Bamboo workshop: John Unsworth's opening remarks
Second day of the Project Bamboo Princeton workshop, John Unsworth speaking from perspective of ACLS cyberinfrastructure report (2006).
Unsworth summoned Ben Franklin as the project's patron saint, as geek (tinkerer) and politician (makes revolution sustainable). Franklin also brings up the importance of "hanging together", crossing institutional boundaties.
Things to be careful with: we need to get colleagues to engage with technology questions that impact them: teaching changes, critiques of technology. We should also careful not to be seduced by simple tools running vast data, which don't address complex questions. And we should be careful not to maintain commercial-academic firewall
There is a boundary between invisible and visible technologies, which is always shifting. We should beware of reinventing the wheel, yes, but make sure we know about other wheels, and allow for the improvements.
How does the ACLS report (2006) connecting with Bamboo discussions? There are many common themes, yes. But also, Bamboo validates the ACLS report, as many things have emerged. "We are now at a moment when real change seems possible" - more people are involved and interested, now. More institutions are invested, as well.
What about the sciences cyberinfrastructure initiative? Much to learn. And yet it might not be as far along as one might think.
Comments:
See also the recent article in Educause Review titled Things to Do While Waiting for the Future to Happen: Building Cyberinfrastructure for the Liberal Arts (http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/ThingstoDoWhileWaitingfor/46969) by David Green and Michael Roy.
Comment by Mike Lynch [Visitor] 
· http://community.middlebury.edu/~lynch 07/17/08 @ 06:11
Permalink
Leave a comment
Allowed XHTML tags: <p, ul, ol, li, dl, dt, dd, address, blockquote, ins, del, span, bdo, br, em, strong, dfn, code, samp, kdb, var, cite, abbr, acronym, q, sub, sup, tt, i, b, big, small>
