Metadata and the digital teaching legacy of the International Polar Year (IPY): A template for achieving the sustainable global village
Falk Huettmann
Last modified: 2008-09-13
Abstract
IPY helps to overcome national and other borders and constraints towards better information access and management of precious natural resources worldwide. It carries promises of a sustainable global village. Beyond the polar regions, IPY will leave a global legacy, most of it is of a digital nature and can be expressed as new data, Metadata and synthesized information to be used for better decision-making. IPY will affect how we do and fund science, how we administer the globe, how we teach and evaluate, and eventually, how society lives and carries out business and democracy. IPY can offer solutions for a better (digital) Adapative Managment in times of massive global resource pressures, and deserves our full support. However, it needs to be assured that IPY remains balanced in its economic, social and ecological concepts. Teaching is the key to its success. Here I outlined how IPY and its DIS (Data Information Service) gets implemented into teaching and research at institutions such as high schools and universities, and how syllabi and graduation requirements could look like.