|
|
COMPUTER SCIENCE
& THE HUMANITIES:
|
May 15, 2000
Apologies: Worthy Martin, Willard McCarty, John Unsworth,
Steven Wheatley
Questionnaire | Field Committees | Workshops | Agenda Chart
The questionnaire was ready for use April 4th. The Thank-you letters are going out slowly. Visual & Media Studies sent their mailing list in and 109 letters were mailed Tuesday April 18. The Language & Literature list arrived Wednesday April 19. The Performing Arts list arrived May 4 and the letters were sent May 15. The History and Interdisciplinary lists are still being assembled.
The database was ready for viewing on Tuesday April 12 at http://d.cni.org:591/ninch/search.html. Angelo Cruz, the designer of the database has enabled us to review the total list of respondents in chronological order and the list of respondents for each field. For those wanting to download and print out all the responses, he has established another URL: http://d.cni.org:591/ninch/search2.html where all the responses in a particular field are displayed (in batches of 50) for print-out.
The committee decided to extend the deadline for responses to April 30. As of 10am, April 20 there were 62 responses; as of May 15 there were 200 responses.
To the question of what we were looking for in the questionnaire responses and how we would use them, some stressed that this was a qualitative instrument and that we should look for patterns and perhaps new questions or themes that emerged in terms of how people currently worked and what their perceived needs were. Some were especially interested in producing strong aggregate statements of need rather than simply a review of how people did their research and eaching.
Some wanted to focus on how creative people are imagining what they'll be doing in five years from now. Others stressed how what we do and how we conceptualize what we do is so dependent on the tools we use. Therefore, we have an imperative to be conscious of this and to be pro-active in thinking about how we can begin to design new tools.
The exciting part of this project was in encouraging colleagues to envision the future rather than let the engineers take us there. As with so many projects, this was not about the technology at root but about being creative about organizing our future. It was about designing new tools in which our values are central.
One great value of this project as it develops is the focus on conversation rather than on specific product outcome.
Bob Keller reported on the withdrawal from the project by the Society of Dance History Scholars. Performing Arts was continuing to engage dance historians, including some of those signed up by SDHS.
All field representatives reported on positive meetings, some having a more free-form discussion of the issues than others.
Field committees were now reviewing their options for evaluating their questionnaire responses. Plans were as follows:
There was some discussion of the funds spent on the meetings and the need for some protocol or generally understood "code of spending."
David Green reviewed the latest information on planning for the workshops. We confirmed that the dates were September 20 through September 24th: three full days for meetings with a welcoming buffet reception and a closing plenary on the morning of the 24th. Washington DC increasingly seemed the most likely location.
The committee broadly agreed with the basic goals of this part of the project:
Bob Keller felt there had been some misunderstanding of the role of computer scientists in the project. Members of the Performing Arts Field Committee felt that we shouldn't delay in working directly with more computer scientists.
David Green replied that Building Blocks was conceptualized as the very first part of the Computer Science and Humanities Initiative with the National Academies. It was felt that the humanities community needed first to have deep conversations among its own members about our ways of working and our needs before we started programmatic conversations with scientists. Once this group had articulated need, with some commentary from computer scientists, we would move forward to the second part of the project which would build a research agenda with computer scientists. Green felt that it was inappropriate to build in too many computer scientists right at the start, although two or three in a workshop of 17 did seem appropriate. Some field committees already included a computer scientist and others were encouraged to do the same.
In discussing the outline agenda, we broadly agreed on an opening buffet reception with a speaker on Wednesday Sept. 20. Thursday would open with Field Meetings I ("How do we work?"; 9-10:30am; 11-12:30pm) followed by a buffet lunch, two topical sessions (2-3:30pm; 4-5:30pm) and a plenary discussion of common threads.
Friday would reverse the order of field meetings and topical sessions with the topical sessions happening first. Although we would need some time to have the plenary summings up and tie developments together, we also thought it important to have a "night-off."
Saturday would basically repeat Friday's schedule. On Sunday, to keep people, it was suggested that we end with a good speaker as well as have a tying-up final plenary session.
|
Wed Sept 20 |
Thu Sept 21 |
Fri Sept 22 |
Sat Sept 23 |
Sun Sept 24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
-- |
Buffet breakfast |
Buffet breakfast |
Buffet breakfast |
Buffet breakfast |
|
-- |
Field Meetings |
2 single (or one-double) Topical Sessions |
2 single (or one-double) Topical Sessions |
Plenary: |
|
-- |
Field Meetings |
2 single (or one-double) Topical Sessions |
2 single (or one-double) Topical Sessions |
Closing Speaker |
|
|
Lunch |
Lunch |
Lunch |
Lunch |
|
-- |
2 single (or one-double) Topical Sessions |
Field Meetings |
Field Meetings |
-- |
|
Assemble |
2 single (or one-double) Topical Sessions |
Field Meetings |
Field Meetings |
-- |
|
Opening reception; b |
Plenary discussion of threads of the day |
Plenary discussion of threads of the day |
Plenary discussion of threads of the day |
-- |
|
-- |
Performance or presentation of compelling digital project |
Dinner out/Night off |
Dinner |
-- |
We would need two speakers: an inspirational, visionary and an experienced, lively practitioner.
Each day we would need a plenary summarizing group discussion of where we're going, plus some inspiration and relaxation.
It was suggested that we organize a website for the workshops that would help organize them and report on them. Other features could include:
David Green said he would look into having a designer fashion a logo and an outline for such a project website.
There is still some debate about whether the first of the three field meetings should be about plumbing the ways that we work in each field, or whether we should move along immediately to a consideration of needs. We might compromise and have one of the first two 90-minute sessions on "how we work" and then move quickly into "what we need" (the subject for the second day's field meetings).
Reporters: the committee agreed that the field committee representatives would be the best reporters of the meetings, especially if they could work in sync with each other. We would then still need to elect a really good facilitator from the workshop participants
The topical sessions to some seemed conceived too much as flat, rather dry problem-solving exercises rather than as arenas for creative thinking about new possibilities that would allow participants to see how these topics could improve their working lives. Suggested new names and re-conceptualizations were as follows:
|
Original list |
New List |
|---|---|
|
Co-operation |
Co-operation |
|
Imaging |
Digital Images |
|
Text databases |
Digital Text |
|
Interactive databases |
-- |
|
Visualization |
Visualization |
|
Shared intellectual trajectories |
-- |
|
Publication |
Publication/Dissemination |
|
Copyright & cost recovery |
-- |
|
-- |
Interface Design |
|
|
|
It was suggested we approach these as questions, or to develop a set of questions around each topic
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?
Respectfully,
David Green
|
|
|
BUILDING
|
