COMPUTER SCIENCE
& THE HUMANITIES

BUILDING
BLOCKS

Visual and Media Studies Field Committee

21 Dupont Circle, Washington, DC
May 18, 2000

MEETING REPORT

Analyzing Questionnaire | The Workshops | Issues Raised by Questionnaire

Attending: Kirk Alexander, Jeffrey Cohen, Catherine Hays, Robert Kolker, Katherine Poole, Salley Promey, Miriam Stewart.

1. Analyzing Questionnares

The meeting began with the committee members breaking into pairs and reviewing questionnaires. Members were reminded to keep the following project goals in mind:

  1. Articulate needs by field and across disciplines
  2. Identify practical projects and next steps
  3. Identify longer range research agenda

As a group the Committee organized issues raised through the questionnaires and identified overriding themes. Four main themes were derived from this exercise:

 

2. Workshop

a. Plenary Suggestion:

James O'Donnell Professor of Classics and Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing

 

b. Field Meetings

It was agreed that the identified themes would be a useful way to organize the time spent during the field meetings at the Workshop. The group proposed following the model of "Digital Dialogues" conducted at the University of Maryland which were conversations initiated by descriptions of projects. A small number of panel members would quickly share someone else's project. A facilitator would help guide discussion based on the Building Block project goals. Field committee members will identify specific (existing) projects that would be particularly thought provoking of future possibilities (help us think "outside the box").

c. Field Meeting Themes

We will compile an annotated links list around these themes.

 

d. Topical Sessions

Potential Topical Sessions were discussed keeping in mind the categories as identified by the steering committee.

  1. Cooperation: Why is working collaboratively such a positive value? Show one or two examples of collaborative digital projects; have a facilitator who could teach collaborative skills
  2. Digital Images: What is some of the potential of digital images; how could they change and expand our work?
  3. Digital Text: How is digital text different?
  4. Visualization: How can we reconstitute information in visual form and how can it affect or transform how we do our work?
  5. Publication: What are some new forms of electronic publication?
  6. Interface Design/Interactivity: What do we mean by interactivy and how is it achieved?

 

Proposed Topical Sessions, with suggested presenters:

1. Integrated Cultural Resources

This session hopes to explore various approaches for organizing visual materials including a research/scholarly database with core identification of objects and a scholarly annotated database.

 

2. Cooperation: Collaboration

This session will explore the process of working collaboratively across varies academic venues: between departments, between universities, between faculty members and technology experts.

 

3. Visualization: Using New Visual Media--new ways of working/teaching

(Steve Murray would be welcome to join this panel although Art and Media Studies will not be allocating one of their workshop participation slots to invite him to the workshop. He has been invited by History.)

 

4. Visualization: The Moving Image

(Delivery/Publication of high bandwidth media (moving images)

 

e. The structure for the Topical Sessions:

A ten-minute project presentation to be followed by 45-50 minutes of discussion. Ideas for future collaborations and projects should emerge from these conversations.

The decision to include short presentations of projects, after earlier decisions to steer clear of what might be considered an "advertisement" of an individual's work, was based on the usefulness such presentations, especially in the effort to avoid duplication of efforts. People working on similar projects may form partnerships, etc.

The chair will be expected to record the meetings, allowing the facilitator freedom to function.

Roger Bruce is in process for confirmation as facilitator.

 

f. Three Main Goals

  1. Articulate needs by field and across disciplines.
  2. Develop practical projects
  3. Envision longer range research agenda

3. Issues Raised by Questionnaire, organized by Theme

Collections:

  1. More texts and images online
  2. Need authoritative standards for sharing images, catalogues
  3. Collaboration among and within institutions, including copyright
  4. Preservation of original materials becoming compromised by material disintegration
  5. "Reachabilty" of materials and access to primary sources
  6. Art historians need to compare images online
  7. Allow access across distance
  8. Need access to a wide range of visual material for scholarly argument and teaching
  9. Complete and in-depth data, clear documentation
  10. Suppliers and cataloguers need meta-data common database
  11. Dichotomy of perspectives, scholars versus librarians and cataloguers
  12. Need faithful (true color) reproductions
  13. Common catalogue of art objects based on standards

 

Tools:

  1. Reliable interfaces
  2. Searching tools: across formats, across collections
  3. Art history needs documentary evidence, "searchability"
  4. Finding materials by range, images, sounds, library catalogues
  5. Expectations and desire&emdash;information age opens new vistas
  6. Cracking the archives&emdash;knowing what exists where, what it comprises, how to get at what's essential
  7. Tech programmers, visual analysis
  8. Image content and appearance searching tools
  9. Support for discipline vocabulary and language approaches
  10. Tools for browsing and serendipitous discovery, not just searching for objects known
  11. Ways to identify authoritative materials
  12. Access to materials in a variety of formats
  13. Need to work with a combination of originals and surrogates

 

Uses, Publication, Delivery:

  1. Better copyright resolution, central check, easier permission&emdash;fair use
  2. Better peer-review for online publications
  3. More memory, better environment for multimedia consultation
  4. Bandwidth issues for multimedia and delivery of moving images
  5. Better information access for independent scholars
  6. Support dynamic teaching of process&emdash;real time access
  7. "Images at will" in classroom activities, museums
  8. Audiences: broader (expanded) access
  9. Virtual experiences for students (ex. &endash; travel architectural site)

 

Support:

  1. Help, training, and time for non-tech scholars to master technology
  2. Change in institutional attitudes&emdash;legal values, recognition
  3. Time&emdash;teaching prep and slides, publication and images
  4. Supportive institutional policies and procedures
  5. Resources (money) for museums to carry out projects
  6. Funding resources.
  7. More collaboration across institutions and departments
  8. Tools for collaborative writing.
  9. More interdisciplinary collaborative courses

 

 

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