COMPUTER SCIENCE & THE HUMANITIES: BUILDING BLOCKS

Steering Committee Meeting

Conference Call - June 23, 2000

MEETING REPORT

Apologies: Lindy Biggs, Sally Promey, Steven Wheatley

A. FIELD MEETINGS

1. Developing Agendas

Reps reported on the highlights of their meetings so far (see reports). Different committees were at different stages; we need to pick up momentum and it was suggested that field committees make every effort to communicate regularly (by email and phone). A summary of planned approaches is as follows

-	HISTORY	INTERDISCIPLINARY	LANGUAGE & LITERATURE	PERFORMING ARTS	VISUAL & MEDIA STUDIES
Workshop Theme(s)	-	Document life-cycle Collaboration	Electronic Publication	-	* Collections * Tools/Access * Uses/Delivery/ Publication * Support
Summary of Questionnaire Responses	not yet available--prep by Mark Kornbluh	not yet available--prep by Nathaniel Knight	not yet available	not yet available	not yet available
Other Preparation for Workshop	-	-	Request definition of electronic publication from participants E-publication/ dissemination reading list Annotated,exemplary e-pub. projects	-	-
WORKSHOP AGENDA:	-	-	-	-	-
Session 1 How do we work?	Review of Questionnaire responses	Review of Questionnaire responses	Review of Questionnaire responses	Review of Questionnaire responses	Review of Questionnaire responses
Session 2 How would we like to work	-	-	Problems and opportunities	-	-
Session 3 "What do we need to work the way we want"	-	-	-	-	-
Session 4	-	-	-	-	-
Session 5 Specs/requirements; outlines of proposals	-	-	-	-	-
Session 6	-	-	-	-	-

2. Contacting and Preparing Participants

As well as organizing the agendas for the field meetings, we need to contact and prepare the confirmed workshop participants. David Green will prepare a confirmation and information letter to go to participants by the middle of July. Field committees should also be in contact with participants especially to prepare them for the opening sessions.

3. Clarification of Outcomes: Definitions of Needs ("Specs") and Outline Proposals

We reiterated that the dynamic of the meeting should be from the investigation of current methodologies, through a discussion of how digital technologies can and will change how we work, to the outlining of specific projects to develop software and environments that would fit our needs.

After the meeting John Unsworth suggested that we also consider, in this process, the drawing up of "a set of specifications/community desiderata that funding proposals from other entities and individuals could point to in justifying the work they propose to do...." Clearly stating specific needs can be the first steps of outlining funding proposals. They can serve also a wider community and other groups could point to these needs statements as justifications for their own grant proposals.

B. TOPICAL SESSIONS

The functions of the topical sessions are to provide information about what is currently possible by examining a few illustrative leading projects; to discuss how these current activities/resources answer our needs; and to outline what is still missing. The information and discussion should provide fodder for the field committees as they clarify their needs and focus on specific project proposals.

The steering committee decided that rather than have six 90-minute topical sessions, they would prefer three, three-hour plenary sessions that could incorporate up to three twenty-minute presentations, some general questions and answers, a break, and an hour's discussion by interdisciplinary groups that would then report back to the whole group. The committee liked the idea of having the discussion groups in the same large hall as the plenary.

Before the conference call, the leading contenders for topical sessions were:

1. DISSEMINATION/PUBLICATION- "Models for Electronic Publication"
2. DIGITAL MEDIA: PROMISES AND REQUIREMENTS
3. INTERACTIVITY:
4. VISUALIZATION: reconstituting information in visual form
5. COLLABORATION/COOPERATION: (+Moving beyond individual projects)
6. ACCESS: Searching/Standards; Digital Divide; Collections Selection (what's available)
7. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

By the end of the discussion, the committee recommended three topics, each of which would be further developed by small teams:

Paula Petrik (HISTORY) had already volunteered a presentation on the future of the footnote and innovative annotation modes; Several had nominated participant Stephen Murray, Columbia University to discuss his Amiens Cathedral project <http://www.learn.columbia.edu/Mcahweb/index-frame.html>.

Other presenters suggested include Kirk Alexander (VISUAL) and Carolina Cruz-Neira (VISUAL), Associate Director of the Virtual Reality Applications Center at Iowa State . John offered http://urizen.village.virginia.edu/hell/ as a local example of visualization and the search engine WebBrain <http://www.webbrain.com/open_NS.htm> as an example of interactivity (that reminds me of the Smithsonian's "Revealing Things" exhibit <http://web2.si.edu/revealingthings/>. Douglas Mills, Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, was recommended on interactive web-based language learning ( "Realizing the Interactive Potential of QuickTime," http://deil.lang.uiuc.edu/qt/Calico00.html)

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