About

Mission

GROW Resources

Partners and Collaborators

How you can help

Papers & Presentations

Research

About

The Geotechnical, Rock & Water (GROW) Digital Library was created with support from the National Science Foundation by the University of Arizona's Department of Civil Engineering, Center for Campus Computing, University Library, and a host of other contributors across campus in the Fall of 2001. GROW is the first development project towards the creation of a National Civil Engineering Resource Library (NCERL) and it is part of the National Science, Mathematics and Technology Digital Library (NSDL).

Mission

The mission of NCERL is to encourage and promote interest, exploration and learning in Civil Engineering through the development, collection, and dissemination of reviewed and ranked interactive learning resources continuously enhanced by new technological innovations.

This mission will be accomplished by:

• Developing an initial digital library designed to meet the education needs of students, independent learners and professionals in three initial areas of civil engineering including Geotechnical, Rock and Water Resources Engineering (GROW).

• Providing free, high-quality (interactive) digital learning objects that can be used for self-study or repurposed for instruction needs.

• Demonstrating the impact that civil engineering has on daily activities through context and demonstration.

• Promoting the submission and contribution of resources.

• Reviewing submitted material for academic integrity and accuracy.

• Providing for a peer-ranking structure identifying user satisfaction with resources.

GROW Resources

The GROW collection consists of resources harvested from the web and elsewhere, and resources developed by GROW team members. The collections developed by GROW team members are focused on interactive, multimedia, educational resources that are "story-booked" to emphasize active learning and provide a learning experience. It consists of a hierarchy of learning objects to meet the needs of users from K-12 to continuing education for professionals. GROW-NCERL collections consist of four groups of learning objects consisting of elements, learning units, modules and themes. Learning objects have several definitions in the literature. In the context of GROW-NCERL, a learning object is "any digital resource that can be reused to support learning" (Wiley, 2000). Each learning object within a group has properties that allow it to be reusable, self-contained, aggregated and tagged with metadata.

We envisaged that general users will interact with themes and modules and that developers/creators will interact with all four groups of learning objects. For example, a developer/creator may create learning units and/or modules from elements using available authoring software such as Macromedia's Flash or Authorware, and submit them to be considered for inclusion under an existing theme or under a new theme. The submitted materials will then be peer reviewed before placement in the GROW collection.

Partners and Collaborators

The following is a list of GROW's partners and collaborators:

• Macromedia
• TT Engineers/LZA Associates
• John Wiley & Sons
• C2Ed
• Icivilengineer.com
• Wiley book publishers affiliate program
• Alibris book sellers affiliate program
• Geo-Institute, ASCE
• AISC – American Institute of Steel Construction
• ARMA – American Rock Mechanics Association
• TTI – Texas Transportation Institute Institutional
• PCI – Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute
• NSF – Sustainability of Semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas (SAHRA)
• ITE – Institute of Transportation Engineers
• Computing Center and Information Technology (UA)
• CTBUH – Council on Tall Buildings & Urban Habitat
• College of Engineering (UA)
• EERI – Earthquakte Engineering Research Institute
• University of Arizona Library
• JES & Co.
• Corbett Elementary School
• ASSET
• Department of CE & Engineering Mechanics (UA)
• Opencourse.org
• Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies (UA)
• NSF/SRC Engineering Research Center for Environmentally Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing
• GEM
• DLESE
• NEEDS
• Oregon State University Libraries
• University of Colorado at Boulder (Department of Computer Science, Strand Maps)
• University of Southern Mississippi – NSF Environmental Science Exercises
• Internet Scout Project – University of Wisconsin
• Integrated Learning Center (UA DLearn)
• Flowing Wells High School (Tucson)
• Manzanita School (Tucson)
• Forest Oak Middle School (Maryland)
• Teaching & Teacher Education – UA College of Education.

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How you can help

GROW seeks the cooperation of interested parties in the form of contribution of content, development support, and participation on workgroups, assessment panels and oversight committees. Interested parties should contact a project member.

If you would like to contribute financially to the maintenance and continued growth of this civil engineering collection, please click on the following link to find out how to donate.