Engineering education using resources in digital libraries

Digital libraries have been and are been created in a number of countries. In the USA, the National Science Foundation has created a National Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Digital Library (NSDL). One of the digital libraries within NSDL is the Geotechnical, Rock and Water Resources (GROW), which is Phase 1 of a National Civil Engineering Educational Resources Library. GROW and NSDL have links to high quality learning materials that can be used to develop courses for different audiences ranging from middle school to graduates and professionals. Moreover, these digital libraries provide a new environment for individual and collaborative learning. This paper deals with the use of educational materials within digital libraries to create engineering courses and training materials, and delivering them via the Web.