Beyond Productivity Information Technology, Innovation, and Creativity (2003) / Chapter Skim
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6. Schools, Colleges, and Universities
6. Schools, Colleges, and Universities
Pages 151-175
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From page 151... ...
ITCP activities have begun to proliferate in academia more visibly and vigorously in departments of art and design than in computer iThis observation was made by briefers to the committee and is consistent with the experience of some committee members as well. Computational science involves the application of computer science to study scientific problems, which often involves high-performance computing.
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From page 152... ...
And, of course, there are various gradations of specialized centers between standalone Although this chapter focuses on higher education, the committee does not intend to suggest that ITCP work occurs only in higher education and/or that preparation for ITCP work in colleges and universities cannot begin earlier at the K-12 level. While it neither possessed the credentials to speak authoritatively on K-12 education nor heard testimony from K-12 researchers or educators, the committee does wish to record its sense that ITCP work could have a considerable, positive influence on the curricula of primary and secondary schools.
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From page 153... ...
Specialized centers can serve as a cooperating unit for joint appointments of faculty and staff in mainstream departments, which can encourage intellectual cross-fertilization. In contrast with more decentralized attempts to evolve existing academic units or to incorporate ITCP elements within traditional units, the standalone center aims to focus on ITCP work from Me outset.
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From page 154... ...
. whose mission is to foster advanced research and production at the crossroads between digital technology center aims to and new art forms."~3 CRCA activities include interactive networked multimedia, virtual reality, computer-spatialized audio, and live per formance techniques for computer music and graphics; it also explores focus on STOP artists' software systems.
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From page 155... ...
In many universities, workshops, seminars, and other ad hoc convenings provide a quasi-informal meeting ground for testing multi- and transdisciplinary work focused on a knotty problem or a complex area. Such flexible, low-cost mechanisms for bringing disparate people together are inherently bottom-up, intimate, and conversational; typically, drafts of papers are read and discussed, and students, faculty, and visitors mingle across disciplinary divides.
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From page 156... ...
, the incremental costs might involve little more than refreshments, photocopying, and a quarter-time graduate student assistant; to provide the well-stocked high-tech site described above would, though, involve hardware, software, networking, facilities, and technical support costs.
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From page 157... ...
The transformation of both libraries and the schools that prepare library professionals illustrates a fundamental attention to IT as a tool for and means of cross-disciplinary exploration.~7 For example, specialized digital libraries such as the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University can simplify access to disparate literatures and thus help enable work based on multiple disciplines. Physical spaces are also evolving, such as Vassar's Mei6Understanding how information technology works has been called IT fluency.
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From page 158... ...
22Although CSTB's 1992 report Computing the Future: A Broader Agenda for Computer Science and Engineering (Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, Juris Hartmanis and Herbert Lin, eds., National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.) had as a first recommendation sustaining the core of the field, its recommendation that the field look to application areas for inspiration was controversial when published.
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From page 159... ...
research practice; he uses AI to build interactivity into cultural artifacts, applying technology to enable a "negotiation of meaning between the artist and the audience." In describing his work to the committee,26 Mateas sketched out the principal schools of thought in AI and then differentiated what he did from them, explaining differences in the goals of art or cultural production and AI research and in the ability to shape the internal workings of a device as they relate to the audience experience.27 In sum, "there is new AI technology being invented that would not be invented or discovered or even thought about by someone doing AI research who's not interested in art. But it is focused on art practice." 24They include David Salesin at the University of Washington and Roger Dannenberg at Carnegie Mellon University, members of the committee.
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From page 161... ...
Among the most notable of such interactions and the most visible were the computer graphics and computer music collaborations among computer scientists and artists and designers dating back to the early years of the computer science field. Computer graphics evolved in part through interactions with scientific (and other)
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From page 162... ...
162 BEYOND PRODUCTIVITY Challenges in Computer Science D e p a r tm e n ts One of the biggest challenges to be addressed in departments of computer science seems to be a culture that discourages ITCP workalthough sometimes subtly. Committee members and briefers to the committee recounted personal stories of their art and design interests generally not being viewed as productive.
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From page 163... ...
