The core of the NCSeT Reference Literature Database is a collection of research studies of the uses and impacts of supported text on the reading competence of students in the populations that are the target of the Center's attention. To support the core collection of supported text research, the database also contains materials that establish the conceptual and foundational knowledge upon which supported text is based. For instance, if supported text is to impact students' reading competence, then supported text researchers must build upon the research on reading competence itself, and how it varies among different student populations and teaching/learning contexts.
A significant part of the work of the NCSeT is to create an online database of the relevant research on supported text, and further, to describe and evaluate this material in ways that assist the research community. The figure below shows an overview of our plan for the contents of the NCSeT Research Literature Database, available at http://ncset.uoregon.edu/refbase/ .
The core of this database is a collection of research studies of the uses and impacts of supported text on the reading competence of students in the populations that are the target of the Center's attention. To date, this collection has been relatively small and over time we expect this part of the collection to be dominated by work sponsored or influenced by the NCSeT itself.
To support the core collection of supported text research, we are also assembling materials that establish the conceptual and foundational knowledge upon which supported text is based. For instance, if supported text is to impact students' reading competence, then supported text researchers must build upon the research on reading competence itself, and how it varies among different student populations and teaching/learning contexts. We have identified six broad areas of conceptual and research literature that will be included in the Research Database to provide the underpinnings for our core research.
In addition the Research Database will have three features providing value added to what otherwise would be just another online reference list. First, all important entries will contain an interpretive annotation detailing how each fits within the network of supported eText literature, and evaluating their findings and methodological rigor.
Second, separate from the normal inclusion of key words taken from text of each entry, we will also tag entries, so as to impose a standardized vocabulary and evaluative structure on the entries. For instance, a significant strand of NCSeT research involves what we label as "translational" resources. Definitions are the simplest example of this resource type, which also includes translations to second languages, text-to-speech, among others. However, the term "translational" is not yet a common, and this complicates finding relevant citations. We will use a system of tags to simplify such searches. In a similar way we will tag entries with clusters of standardized tags relating to methodologies, student characteristics, reading environments, text characteristics, etc. These tags will then be the basis for database searches of the database based on predefined search criteria that will be available as clickable links within the database and the NCSeT website.
Third, we will grow a conceptual network of links between related database entries. Researchers will be able, for instance, to traverse this network to find similar studies, or contradictory studies, or studies using similar, or different, methods, or studies using similar materials but with different populations, or similar populations with different materials, and so forth.
Based on this database, the Literature section of the NCSeT website (http://ncset.uoregon.edu) will contain lists of recommended readings drawn from the database on a variety of topics such as foundational studies, readings about supported eText and specific categories of readers, or content areas, or resource types. Such lists are generated automatically by the database and so are constantly updated as new citations are added. Researchers can subscribe to these lists via an RSS feed and receive notification whenever a list changes.
Expanding the NCSeT Research Literature Database is a collaborative activity by the NCSeT community of researchers. Candidate papers, studies, and other items are identified by the NCSeT staff through searches of national databases, in published reference lists, and from community recommendations. Draft annotations, tags and links will be prepared and then vetted by qualified members of the NCSeT research community.
We are currently processing our first group of citations. These consist of the items referenced or collected for the original NCSeT proposal, and the work of all members of the existing NCSeT community: scholars at the research sites, the Technical Review Board, and the Publishers Advisory Board. In the fall of 2007 we will expand this set of citations by analyzing the reference lists of papers already included in the database. In the winter of 2008 we will begin the next phase of acquisitions following a procedure suggested by Edyburn (2003) for identifying relevant journals and collecting literature from a specific time period, in this case 2003-2008. In the fall of 2008 we will begin to solicit contributions from authors cited in the database, but who are not yet formal members of the NCSeT community.