Cataloging and Searching by Standards in DLESE

Cataloging and Searching by Standards in DLESEMetadata Workshop

9-10 March 2004

Holly Devaul

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Community request for “search-by-standards” functionality

• Materials must be reviewed and standards assigned at cataloging

• Resources are cataloged by a wide range of community members

• Need best practice guidelines for assigning standards appropriate for community cataloging

• Understandable search interface• Context for the user

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What does it mean?

• Needed to clarify in order to support• consistent cataloging• informed searches in discovery

• What terminology best describes the intended association? (aligns with, correlates to etc)

• At what granularity should we be cataloging the NSES standards?

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What are others doing?• Ohio Resource Center http://www.ohiorc.org

Resources correlated with and browsable by National and Ohio State standards. Content specialists and review board staff select resources and assign standards.

• The Learning Matrix http://thelearningmatrix.enc.org Resources are selected and reviewed by staff; collection

policy gives high priority for resources aligned with national standards. No search by standards offered.

• McREL http://www.mcrel.org Offers in-house resources developed by McREL staff in direct

connection with the McREL Standards Database, as well as external resources linked to standards from the Database. No search by standards offered.

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User-centered design: What do users want?

Focus groups to

• Ascertain user expectations of and needs for a search-by-standards functionality

• Use that feedback to craft appropriate best practices for cataloging

• Explore ways to articulate the association of a standard to a resource once implemented

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Search-by-Standards – the data

• Currently• National Science Education Standards (NSES)

content standards – ability level• National Geography Standards – flat list

• Proposed/possible• Additional NSES

• More detailed content stds• Teaching standards

• State standards• AAAS Benchmarks• NCTM Math• Technology

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NSES structure

•Grade level• Lettered content standard

•Ability•Concepts and objectives

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User focus groups

• Thirty three participants, 4 groups• DWEL K-12 and Informal

educators• Local middle school

teachers, district coordinator, university geology/education professor

• Pre-service teachers

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User focus groups

• Looked at 3 resources in DLESE with standards data, reflecting a variety of resource types and origin of standard associations (creator or cataloger)

• Discussed specifics of the example resources as well as general expectations of a library search-by-standards functionality

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Results

• New teachers, curriculum developers and district supervisors were suggested as primary users of this functionality

• Experienced teachers will review the stds information, but are not likely to search by standards

• State and local standards are more useful than national standards (at the ability level)

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Results (2)

• Experienced teachers rely on their own judgements re: resource and standard associations. They were less concerned about the origin and process of associating them.

• Pre-service teachers expressed more concern and interest in how the association was made.

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Results (3)

• From a cataloging *and* searching perspective, participants preferred a looser association when using the current granularity of data• “supports the student learning of ….”

• Include text-based, background material

• Exclude datasets and software without accompanying learning materials

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Search interface

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User context information

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What granularity is appropriate?

• NSES concepts and objectives are more easily mentally mapped to state stds by users

• AAAS has mapping to concepts and obj. – Strand map service

• More detail makes associating resource content easier intellectually but more time consuming to catalog

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Search interface issues

• Complex and text-dense data difficult to present to user for searching

• One option:• Catalog at more detailed level• Continue search at ability level• Display the more detailed level• Allows mapping to AAAS benchmarks,

maybe state stds• However, manual retrofit not trivial

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State standard mapping

• Create mapping of all states to baseline vocab of more specific NSES to enable search by state standards without cataloging each state separately

• Two approaches• Auto-association of stds to stds, stds to

resource content (Liz Liddy @ Syracuse) as first cut at selecting standards

• Manual keyword indexing of state to national standards (Ted Sicker @ WGBH teachersdomain.org)