I've been thinking about the difference between a "resource center" and a "center of excellence." I think Alex is right that it wouldn't be that difficult, nor require a lot of funding to build a simple resource center. But a big list o' links is not what I have in mind.
I want a center that sponsors workshops and conferences, brings in scholars and/or developers in residence, and offers regular classes. The center should certainly include a "resource center" of well-organized and maintained links to resources, but that's only a piece of what I'm imagining.
What might be ideal is to begin the resource center as part of the grant application--it's my understanding that NSF tends to like funding things where people have already started on the work, rather than waiting for funding before they consider jumping in.
Dave Winer has posted a "modest proposal" of a weblogging conference. I like the ideas he's put forth, though I'm less enthusiastic about the working title ("Weblogs in Meatspace").
Shelley Powers notes that the cost of attending such things is often a deal-breaker, especially for the less-heard voices (women, minorities, lower-income). Interestingly, that's exactly the sort of thing that NSF is most interested in these days...how to get underrepresented populations more involved in sci-tech activities.
So, I see some room for cooperation here. Perhaps a conference like Dave's describing could have partial funding from NSF. We could build either the conference itself, or participation in the conference (and "scholarships" for it focused on underrepresented groups) into the grant proposal.
I e-mailed Dave about it, and he's interested...what do y'all think?
From the blog for Kevin Werbach's SUPERNOVA 2002 conference, a post entitled "Why Decentralization."
Decentralization is a big word. It's not one of those catchy buzzphrases the market research firms churn out, so its meaning may not be immediately obvious. But it's vitally important. I'm convinced decentralization is a crucial concept for the next wave of technology and business developments.
I think this is key to the blogging concept in scholarly publication and pedagogy, as well. Worth following the threads here (and going back and looking at some of what the speakers discussed at Yale Law School's "Revenge of the Blog" conference last month.
Okay, I know I started this and then dropped the ball. Our winter quarter starts today, so I've been involved in trying to get syllabi ready. But I've also been turning this research topic around in my head, and have made some progress.
Where I'd like to focus is on the ability of blogs (and other microcontent publishing, but especially) blogs) to enable connections among scholars in a way that traditional media have not. That's the "scholarly communication" piece. On that topic, take a look at this article from The Chronicle of Higher Education, in which a Princeton CS professor talks about blogs:
But he and other researchers who are challenging government efforts to regulate technology are expressing themselves more broadly through blogs, as Web logs are known. Besides Mr. Felten's there are also Zimran Ahmed's winterspeak.com, Maximillian Dornseif's dysLEXia, and Frank R. Field's FurdLog, to name a few.Mr. Felten says Freedom to Tinker allows him to refine his thinking about technology and law without going through the traditional academic-publishing process. "I get a surprising number of really good, thoughtful comments from people I've never heard of," he says. "I've access to these ideas ... which I never would have had otherwise."
Sometimes he uses the blog to float ideas for regulating technology -- and then he debates those who respond.
(Thanks to Hylton Joliffe's Corante on Blogging for the link.)
Of particular interest would be the ability of blogs to foster cross-cultural and international collaborations (like this one!), and looking at how acceptance/use/impact of the technology varied across cultures. If we could do three cultural environments--Norway, Japan, US--it woud strengthen any conclusions.
The second area I'm interested in exploring is looking at the effect of microcontent publishing on scholarly publishing models. How can these systems, with their associated "reputation systems," change the traditional publish-or-perish models in academia?
So, there's some stuff to start the brainstorming.
Thanks, Liz, for setting this up (what a good idea) and hi Alex and Joi! I'm a bit short for time, but I'll just briefly introduce my interest in this: I'm in Bergen, Norway, and I've been doing some research on blogging, in parallel with a phd on digital narrative (due to be finished in a month). I'm interested in blogging as a tool in academic research (and I co-authored a paper on that with Torill Mortensen: Blogging Thoughts (pdf)). I'm also really interested in the ways in which blogs connect, and the networks that appear. I'm fascinated by what the ways in which we use links to connect affects power (I wrote a short paper about that, actually) and I'd like to continue researching these connections - the way the blogosphere works or could work, and how connections are made, and how collaborative thinking happens, and so on.
There's a funding program (KIM: Kommunikasjon, IKT og Medier - sorry, no English description here) from the Norwegian Research Council coming up (applications due January 31) which would suit a project about this kind of stuff, and I'm interested in being part of a larger Norwegian project which would relate to this, and I'm interested in that project collaborating with other, international projects. I need to talk with the people who'll actually be leading the Norwegian project about this, so perhaps I should invite them here.
Hi, all. I'll forego the self-intro (I am my blog), and instead suggest some things I'm interested in lately that might have brought me here.
1. The most bloggy thing I'm working on now is a project to, in basic terms, replicate Google's Zeitgeist for the blog world, looking at what topics seem to be the fastest gainers and what is being said about them. A realistic goal for a prototype, given other active projects right now, is January. I presented something of a proof-of-concept for this at the Association for Internet Researchers conference in October.
2. I've just initiated some work with a student named Taso Lagos on exchanges between Greek and US bloggers via their blogs. This is proposed as part of a panel on blogging at International Communication Association meeting in San Diego in May.
I'm doing some other stuff on Slashdot and the Zapatistas, but neither are directly related to personal blogs. I've given this address over to some colleagues who may be interested in joining up, either from the US side or elsewhere. If they have some interest, I'll sign them onto the board.
I think a number of possibilities have been brought together. Assuming a large (I know, "medium"; but over $1 mill seems large to me), multiyear program, we should probably brainstorm about (a) the ultimate hoped-for product, and (b) what milestone(s) we would expect to reach within the first 9 months or so.
Welcome to the new "blogresearch" blog, which I've set up to allow ongoing discussion on the topic of collaborative, funded, blog-related research.
To start with, the participants/authors in this shared space are myself, Jill Walker, Joi Ito, and Alex Halavais. Each of us also have the ability to add additional authors if we so desire.
I'll start by putting in some of my posts from mamamusings, and will leave it up to those who've exchanged e-mail with me the extent to which they want to add that material up here in the public eye.