Conference: Supporting Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure Readiness for STEM Education Research Teams

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) will host a workshop that brings together NSF-funded teams working on midscale research infrastructure incubator projects for STEM education research with a focus on education equity (see NSF 22-085). ICPSR will share information, resources, and support incubator teams in developing and managing mid-scale infrastructure projects.

These incubator projects have identified research infrastructure gaps related to assessments, teacher practices, and digital tools to support student learning and have proposed pilot tools, cyberinfrastructure, large-scale datasets, etc., for filling these gaps. To scale these pilots, the teams will need to successfully develop proposals to create mid-scale research infrastructure (Midscale RI).

However, Midscale RI proposals require specialized knowledge that is not common within the STEM education research community and thus may limit the community’s ability to develop competitive Midscale RI proposals.

The goal of the workshop is to advance the work of researchers and staff from projects funded under the effort described in the DCL: Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure (Midscale RI) Incubators and Conferences for STEM Education Research with a Focus on Education Equity. ICPSR faculty and staff are deeply involved in supporting the STEM education research community through the PEERS STEM education research hub and are experienced with the NSF Midscale RI program through Research Data Ecosystem, a Midscale RI project building software to support a transparent and reproducible research data lifecycle.

The workshop will draw on these experiences to build the capacity of the incubator teams to conceive and implement Midscale RI projects by providing training in project management, the development of and use of project execution plans, work breakdown structures, risk registers, contingency planning, human-centered design, and the implementation and reporting necessary for successful projects. ICPSR will provide a structured forum in which the incubator teams can learn from one another, establish common points of interest, and establish an ongoing community of practice to foster collaborative efforts going forward.

As a result of the workshop, incubator teams will be more likely to realize the visions of their incubator projects, leading to promising new advancements in STEM education research that are developed specifically with a focus on education equity.

This project is supported by NSF's EDU Core Research (ECR) program and NSF’s Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12). The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development.

The DRK-12 program seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. 

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.