The College Opportunity and Affordability Act, recently passed by the House, included funding for Digital Promise's National Center for Learning Science and Technology Trust Fund. One of Digital Promise's goals is to: "Digitize America’s collected memory stored in our nation's universities, libraries, museums and public television archives to make these materials available anytime and anywhere."
Here's an excerpt from the press release:
We are thrilled to report that legislation embracing the Digital Promise proposal to establish the National Center for Learning Science and Technology Trust Fund as a pilot program (we had originally labeled the Center "DO IT," the Digital Opportunity Investment Trust) was passed by the House of Representatives by a wide margin on Thursday evening, February 7.
The College Opportunity and Affordability Act (HR 4137), authorizes the establishment of the Center as an independent nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation within the Department of Education. Under the legislation, the Center will have its own distinguished nine member board of directors. It will administer a trust fund for precompetitive basic and applied research to help transform education, skills training and lifelong learning for the digital age. It will assess and research prototypes for innovative digital learning and information technologies; support pilot testing and evaluation, encourage their widespread adoption and use, and introduce digital media education programs for parents, teachers, and children to build technology literacy. To carry out its activities the Center will award contracts and grants to colleges and universities, museums, libraries, public broadcasting entities and similar nonprofit organizations and public institutions, as well as to for-profit organizations.