Developing and Advancing a Cyberinfrastructure to Gain Insights into Research Investments: An Organizing Research Framework

摘要

Developing and Advancing a Cyberinfrastructure to Gain Insights into Research Investments: An Organizing Research Framework Although the National Science Foundation (NSF) funds approximately 24% of basic research conducted in America’s colleges and universities (NSF), there is little we know about how NSF-­‐funding decisions have resulted in the current research landscape. This gap was the impetus for a project –Deep Insights Anytime, Anywhere (DIA2)— that begins to address this problem by focusing on NSF investments in undergraduate STEM education research, and how education innovations make an impact and diffuse throughout the STEM education community. The project team has designed an information portal (http://www.dia2.org) to allow researchers and scientists to browse and search public data from NSF to understand what research has taken place in specific areas and to find collaborators. There are many challenges in developing and using such a cyberinfrastructure, but also many potential advantages for practitioners and researchers. In this paper we will specifically discuss the research opportunities provided by DIA2 and present the research framework guiding the DIA2 project—a description of the three major themes/areas of research for the study. It summarizes the research questions and research activities corresponding to each of the themes, presents next steps, and based on our findings, highlights the value of DIA2 to members of the STEM education community. These concentrated efforts can help us better understand the domain of STEM research. Reference NSF. About the National Science Foundation. Retrieved October 14, 2014, from http://nsf.gov/about/