Cyberinfrastructure for Learning and Instruction

Cyberinfrastructure refers to research and collaboration networked environments that provide (a) services including grid computation processing, data acquisition, storage and integration, and information integration and visualization; (b) digital resources including literature, domain-specific software, and well-curated collections of scientific data; and (c) access to specialized tools including remote instrumentation, sensors and actuators, modeling and simulations, and interactive visualization tools. Cyberinfrastructure has been created with the main goal of supporting groups of scientists and engineers to coproduce, communicate, and share scientific knowledge.

In educational contexts, cyberinfrastructure provides the means to bring expert tools and disciplinary practices into formal and informal educational settings. Specifically, cyberinfrastructure has been integrated into higher education classrooms by providing professors and students with access to disciplinary research tools and scientific data. This integration occurs ...