About DLS

Digital Learning Sciences is a mission-centered, not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving learning through the use of digital content and tools. We develop systems and services that enable science and educational organizations – universities, school districts, libraries, and publishers – to organize, manage, comprehend, and enrich online resources to improve learning outcomes and learner engagement.

DLS is a joint center of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Community Programs and the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Drawing on the strengths of these institutions, our research and development team combines expertise in computer science, cognitive science, science education, user-centered design and evaluation, digital content management, and machine learning/natural language processing.

Read information below on our Advisory Board, Current Partners, and Past Partners.

Advisory Board

Marie Banich, Ph.D., Director of the Institute of Cognitive Science and Professor of Psychology, University of Colorado at Boulder, ex-officio member
Marie Banich is the director of the Institute of Cognitive Science and a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Colorado at Boulder and in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado Health Science Center. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1985. Her fields of professional interest are cognitive neuroscience and human neuropsychology. She is as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in 2007 and a member of the MacArthur Foundation Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice.

Jack Fellows, Ph.D., Vice President for Corporate Affairs and the Director of UCAR Community Programs (UCP), ex-officio member
Jack Fellows joined UCAR in 1997 as the Vice President for Corporate Affairs and the Director of UCAR Office of Programs (UOP). He is responsible for a broad range of corporate activities, including development of corporate policies and programs, liaison with the Federal government, management of UCAR trustees and member representative activities, UCAR development, and communications. Prior to joining UCAR, he spent 13 years in the Executive Office of President’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) overseeing budget and policy issues related to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, and Federal-wide research and development programs.

Richard N. Katz, Vice President of EDUCAUSE and Director of the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research
EDUCAUSE Vice President Richard N. Katz is the founding director of ECAR, the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research. Katz has served EDUCAUSE (and its predecessors) since 1996, following a 14-year career at the University of California. He has been responsible for educational programs as well as member and corporate relations at EDUCAUSE . As executive director of business planning and practices at the University of California, he was responsible for design and implementation of many of the UC System's strategic management initiatives.

Clifford A. Lynch, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information
Clifford Lynch has been the Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) since July 1997. CNI, jointly sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries and EDUCAUSE, includes about 200 member organizations concerned with the use of information technology and networked information to enhance scholarship and intellectual productivity. Prior to joining CNI, Lynch spent 18 years at the University of California Office of the President, the last ten as Director of Library Automation. Lynch, who holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, is a past president of the American Society for Information Science, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Information Standards Organization, and currently serves on the National Digital Preservation Strategy Advisory Board of the Library of Congress.

Eric J. Roberts, Ph.D., Chief Scientist for Learning, Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative
Eric Roberts, Ph. D., is Chief Scientist for Learning, in the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative, a federal effort managed from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He is charged with thinking about the thoughtful discovery, assembly, delivery and authentication of web-based, intentional learning experiences anywhere, anytime, for anyone.

Kristina Woolsey, Ph.D., Executive Director, New Media Thinking Project
Kristina Woolsey is the Executive Director of the New Media Thinking Project, an organization dedicated to addressing the power of media literacy in schools. Prior to this, she was a Distinguished Fellow at Apple Computer where she was the co-founder and director of the Apple Multimedia Lab, and an Osher Fellow at the Exploratorium. Kristina is a cognitive psychologist who is passionate about the ways in which people think with media, and how media and media-use can evolve to support and extend thinking.

Current Partners

American Geological Institute (AGI)

Digital Learning Sciences is collaborating with AGI, It’s About Time/Herff Jones Publishing, and the Denver Public Schools district to transform middle and high school Earth science curriculum developed by AGI - Investigating Earth Systems and EarthComm - into concept-driven, interactive teachers’ guides. AGI is a nonprofit federation of 44 geoscientific and professional associations that represents more than 100,000 geologists, geophysicists, and other Earth scientists.

