TECHNICAL: As a professional society serving the materials science and engineering community and as the Accreditation Board of Engineering Technology body with curricular responsibility for university programs in metallurgical and materials engineering programs, The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society (TMS) also has a strong desire to nurture the development of students and faculty members and facilitate learning opportunities for the next generation of practicing engineers. This project seeks to significantly enhance an online community of learning resource designed to aid educators and students involved with materials science and engineering (MSE) programs. Specifically, a nascent online Education community (www.materialstechnology.org) will be expanded to robustly facilitate the sharing of instructional aids and the development of best practices across departments and across universities. NSF funding would greatly enhance the scope and value of the resources available to community members and allow this embryonic site time to gain broad utilization and engagement by the educational community and eventual self-sustaining operation. The intellectual merit of the project resides in its ability to efficiently provide pedagogical resources to the MSE education community that were previously dispersed and available through less efficient methods such as one-to-one contacts and home-made web sites. TMS is especially well-suited to serve as the host for these resources as it is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of collecting and disseminating technical information for the good of the MSE community. TMS also has licensed and deployed an infrastructure to house and sustain the Education community resource and has populated the inaugural version of the site with substantial content. The site employs a community-of-practice model that is powered by TMS staff support, contracted technical moderators, and guidance by volunteer leaders in the field. With this structure, the Education community has the baseline resources necessary to carry out the project. NON-TECHNICAL: The broader impacts of the project are to support and enhance undergraduate and graduate teaching by providing readily accessible, well-documented, and peer-reviewed resources that can supplement lectures and demonstrations. In particular, by providing an efficient process and neutral environment, translation of recent research results into a breadth of classrooms throughout the country will have significant benefits. The availability of very current and high quality educational resources will enhance the quality of undergraduate and graduate teaching and better equip graduates of these programs to address the pressing needs of the future in whatever career path they choose. A secondary impact is to provide the community environment for networking among educational professionals, essentially providing an online home for discussion and exchange of ideas. TMS has and will continue to communicate the availability of the Education community broadly through its online and print publications, meetings, and direct promotion through partner groups such as the University Materials Council.
