COMPUTER SCIENCE & THE HUMANITIES: BUILDING BLOCKS

Steering Committee Meeting

November 5, 1999

MEETING REPORT

Apologies: Eric Hoffman, Worthy Martin, Willard McCarty, John Unsworth

A. REPORTS

1. Funding

To the news of the Rockefeller's grant of $105,000, the status of grant applications with Markle and Kress, our negotiations with the NSF and our proposed applications to Ford, Pew and other foundations, members raised the issue of approaching corporate foundations, or the corporations themselves for funding. Corporations might well be interested in developing some of the products we hoped to define (examples of animation, simulation were mentioned). Others responded that we should wait until after the field committee meetings when we had more of a sense of directions.

2. Organization: New Modular Approach

The Steering Committee accepted a proposed two-part modular approach to the project, suggested by the Computer Science & Humanities Steering Committee. This would give some flexibility between Phase I and Phase II of Building Blocks. Phase I would take the project through the first set of workshops and the definition of specific more short-term project proposals that could then be reported on at a conference we plan to organize to coincide with the annual meeting of the Chief Administrative Officers of the ACLS in November in Pittsburgh. Freitag and Green felt confident that there was funding sufficient to bring us to that point.

Phase II, for which we await funding news from the NEH and others, would consist of the second set of workshops and the final plenary, both of which would be assembling a more long-term collaborative research agenda for computer scientists and humanists.

3. Field Committees

The History, Interdisciplinary, Language and Literature and Performing Arts committees were close to being completed. With the addition of Sally Promey and Catherine Hays as the new co-chairs for Visual & Media Arts, there was every indication that that committee would also move to completion rapidly. Social Sciences still needed a chair and representatives from AAA and AAG. Philosophy & Religion needs attention, especially as the chair, Eric Hoffman, had just left his position as executive director of the American Philosophical Association. James Moor and Lawrence Hinman, APA contacts, referred to by Mr. Hoffman, would be contacted for further advice and direction. There was concern about the lack of inclusion of societies representing the classics: David Green would contact the American Philological Society and the American Institute of Archeology. Check on the Committees webpage for the latest state of the field committees. As soon as field committees are near completion David Green will set up a listserv for their internal communication. No dates had yet been set for field committee meetings: committees were asked to meet between December and early February.

B. PLANNING

1. Questionnaire

Given that there had been some intense objection to sharing any of the information to be gathered by the proposed questionnaire with researchers, the committee agreed to scale down the questionnaire and not to engage any professionals in developing it beyond its current form.

All agreed that we should in fact simplify the questionnaire, emphasize that it would serve chiefly as a form of mental primer for workshop participants, and rename the document "Initial Questions" to ensure that it not be regarded in any way as a survey. Many emphasized the value of "qualitative" over "quantitative" responses.

Comments made at the meeting have now been incorporated into the document, see Initial Questions. Chief alterations have included:

• the addition of introductory text
• the assurance that responses would not be used for any other purpose than to initiate workshop discussion
• an emphasis on responding generally rather than to each specific question (thus, under each heading one broad question is in bold and other suggested questions are in italics).

It was agreed that this be mailed out by NINCH to approximately 100 people per field, after the final mailing lists had been agreed to by the field committees. Responses by email would be permitted.

The agreed timetable is:

1. Completion of Mailing Lists: no later than Feb. 15.

2. Mailed by NINCH office: no later than March 1

3. Returned: no later than March 20;

4. Simultaneous analysis by field committees and Building Block co-directors: by April 15

2. Field Committee Meetings

The committee reviewed an outline agenda for the first two field committee meetings and agreed on the following:

December-February Meetings:

• Introductions
• Discussion of benefits for member societies of Building Blocks project; aspects that would engage computer scientists
• Discussion of deliverables and outcomes;
• Creation of mailing list for "Initial Questions" document from names contributed by each field committee member
• Review of potential workshop participants and facilitators
• Discussion of potential participants for other relevant field workshops
• Discussion of desired outcomes from Workshop 1 for humanists and computer scientists
• Discussion of topics for the topical workshop discussions
• Research and Teaching: how to ensure connections in discussion
• Comment from computer scientist(s)
• Creation of agenda for April meeting/teleconference

April Meetings:

• Review of responses to "Initial Questions"
• Review of desired outcomes from workshops
• Review of workshop participants
• Refinement of Workshop agendas

3. THE WORKSHOPS

Form and Content

An initial attempt to outline the shape of the first workshop meetings was presented as a working document. It will take some time to reach the right mix of plenary sessions, field workshop sessions, topical sessions and open time.

Points raised and stressed included:

• the importance of key speakers at plenary sessions and of facilitators at plenaries and field workshops;
• the usefulness of speakers such as Sharon Traweek, UCLA anthropologist, or Carole Palmer, UIUC information scientist, who could share their understandings of the comparative cultures of how humanists work;
• the importance of some key readings to provide a "spine" and vocabulary to meetings.

With the dynamics of both the field committees and the workshops themselves, many have emphasized the importance of the groups getting to know each other very well before engagement in the issues.

Time and Place

While Field Committees would do their best to reach a range of possible dates (largely through a process of elimination), David Green would investigate possible meeting sites. Steve Olsen volunteered to help with MLA's experience with finding hotels, should it appear more pragmatic to hold the meetings at a hotel.