Colorado Alliance for Research Libraries (the Alliance)

In collaboration with the Alliance, we have initiated a project that uses the National Science Digital Library NSDL Data Repository (NDR) to support collection management, content access, and content delivery within a distributed digital repository network. The Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries is a consortium of ten institutions representing twelve major libraries located in Colorado and Wyoming, including the Denver Public Library and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Denver Public Schools (DPS)

To support the district’s science education initiatives, Digital Learning Sciences is collaborating with DPS, the American Geological Institute, and It’s About Time/Herff Jones Publishing to develop and evaluate concept-driven, interactive teachers’ guides. These Guides will be deployed through the district portal to provide scalable, online professional development and to foster the development of professional learning communities. The Denver Public School district serves nearly 74,000 students at 151 schools.

The Geosciences Network (GEON)

Information technology and education leadership, as well as user-centered design and evaluation services are provided to this project. GEON is a large-scale collaborative effort to develop cyberinfrastructure to enable integrative, data-rich geoscience research. GEON is funded by the NSF Information Technology Research (ITR) program and is led by the San Diego Supercomputer Center.

Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE)

Management and technical consulting is being provided to GLOBE; a worldwide, hands-on, primary and secondary school-based education and science program. Funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation, GLOBE is a partnership between the United States and over 100 countries that manage and support their unique national and regional program infrastructure and activities.

Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS)

A user interface for the Rapid Earthquake Viewer (REV) was developed in collaboration with IRIS and the University of South Carolina. The goal of this project is to facilitate the understanding of where and why earthquakes occur through the provision of live and historic seismic data as well as educational materials. DLS is currently leading a project to incorporate the Rapid Earthquake Viewer, into two middle and high school Teaching Boxes, “Evidence for Plate Tectonics” and “Living in Earthquake Country”. The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology is a university research consortium dedicated to exploring the Earth's interior through the collection and distribution of seismographic data.

Linked Environments for Atmospheric Discovery (LEAD)

Evaluation services are being provided to the LEAD Learning Communities, a collaborative network of science teachers, researchers, and students. DLS is currently leading a project to apply instructional design to paper-based modules and make them available on the Lead to Learn web site. LEAD makes meteorological data, forecast models, and analysis and visualization tools available to interactively explore the weather as it evolves. This NSF-funded ITR project is led by the University of Oklahoma.

National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Digital Library (NSDL)

Through our partnership with NSDL, we are providing tools and services based on the NSDL Data Repository (NDR), which is built on Fedora. We are developing an NSDL Collection System to enable collection builders to develop, curate, and share collections of educational resources managed in the NDR. In addition, the Strand Map Service, developed via the partnership with AAAS Project 2061, has been deployed in NSDL.org to help K-12 teachers and learners to browse library collections using interactive concept maps and to locate digital resources that support important science concepts. The National Science Digital Library was established by the National Science Foundation in 2000 to provide organized access to high quality resources and tools that support innovations in teaching and learning at all levels of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. The Digital Library for Earth System Education, currently operated by DLS, is the “Geoscience node” of the NSDL.

Project 2061 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Digital Learning Sciences has been collaborating with AAAS to make the learning goals published in the Benchmarks for Science Literacy and the strand maps published in the Atlas of Science Literacy (AAAS Project 2061) available to users of DLESE and NSDL. Interactive concept maps, dynamically generated from these sources, enable educators and learners to explore research-based scientific concepts and find resources to guide teaching and learning of those concepts. AAAS is an international, non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association. Project 2061 is dedicated to advancing literacy in science, mathematics, and technology.

Syracuse University – Center for Natural Language Processing

Tools and processes to support the assignment of educational standards to library resources and methods for automatically determining alignments between state and national standards are being developed in collaboration with the Center for Natural Language Processing (CNLP) at Syracuse University. CNLP has advanced the development of human-like language understanding software capabilities since 1999. Their research efforts span domains such as national security, intelligence, health, and education and involve technologies such as automatic metadata generation, entity and event extraction, question answering, and cross language information retrieval.

WGBH

Digital Learning Sciences staff serves as science advisors, and assists WGBH in selecting resources, developing collections, and creating lesson plans for the Earth and Space Science modules in Teacher’s Domain. Teacher's Domain is an NSF-funded NSDL Pathways project.