[Whiteboard-subscribers] Whiteboard Report #126, 11/28/07

[Brad Edmondson]

NSDL WHITEBOARD REPORT #126

Whiteboard Report news is on the Web at http://NSDL.org and http:// 
expertvoices.nsdl.org/whiteboardtalkback. Back issues are available  
at http://content.nsdl.org/wbr/Issue--Archive.php.

November 28, 2007

NEWS

All-Time High For Science Ph.Ds

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08301
U.S. institutions awarded 29,854 science and engineering doctorates  
in 2006, the fourth consecutive year of increase.  All-time high  
numbers of doctoral degrees were awarded in biological sciences,  
computer sciences, mathematics, chemistry, social sciences, and  
engineering, according to the NSF’s annual Survey of Earned  
Doctorates.  However, nearly half (45%) of new Ph.Ds who reported  
citizenship status said they were not American citizens. Most new  
Ph.Ds were non-citizens in all engineering fields plus computer  
sciences (65%), mathematics (57%), and physics (58%).  More than one- 
quarter of all Engineering doctorates awarded by U.S. institutions in  
2006 went to citizens of China; another 10 percent were given to  
citizens of India, and 7 percent went to Koreans.

NSDL/NSTA Web Seminar: Computational Biology

http://learningcenter.nsta.org/products/symposia_seminars/NSDL2/ 
webseminar5.aspx
Computational Biology is the subject of the fifth web seminar co- 
sponsored by NSDL and the National Science Teachers Association  
(NSTA) this fall. Jeff Krause, staff computational biologist and  
educator for the Shodor Foundation, has produced award-winning  
multimedia educational materials on topics in bioinformatics and post- 
genomic biology. Krause will show how models, simulations, and other  
tools of computational science can be used in the classroom to help  
students learn how to solve problems and visualize concepts. The  
seminar will be held on Tuesday, December 11 from 6:30 to 8:00 pm  
Eastern time, and is designed for teachers of grades 6 to12. Free pre- 
registration is required: http://learningcenter.nsta.org/products/ 
SeminarRegistration.aspx

Careers In Science:  Fieldwork At A Resort

http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/2007fall-nsta-sems
Help Wanted! The Careers in Science Blog, part of NSDL's Expert  
Voices, seeks people willing to pursue and share their passions,  
break through gender stereotypes, and travel and study in interesting  
places. Careers in Science needs personal stories of experts in their  
fields and how they were drawn to careers in science and science  
education. Dr. Rob DeSalle, a researcher in genomics, originally  
wanted to study whales. He says the best piece of advice he got from  
his thesis advisor was to choose a research subject that lives in a  
nice place, "because then you get to go there and collect them." Rob  
chose fruit flies (Drosophila), and it so happened that the most  
fascinating and diverse examples of the species lived in Hawaii. This  
ongoing conversation is lead by presenters at the upcoming NSDL/NSTA  
web seminars (above). Materials from LaSalle's seminar, "Studying  
Genomes," are available here: http://learningcenter.nsta.org/products/ 
symposia_seminars/NSDL2/webseminar4.aspx.

Free Open-Source Data Provider

http://syllabus.cs.vt.edu/tools
Researchers at Virginia Tech and Villanova University are offering an  
open-source OAI (Open Archives Initiative) data provider. Their open- 
source license allows you to download and use the data provider code  
so that other repositories can harvest content from your own  
projects. This implementation follows the OAI PMH 2.0 Protocol and is  
written in object-oriented PHP5 with a MySQL database backend. It is  
currently used to export structured syllabus content gathered by the  
two universities under a joint NSDL project.

Best Practices For Educational Technology

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/6847.html
Indiana University’s Center for Evaluation and Education Policy  
(CEEP) and a private contractor have received a $3.1 million federal  
grant to examine how new technologies are being used in classrooms  
and how to prepare teachers to use these tools.  The 18-month  
“Leveraging Educational Technology” project will be the first large- 
scale investigation of several areas, says Jonathan Plucker, director  
of CEEP.  “For example, the topic of gaming is really hot right now,”  
he said.  “People are saying that it would be great if we could find  
ways to make games better learning tools.  Well, is it going to be  
great?  Do we really know?” The answers will be complex, and large- 
scale studies have the best chance of finding them.

