Supported by NSF, NSDL
and the Engineering Pathway
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Frequently Asked Questions
Troubleshooting
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Frequently Asked Questions
Why did you start the BPC Portal?
The portal was designed to serve three communities: current NSF grantees of the
BPC program and prospective grantees. The digital library serves this community as
well as all teachers, students, faculty, and outreach leaders interested in
increasing he number of underrepresented graduates in the computing disciplines,
with an emphasis on women, persons with disabilities, and minorities (African
Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and
Pacific Islanders).
What kinds of materials can I find in the BPC Digital Library?
You can find promising practices, key research, courseware, videos, classroom and
laboratory activities, lesson plans, assessment tools, case studies, educational
games, personally or socially meaningful assignments,inclusive teaching methods,
relevant curriculum, bridge courses, best practices for peer and tier mentoring
and other resources for both K-12 and Higher Education teachers, students, parents
and other stakeholders.
Is there a cost for using the BPC Digital Library?
No. Some resources may require a fee in order to access them, but all of BPC Digital Library's
services are free of charge.
How big is the BPC Digital Library?
There are over 1,500 resources associated with Broadening Participation in
Computing. There are several difference collections that are accessible in the BPC
Digital Library. The ACM Women in Computing has close to 1,000 resources. The BPC targeted
collection of reviewed resources has approximately 400 resources. Users can also
draw upon over 10,000 educational resources catalogued in the Engineering Pathway
digital library.
Where do the entries in the BPC Digital Library come from?
All cataloged entries have been submitted to the BPC Digital Library's collection by registered
users from the computing and engineering education community.
How do I contribute resources that I have developed into the BPC Digital Library?
First, become a registered user by clicking on "Log On" and then on the "User
Registration" link. Once registered and logged into the BPC community, click on
the "Submit" button on the left navigation menu and fill out the form with
information about the submitted resource.
How is the BPC Digital Library different from doing a Google Search?
We provide high-quality educational materials in engineering, computer science,
and technology fields. Unlike a Google Search, searching the the BPC Digital Library will
increase the search relevancy to high quality resources that have been reviewed.
You can also focus your search over specific fields, like learning resource type
(e.g., lectures, images, courses, curricula, lesson plans), age level, and ABET
disciplinary subject.
What are the copyright policies governing the reuse of images, graphics,
animations, and other resources available through the BPC Digital Library?
Because the BPC Digital Library aggregates materials developed by a wide range of content
providers, each resource carries its own policy for reproduction and/or reuse of
content. In many cases, the content authors anticipate "fair use" for educational
purposes with proper attribution. As with any web resource, it is always best to
contact the author before going beyond "fair use" in publicly displaying any
text, animation, image, or other content owned by others. In some cases rights
information is displayed on the resource description page.
What does it mean to "Register"?
Registered Users are able to submit teaching resources to the BPC Digital Library, and have a
"My Workspace" to track favorite resources. As the BPC Digital Library undergoes future
development, we are looking forward to adding new services for our registered
users, such as a recommender system and increased personalization in "My
Workspace".
What is "My Workspace"?
"My Workspace" is a place for registered users to keep track of favorite
resources. While viewing a resource, you can click "Save To Workspace" and have
the resource added to your Workspace. "My Workspace" also keeps track of all
resources you have submitted.
Will my registration information or author email be kept private?
Yes. We do NOT display or release registration information or emails of authors
outside of the community of the BPC Digital Library developers. We do not spam authors or
registered users. We may send out occasional messages about new services or let
authors know the usage statistics of their resources. This email is kept to a
minimum. In fact, it has been less than one a year. We only use the email address
of authors to contact them on occasion about usage information. We do, however,
aggregate usage information using commercial software. We will not release
explicit usage information to any private or government agency as a matter of
principle.
What is courseware?
Courseware consists of digital instructional materials or tools used to support
the teaching and learning processes. These digital learning resources (courseware)
can encompass any knowledge area and may include, but not be limited to, one or
more of the following: material for instructor-led classes, material for self-
directed computer-based education, interactive tutorials, educational games,
encyclopedic works, videos to support specific courses, enhanced case-studies with
supplementary information, distance and asynchronous learning materials, and
collections of raw image, sound, or other multimedia materials that can be
integrated into learning modules. Well-designed courseware will also include
facilities for assessing individual student progress in obtaining knowledge from
the materials as well as assessment of the effectiveness of the use of the
materials by other educators/ learners and the ability of the educational community
of users to adopt and adapt the materials to their learning environments.
The site stalls when I try to submit a resource; has the resource been cataloged or not?
There are two ways to verify that your resource has been cataloged: visit your workspace or check your email;
if the resource has been cataloged, it will be available in your workspace, and an email verifying your status as author of the submission will be sent to you.
The source of the submission stall is being investigated, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
We would greatly appreciate an email report of any occurance of this problem.
Why do I get an empty search results error when I try to view results beyond the first page?
To correctly view search results beyond the first page, you need to allow the Broadending Participation in Computing portal to set cookies in your browser.
Please see the instructions below for your browser:
I'm having trouble logging in. What should I do?
Internet Explorer privacy settings can interfere with the login process on the Broadending Participation in Computing portal. Try the following:
...and sometimes Google Web Accelerator can interfere with the login process on the Broadending Participation in Computing portal. If you are running Google Web Accelerator and after entering your login details it doesn't get past the next screen try the following:
If your issue isn't resolved you can also try stopping Google Web Accelerator while you use the Broadending Participation in Computing portal.
Supported by NSF, NSDL
and the Engineering Pathway