Specifically, these videos are outstanding — I am very impressed by what these faculty have done. I am only part way through them now, but will be spending much of my break finishing them and sketching out some additional lessons — the Stanford videos I’ve seen set a high bar on thoughtfulness about lesson structure.

The NSF relevance is that developing, using and contributing to resources like this could be the basis for NSF proposal broader impact plans.

I found this description from Mary Chamberlin, a past PD in BIO; her observations jibe with mine. She also highlights the tensions that can arise when an academic goes into a (hierarchical) government agency, but also highlights the advantages for the organization — not simply that academics bring in fresh thinking on science, but she alludes to another function, perhaps underutilized, that rotators can have important things to say about the processes that are followed.

http://www.the-aps.org/publications/tphys/2011html/June/chamberlin.htm 

Also, while its absolutely true that rotators bring in the latest knowledge of their respective sciences, though sometimes stove-piped, this doesn’t mean that the permanents don’t bring such knowledge to bear — they do, and often with a broader perspective that stems from their continual interactions across disciplines.