NSF Org:	DRL Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL)
Recipient:	AMERICAN INSTITUTES FOR RESEARCH IN THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Initial Amendment Date:	September 3, 2024
Latest Amendment Date:	September 3, 2024
Award Number:	2425651
Award Instrument:	Standard Grant
Program Manager:	Robert Ochsendorf rochsend@nsf.gov  (703)292-2760 DRL  Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) EDU  Directorate for STEM Education
Start Date:	October 1, 2024
End Date:	September 30, 2026 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount:	$499,928.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date:	$499,928.00
Funds Obligated to Date:	FY 2024 = $499,928.00
History of Investigator:	Joshua Polanin (Principal Investigator) jpolanin@air.org Beth Plale (Co-Principal Investigator) David Miller (Co-Principal Investigator) Ruhan Circi (Co-Principal Investigator) TIANJING LI (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office:	American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences 1400 CRYSTAL DR FL 10 ARLINGTON VA  US  22202-3289 (202)403-5585
Sponsor Congressional District:	08
Primary Place of Performance:	American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences 1400 CRYSTAL DR FL 10 ARLINGTON VA  US  22202-3289
Primary Place of Performance Congressional District:	08
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI):	MCN6J5L6M3T4
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s):	Accelerating Discovery in Ed, Discovery Research K-12
Primary Program Source:	4082PYXXDB NSF TRUST FUND 04002425DB NSF STEM Education
Program Reference Code(s):	8212, 8817
Program Element Code(s):	152Y00, 764500
Award Agency Code:	4900
Fund Agency Code:	4900
Assistance Listing Number(s):	47.076

ABSTRACT

Staying up to date on new research findings is an increasingly daunting task for researchers, with scientific literature doubling roughly every 15 to 20 years. Synthesis researchers, too, face growing resource constraints as the size of extant literatures grow. To help mitigate associated challenges, this project will build the foundation and collaborations for using the latest advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to transform research synthesis in STEM education. This project tackles a critical bottleneck in how science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education researchers can build on each other?s work. AI can serve as a powerful assistant to human researchers, helping by automating some of the mundane, repetitive tasks of synthesizing vast amounts of academic literature. Human content experts can then spend more time in interpreting knowledge, while also serving as a vital ?human in the loop? to uphold trustworthiness and ethical standards in validating the output of AI-based tools. This infrastructure will transform the speed and scale of research syntheses, while also democratizing access to the resources needed to conduct high-quality syntheses and spurring advances in broader researcher ecosystems.

This Midscale Research Infrastructure Incubator will develop new interdisciplinary collaborations across synthesis methodologists, AI researchers, software developers and engineers, and STEM education researchers. The Incubator team will craft a consensus plan for infrastructure development through a structured process within three working groups: (1) evaluating and comparing existing AI tools, (2) creating open-source technical architectures, and (3) developing applications for STEM education researchers. This project intends to work toward an integrative, community-based, and ethical vision that leverages and significantly expands on related existing efforts that are presently disjointed. The NSF-funded and freely available MetaReviewer platform will serve as the team?s guiding focus for integration. The incubator team will also continue to seek additional partnerships that could benefit through shared open-source code and tools.

This project is supported through a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and the Walton Family Foundation. Funding is also provided by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) program. The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) is an applied research program that seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for funded projects.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

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