This area is an archive of the conceptual work for the NSDL STEM Exchange, and the evolving notion of paradata, a resource-centric way to reflect usage data for digital resources. This information documents effort from 2010 to the present, and reflects significant overlap with the Department of Education / Department of Defense Learning Registry initiative. 6/25/2013
The STEM Exchange is language referring to the implementation of an NSDL web service to capture and share social media-generated information and other networked associations about educational resources, in collaboration with a range of STEM education partners.
Through open source applications, online communities of educational practitioners will be able to integrate customizable datastreams about resources from NSDL and other providers directly into their user platforms. The social media activities of practioner communities will generate data about how resources are being used in different contexts that the STEM Exchange will assemble into resource profiles incorporating both hand-crafted and automatically captured information. The resulting data about resource use will be fed back into resource profiles to assist users in discovering and utilizing educational materials and to enhance resource providers' understanding of how their materials are being disseminated, used, and contextualized by practitioners.
See: Van Gundy, S. (2010). The STEM Exchange: Enabling next generation approaches for community access to federally funded online materials. Concept Paper. Boulder, Colorado: National STEM Education Digital Library.