Also known as: CSCI 4830 and CSCI 7000
In addition to reading and talking, we will also experience some of this for ourselves! Specifically, we will use D3E - The Digital Document Discourse Environment - as an online forum for discussing some of our readings. For an example of D3E in use, look at the way it is being used by The Journal of Interactive Media in Education to support online reviewing of journal articles.
We will also gradually and collectively construct a type of virtual library containing pointers to interesting online resources relevant to our studies - sort of our own 'Internet Dreams-specific Yahoo'. We will probably use the ROADS system for this. ROADS - Resource Organisation And Discovery in Subject-based services - is a set of software tools to enable the set up and maintenance of Web based subject gateways. Subject gateways are services which provide searchable and browseable catalogues of Internet based resources. Subject gateways will typically focus on a related set of academic subject areas. ROADS is designed to be used and maintained by librarians so you don't need to know how to program to use it. It is also based on standards - so the site we construct will be searchable by other virtual libraries. Check out all the interesting sites that are using ROADS to get a feel for its capabilities. I find the Social Science Information Gateway to be quite useful.
The aim of the project part of the course is to give you an opportunity to 'go deeper' into an area of interest to you. Projects will most likely be done in small teams. The type of project is flexible, depending on your skills and interests - it can be implementing something, evaluating something, researching something, etc. The main requirement is that there is a service element to your chosen project; i.e., you should be doing something real for someone. As part of organizing this course, I will line up potential 'customers' interested in sponsoring projects. Two customers already lined up include:
The core text for the course will be:
Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths, and Metaphors
by Mark Stefik
MIT Press, 1997
From the author......
This book is [about moving beyond the current "information superhighway" metaphor to examine] more powerful and appropriate metaphors for thinking about the emerging information infrastructure and increasing our consciousness of invention by looking at the possibilities through different metaphors. Our focus is not current politics, nor is it a prescription of what the information infrastructure should be. In a period when new generations of digital electronics appear every year or two and when news about what's hot changes almost daily, some of the metaphors we consider are ancient. They have appeared in various cultural forms for thousands of years and have influenced thinking about computers for at least fifty years. We refer to them as metaphors for the I-way. Here are the ones we explore in depth in the four parts of this volume.
Essay Contributors to the book....
The I-Way as Publishing and Community Memory
Vannevar Bush, J. C. R. Licklider, Robert E. Kahn, Joshua Lederberg, John Browning, Scott D. N. Cook, Vicky Reich, Mark Weiser, Ranjit Makkuni.
The I-Way as a Communications Medium
Lee Sproull, Samer Faraj, Jay Machado, Lynn Conway, Joshua Lederberg.
Selling Goods and Services the I-Way
Thomas Malone, Joanne Yates, Robert Benjamin, Laura Fillmore, Mark Stefik.
The I-Way as a Gateway to Experience
Pavel Curtis, Julian Dibbell, Harry Collins, Mark Stefik, John Seeley Brown, William Wulf, Barbara Viglizzo.
From the back cover, a blurb by Michael Nadeau from Byte....
"Are the metaphors we use to describe the Internet a danger to its development? Mark Stefik...believes they are, and he makes a convincing case in Internet Dreams. Stefik has compiled a powerful collection of essays, from Vannevar Bush's seminal 'As We May Think' from 1947 to more current works. Clever juxtapositioning of the essays wrapped in the author's insightful commentary paints a telling picture: The Internet is unique, yet the policies that shape its design and use are often influenced by the metaphors that we ascribe to it... Internet Dreams is not just a philosophical argument... but a valuable history (and prehistory) of the Net. In fact, no other book that I'm aware of portrays the philosophical development of the Internet with such depth and perspective."
Finally, this class is not just for computer science students! Interested students from other departments such as psychology, education, philsophy, fine arts, journalism, business, etc. etc. are also welcome. If you are unsure or need more information, please send me email or come by my office.