dlibrary/>

[NSF96] NSF, Advisory Committee to the National Science Foundation Directorate for Education and Human Resources (1996). "Shaping the Future: New Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology." Report 96-139. Arlington, VA: NSF.

[NSF98a] National Science Foundation, Directorate for Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education (1998). "Information Technology: Its Impact on Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology: Report on an NSF Workshop." Report 98-82. Arlington, VA: NSF. <http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/getpub?nsf9882>

[NSF98b] National Science Foundation, Directorate for Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education (1998). "SMETE Library Workshop." July 21-23, 1998, Arlington, VA. Website: <http://www.dlib.org/smete/public/smete-public.html>

[SCP] Scholarly Communications Project (1998). "Scholarly Communications Project: Virginia Tech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation home page." <http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/>

[PAYE97] Sandra D. Payette and Oya Y. Rieger (1997). "Z39.50: The User's Perspective." D-Lib Magazine, April 1997. <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april97/cornell/04payette.html>

[POWE] Powell, J. (1998). "Virginia Tech Federated Searcher." <http://jin.dis.vt.edu/fedsearch/>

[TUG] TriUniversity Group (TUG) (1998). "TUG Electronic Thesis Project." <http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/TUG/ETD/>

[UMI] UMI. (1998). "ProQuest Digital Dissertations." <http://wwwlib.umi.com/solutions/2.0.html>

[USF] University of South Florida ETD Project (1998). "Electronic Publication of Theses and Dissertations, University of South Florida." <http://www.usf.edu/~writing/etds.html>

[VTRGS] Virginia Tech Research and Graduate Studies (1998). "New Issues in Academe: Scholarship in the Electronic World."<http://www.rgs.vt.edu/resmag/seminars.html>

6. Acknowledgments

Many thanks go to faculty, students and staff at Virginia Tech and at other institutions who have worked on ETDs, especially John Eaton, Gail McMillan, Neill Kipp, Paul Mather, Robert Hall, Bill Schweiker, and Todd Miller. The U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education supports NDLTD. Additional in-kind support has been provided by many parties including: Adobe, Arbortext, Council of Graduate Schools, CNI, IBM, Microsoft, OCLC, SOLINET, and SURA.

The Computer Science Teaching Center is funded by NSF and the ACM Education Committee, and is run by co-PIs Deborah Knox of The College of New Jersey, Scott Grissom of the University of Illinois, Springfield, and Edward Fox of Virginia Tech. NSF also funds Curriculum Resources in Interactive Multimedia, with co-PIs Rachelle Heller of The George Washington University and Edward Fox of Virginia Tech.