A Collection of Collections—A Community of Communities

The goal of smete.org was to serve as a central portal to the content and services available through partner educational digital libraries and collections of educational resources in science, mathematics, engineering and technology education (SMETE, now called STEM by NSF) for K-12 and higher education. smete.org built upon the technology we developed for NEEDS, and linked together the collections of SMETE Open Federation partners. The work of smete.org and the SMETE Open Federation were the precursor to the National Science Digital Library of 2002—a collaboration of disciplinary collections providing services and resources across STEM education.

The SMETE Open Federation was envisioned as a federation of organizations and research projects that span science, mathematics, engineering and technology (SME&T, now called STEM by NSF) education. These organizations include various SME&T disciplinary digital libraries, K-12 science libraries, services that support digital libraries, professional development organizations for SME&T teachers and faculty, as well as SME&T publishers and professional and disciplinary societies. In collaboration with the Partners, we developed a shared Vision Statement to guide our activities.

• • to support learning
  • across disciplines in science, mathematics, engineering and technology
  • providing access to high-quality resources
  • in support of education reform and cross-disciplinary learning
  • from K-12 to higher education to professional development

The collaborative activities of the SMETE Open Federation and the development on the smete.org portal eventually ceased operations as we were not selected by NSF to build the National Science Digital Library.

Press releases announcing the SMETE Open Federation (and pre-cursor smete.org Alliance) and collaborating organizations and digital libraries / projects that included:

1. Access Excellence
2. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
3. American Association of Physics Teachers
4. Association of Women in Science
5. BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium
6. Biosci Ed Net at AAAS
7. Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)
8. CITIDEL Digital Library
9. ComPADRE Digital Library / Physical Sciences Resource Center
10. Computer Science Teaching Center
11. Digital Chemistry Project at UC Berkeley
12. Digital Library for Earth Systems Education (DLESE)
13. Education.au Limited
14. Education Development Center (EDC)
15. Eisenhower National Clearinghouse (ENC)
16. Exploratorium
17. Gender and Science Digital Library
18. iLumina Digital Library
19. Instructional Architect Project at USU
20. Interactive University at UC Berkeley
21. Internet Scout Project
22. Learning Matrix at ENC
23. Learning Online Network with CAPA (LON-CAPA)
24. Mathematics Association of America (MAA)
25. MathDL
26. Math Forum
27. MERIT Network
28. MERLOT
29. Michigan Teacher Network at MERIT
30. National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA)
31. NEEDS—A Digital Library for Engineering Education
32. Project Kaleidoscope
33. SRI International, Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (SRI)
34. University of California Teaching and Learning with technology Center (UC TLtC)
35. University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
36. Utah State University (USU)