DiscoverEd is an experimental project from ccLearn which attempts to provide scalable search and discovery for educational resources on the web. Metadata, including the license and subject information available, are exposed in the result set. We are particularly interested in open educational resources (OER) and are collaborating with other OER projects to improve search and discovery capabilities for OER, using DiscoverEd and other available tools.
DiscoverEd is a prototype intended to explore how structured data may be used to enhance the search experience; there are a number of known issues.
Read our white paper that describes the rationale for and design of DiscoverEd, as well as our thoughts regarding possible future enhancements that could make the tool, or other search tools like it, even more compelling.
Results come from institutional and third party repositories who have expended time and resources curating the metadata. These curators either create or aggregate educational resources and maintain information about them.
Curators include OER Commons, Connexions, the Open Courseware Consortium (OCWC), the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), among others. You can examine the current list of both feeds and curators here.
To the typical user, DiscoverEd works just like any search engine. Simply type your query into the search box and hit “Search.” Multiple words are automatically joined with “and,” thus only returning resources containing every word.
Sample result:
NLS/BPH: Other Writings, The ABC Book, A Pronunciation Guide
The ABC Book, from the Library of Congress National Library Service for the Blind, gives pronunciations of commercial names, names of products, companies, businesses, etc.
Pepto-Bismol (PEP-tō BIZ-môl) Antacid
Pernod (pir-NŌ) Absinthe substitute
Perrier (PER-ē-Ā) Mineral water brand
Source: DiscoverEd
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