If the subject experts on a tenure committee do not include anyone familiar with ITCP work, or if that ITCP work does not produce a bounty of published research in major technical journals, efforts devoted to ITCP work may not advance a computer scientist's career within the department. Another challenge is related to the rise of computing and data communications across the board in academic environments, with elements of computer science increasingly being taught in other departments a situation that makes some computer scientists skeptical
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From page 164... ...
can also be hired. That prospect is uncertain, in part because of questions about how to assess candidates who are so different from computer scientists and how to compensate people who span departments with substantially different salary structures.3~ Whatever the mechanism for forming collaborations for ITCP across departments and disciplines, they must include researchers working with shared goals and must address intellectually challeng30Briefing to the committee by John Guttag, chair of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at MIT, May 31, 2001.
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From page 165... ...
One approach to establishing credibility for, and perhaps encouraging, ITCP work and programs within computer science departments would be to appoint a senior researcher as the leader of crossdisciplinary activities. Sending such a signal may be even more important for collaborations that would include a field traditionally regarded as far from computer science.
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From page 166... ...
Some arts programs have embraced IT, even creating independent areas of study; many have simply broadened their current programs by adding courses in various software packages, thereby treating IT as another tool. Arts programs are increasingly encouraging intermedia and cross-disciplinary artwork as IT tools blur the distinctions between traditional art disciplines.
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From page 167... ...
RISD's integration of digital media into its more traditional course work follows the typical pattern of the integration of IT into arts education the first and most natural step in the process is to use software to create a model of a potential artwork before the work is realized in a traditional medium, such as paint or marble. Applications such as Adobe PhotoShop, and any number of three-dimensional modeling applications, allow students to experiment with image composites and collage, placement of colors, and general composition before working with physical materials.
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From page 168... ...
In some respects, art and design departments were challenged just as society at large to identify how advances in IT could be used beneficially. In one sense, expectations are higher for arts and design departments than for computer science departments: Most people would readily conclude that some kind of profound development in the arts and design should emerge from advanced IT capability.
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From page 169... ...
.40 40Experimental computer science focuses on demonstrations, somewhat analogous to exhibition or performance in the arts and design world, in which the primary focus is on systems that operate, not on articles describing systems.
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From page 170... ...
4iWith a focus on computer science, this observation was discussed in CSTB's Making IT Better: Expanding Information Technology Research to Meet Society's Needs (Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, 2000, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.~. 42Zero-percent appointments provide faculty members with formal recognition and selected privileges (which may include attending and voting at faculty meetings, the opportunity to supervise doctoral students, and so on)
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From page 171... ...
Furthermore, a large cadre of adjunct faculty promotes the idea of second-class citizenship in the academic community for those who pursue ITCP work. ENCOURAGING MULTISKILLED INDIVIDUALS AND COLLABORATIONS Academic environments feature metamorphosis in core disciplines computer science, various arts and design and more or less independent cross-disciplinary activities, which aim to generate multiskilled people and support their work.
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From page 172... ...
For example, the HumanComputer Interaction Institute at CMU has organized a series of lunches engaging people from the computer science and design departments, and a recent course drew from both the robotics and art departments to explore robotic art. Few institutions could bring together on a regular basis audiences with such a wealth of expertise 44See Catherine Sentman and Samuel Hope, 1994, "Disciplines in Combination: Interdisciplinary, Multidisciplinary, and Other Collaborative Programs of Study," briefing paper of the Council of Arts Accrediting Associations, Reston, Va., March.
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From page 173... ...
However, in the long run, the creation of a specialized center is desirable to consolidate common interests as demonstrated by the initiatives of individual faculty members. ITCP work must develop its own world view, and while that will necessarily be built largely from the parent disciplines, a more neutral context is required so that the inherent problems and contradictions can be negotiated.
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From page 174... ...
, with questionable results for curricula and degree programs. While initial interest may begin with superficial use of IT, there is a need to think through, in the long run, the emphasis of academic activities on intellectual content relative to process: Generating in-depth knowledge, skills, and competence requires intellectual content, not just method.
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From page 175... ...
SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 175 Berlin, the now classic university fields and professions are undergoing a complex process of reconceptualization and restructuring. Just as the opposition between brain and body is being rethought, so, too, is the binary model separating the arts from the sciences, culture from nature, and biological from engineered systems.50 50For the last quarter of a century, philosophers, cognitive scientists, and cultural historians have been delving into the problem of human knowing and consciousness.
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