Fall 2001 Task Force Meeting
Plenary Sessions
Opening Session:
CNI Executive Director Clifford Lynch has reserved the opening plenary session to address:
- key developments in networked information
- progress on the Coalition’s agenda, and
- highlights from the 2001-2002 Program Plan.
The new Program Plan will be distributed at the meeting and is available on the Coalition’s website.
This has been a very eventful year, and there’s a great deal to cover. The opening plenary will include time for questions and discussion, and Clifford Lynch is eager to hear your comments.
Closing Session:
The closing plenary address will be given by Professor William Arms of Cornell University. Bill Arms is well known within the CNI community for his prolific and influential work at Dartmouth, Carnegie Mellon, and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives prior to joining Cornell. He has also been deeply involved in CNI since its inception.
Bill is going to address developments with the National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Technology Education Digital Library Program(NSDL) funded by the National Science Foundation. NSDL traces its history back to the early 1990s and addresses the construction of a digital library of materials (including courseware) to support education in science and engineering. In the last few years it has received major NSF funding and is on a timeline to produce a full-scale system. Bill is the Principal Investigator for the “core integration” segment of the program; his efforts will pull together the work of scores of other grantees also contributing to the project. As the NSDL moves towards operational status, it not only offers important lessons about the construction of complex distributed digital libraries but also has implications for the role of digital materials in changing educational practices that we need to recognize and understand. This is a project with wide reaching ramifications that I think it’s important for all CNI members to be informed about.