CCT, in cooperation with Thirteen/WNET New York, developed a comprehensive inventory of web resources and K-12 teacher professional development services offered by the nation's public broadcasting stations for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

This research had two essential aims:

1. To survey the landscape of web offerings at local public television stations while at the same time investigating the technical and operational options for bringing the resources in these individual sites or portals under one 'umbrella' so they can be shared and promoted in a more holistic manner.
2. To inform public broadcasting education staff and other education stakeholders about the latest availability of teacher professional development services offered by public television stations and how those might best be maximized for serving the public broadcasting community and the nation at large.

This inventory represented a first step in cataloging web-based and professional development services public television stations offer in support of formal K-12 education. It contains assets available on individual station's websites as of Winter 2004 as well as the professional development offerings and resources they had available as of Spring 2004.

To generate the inventory, staff at Thirteen and CCT conducted a series of interviews with education staff at 25 stations to identify the range of K-12 resources they were offering both online and as part of their professional development efforts. Based on responses to these interviews and the project's goals, we developed data collection instruments: an online log (one each for student, teacher and professional development assets) and an online survey. The online logs allowed us to review each public television station's website, recording web-based assets for K-12 students or teachers or teacher professional development resources. The online survey distributed to each public television station asked education staff and/or general managers to document information about each professional development resource, such as a workshop, video or service, that they offer to K-12 educators in their community.

Of the 175 public television stations, 93 stations submitted resources for inclusion in the Inventory; 48 stations indicated they were not currently offering professional development resources; and 35 stations did not respond to the survey or follow-up telephone calls (although staff at CPB indicated it was unlikely these stations offered professional development resources).

The inventory combines the data collected through our interviews, web log and web survey with portions of the SABS data CPB had gathered in the 2004 version of the survey.