Frequenly Asked Questions

What is GROW?

GROW stands for resources in three areas of Civil Engineering - Geotechnical (Soils), Rock and Water Resources Engineering.

  • Geotechnical (Soils) engineering is the study of the properties of soils to design stable and economic foundations for structures such as buildings, bridges, roads, dams, tunnels and landfills.

  • Water Resources includes all water resources related science and engineering areas. Topics range from the basic hydrologic sciences to the design and development of water related systems, structures, projects, and devices.

  • Rock Engineering is the use of engineering principles to design safe manmade structures in and around rock. Examples include tunnels, roadways, dams, mining, blasting, earthquakes and landslide resistance structures. Rock engineering is also involved in the recovery of resources for energy, such as coal, petroleum, natural gas, uranium and geothermal energy.

What is the GROW Digital Library?

The GROW digital library is a collection of quality resources in the fields of Geotechnical (Soil), Rock and Water engineering. Our objective is to promote the advancement, discovery, awareness and lifelong learning of quality information, resources and activities in the field of Civil Engineering and related fields.

How do I find educational resources in GROW?

There are currently two ways to help you find educational materials in GROW. On top of each page there is a text field to enter keywords image of the search textfield and search button. These keywords will then be matched against Author, Title, Description, Subject and Keywords. If you are looking for something specific, such as an image, audience, or interactivity level, use Advanced Search.

Getting too many search results . How can I narrow my search?

Try using the Advanced Search where you can specify what you are looking for in more detail.

Where do GROW resources come from?

GROW resources are created by a wide variety of individuals, institutions , agencies and harvested from the web or contributed by the authors. If you have a favorite civil engineering educational resource, please contribute it to the library by providing us with the necessary descriptive metadata information about it.

What is metadata?

A Simple Guide to Creating Metadata in GROW

What is the National Science Digital Library (NSDL)? What is the relationship between NSDL and GROW?

The NSDL is a National Science Foundation program that aims to improve science education for all citizens by developing and integrating digital libraries, library collections, and library services that are distributed across the nation. GROW is a civil engineering education resource library within the NSDL. More information on NSDL is available through the NSF Program Solicitation, the NSF's NSDL site, and the NSDL Portal.

Are you experiencing problems with the site?

If so please send a message to grow@grow.arizona.edu detailing the problems you are encountering.