Informal Commons
A search engine for informal science education site
Resource Rich Environment
The Informal Commons search engine was developed to make it easier to find informal science education resources. Nearly a dozen ISE professional development sites were included:
- + Association of Science-Technology Centers Dimensions MagazineAssessment Tools in Informal Science
- + CitizenScience
- + ExhibitFiles
- + HowtoSmile.org
- + Informal Science, Nanoscale Information Science Education Network
- + National Association for Museum Exhibition
- + Open Exhibits
- + Visitor Studies Association
The Informal Commons site displays results from a federated search. It also includes faceted search results where users can choose to browse related results by a variety of different criteria including content, audience, content source, funding source, and many others. Rich metadata was added to each record to make the search more robust.The open source Solr search platform was used for the development of the federated search engine.
Ideum developed the current version of the site with the Advancement of Informal Science Education in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments, and the Lawrence Hall of Science.
The Informal Commons project was supported by the National Science Foundation.
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