BOOKMARKS

Alice Hagar Curriculum Resource Center

http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/newinnsdl
http://www.uwlax.edu/murphylibrary/departments/curriculum/stem/ 
index.html
Science textbooks at the Alice Hagar Center at the University of  
Wisconsin-LaCrosse are supported by a fine collection of digital  
resources in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics  
(STEM). Elementary and middle school teachers from the area combine  
the textbooks with the Hagar Center’s online resources to enhance  
their lesson plans. The staff chooses texts that have been named to  
Science Books & Films’ Best List, or to the National Science Teachers  
Organization’s list of Outstanding Trade Books.  The Hagar Center  
STEM site was recently added to NSDL’s collection.
SB&F Best List: http://www.sbfonline.com/bestlists.htm
NSTA Outstanding Trade Books: http://www.nsta.org/publications/ostb

A Window On Science's Deep Web

http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/newinnsdl
http://worldwidescience.org
WorldWideScience.org, a project of the U.S. Department of Energy’s  
Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), uses a  
technology called “federated search” to comb through 24 large  
international English-language science databases, including the  
national science gateways of 19 nations. Many of the materials  
accessible through the site are in sources that are not reachable  
through common search engines. This hidden content, which is  
sometimes referred to as the “Deep Web,” is estimated to be many  
times larger than the information pool accessible to Yahoo! and  
Google. WorldWideScience follows the model of Science.gov, the U.S.  
interagency science portal that relies on content published by each  
participating U.S. agency. It was recently added to NSDL’s collection.

Puzzles For Science Librarians

http://libraries.mit.edu/about/puzzle
Matthew Willmott, MIT’s Library Liason for Physics, is an  
enthusiastic puzzle-builder.  He has created three puzzles for the  
library’s web site that are geared toward the unique knowledge sets  
of librarians.  Puzzle number three, which is taking entries until  
December 11, is a series of township-level maps of American coastal  
communities with mysterious numerical labels beneath them.  If you’re  
an MIT student, a correct answer could win you an Ipod nano; if  
you’re not, it could still cost you the afternoon.  Willmott says he  
will continue the series next spring.

INSPIRATION

Strongly Legitimate Words

www.ceas.cc/papers-2005/125.pdf
“Good Word Attacks on Statistical Spam Filters” by Daniel Lowd and  
Christopher Meek describes a trick spammers use: identifying a list  
of words considered “strongly legitimate” by spam filters and using  
those words to mount a “good word attack” on e-mail in-boxes. Here is  
a sample of good word attacks recently received by the NSDL server:

Farm Patrick Their Sun-drenched Left
Window Aeroplane Alphabet Teeth Car-race Cycle Feather
Skeleton Button Eraser Umbrella Airforce
Bible Button Map Sun Backpack
Milk Bank Shoes Circus Saddle Radar Chess Board
Necklace Torpedo Butterfly Sandpaper Web Robot Girl
Robot Leather Jacket Clown Car Onion
Live Get Fresh-picked In The And
Desk Cappuccino Fork Chess Board Meat
Staircase Feather Insect Bathtub Milkshake
Bee Treadmill Meat Carpet Airforce
Prison Child Record Cycle Planet

Imagine if this kind of creativity was used for something other than  
selling sub-prime mortgages.

NSDL Whiteboard Report describes research, news, and notes from the  
National Science, Technology, Mathematics, and Education Digital  
Library (http://NSDL.org), which is funded by the National Science  
Foundation. Whiteboard is published bi-weekly and includes  
information from NSDL projects and programs nationwide. Please  
redistribute. To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://nsdl.org/ 
publications/?pager=signup.

Whiteboard Report is edited by Brad Edmondson (gbe2 at cornell.edu).  
Project leaders and participants from the NSDL community are  
encouraged to send the editor research news and notes of interest.  
Please limit these items to 200 words or less and provide web links  
to additional information.

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is the nation's online  
library of resources for science, technology, engineering, and  
mathematics education and research.
NSDL would like to thank the National Science Foundation for its  
generous support and advocacy of NSDL as the NSF digital library of  
science education. This material is based upon work supported by the  
National Science Foundation under Grants No. 0227648, 0424671, and  
0227888. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations  
expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not  
necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.


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