centerNet is an international network of digital humanities centers in which individuals contribute time and energy to help each other find opportunities and collaborators, and share tools and resources. The network serves to strengthen the position of centers in their own institutions as well as to advance digital humanities generally. centerNet developed from a meeting hosted by the NEH and the University of Maryland, College Park, April 12-13, 2007 in Washington, D.C., and is a response to the ACLS report on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences, published in 2006.

Since its inception in April, centerNet has added over a hundred members worldwide. A start-up committee elected at the NEH meeting, consisting of Julia Flanders, Neil Fraistat, Mark Kornbluh, Matt Kirschenbaum and John Unsworth, is currently adding international members to its ranks.

The centerNet website can be used to find information about jobs, grants, conferences and software. The centerNet email list can be asked for advice about everything from problems related to starting a center to problems in programming. The centerNet wiki provides a taxonomic listing of digital humanities centers through which international partners can be located--for a staff exchange or for a grant application, for example. Members of the network can post to the list or include an entry for their center on the wiki.

We invite all those who believe that their center is a digital humanities center, in whole or in part, to join the network. We intend the definition of "digital humanities" to be inclusive, with cross-over into the social sciences, media studies, digital arts and other related areas. This might include humanities centers with a strong interest in or focus on digital platforms. The definition of "center" is only slightly more prescriptive: a center should be larger than a single project, and it should have some history or promise of persistence. Those interested in finding out more about the network or in becoming a member should visit: http://digitalhumanities.org/centernet/.

Lorcan Dempsey points us to an important draft report from the
Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control that emphasizes the crucial need to enable smart connections between currently separate silos of cataloging. Here's the heart of the project:

Different communities of bibliographic practice have grown up around different resource types: library collections of books and journals, archives, journal articles, and museum objects and images. As these resources and others become increasingly accessible through the Web, separation of the communities of practice that manage them is no longer desirable, sustainable, or functional. Bibliographic control is increasingly a matter of managing relationships—among works, names, concepts, and object descriptions—across communities. Consistency of description within any single environment, such as the library catalog, is becoming less significant than the ability to make connections between environments: Amazon to WorldCat to Google to PubMed to Wikipedia, with library holdings serving as but one node in this web of connectivity. In today's environment, bibliographic control cannot continue to be seen as limited to library catalogs. [Report on the Future of Bibliographic Control PDF]

The Voluntary System of Accountability is a joint project of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC). Responding to the challenges of the Spellings Commission, the VSA aims to make publicly available information about a wide variety of factors, ranging from accurate tuition costs to institutional performance in meeting core learning outcomes.

Of particular interest is the "Core Educational Outcomes Task Force," which has "decided on a preliminary set of learning outcomes tests that, at a minimum, measure critical thinking, analytic reasoning and written communication, and that also can be used in a value added format. Those tests are: C-Base, CLA, CAAP, MAPP, GRE and ACT WorkKeys." The Task Force is currently evaluating these tests for possible piloting.

NCTE--The National Council of Teachers of English--has assembled an excellent set of resources to help educators think about literacy as going well beyond print texts, encompassing how texts are produced and how multimodal forms of representation convey meaning. According to the introduction to the site, "NCTE is taking the lead in defining how emergent technologies are used to teach language, literacies and critical thinking skills as well as how ethical considerations can guide the use of various technologies."

The site includes some "research-based policy statements" that some may find surprising:

The Digital Humanities Summer Institute provides an ideal environment in which to discuss, to learn about, and to advance skills in new computing technologies influencing the work of those in the Arts, Humanities and Library communities. The institute provides a week of intensive coursework, seminar participation, and lectures. It brings together faculty, staff and graduate student theorists, experimentalists, technologists, and administrators from different areas of the Arts, Humanities, Library and Archives communities and beyond to share ideas and methods, and to develop expertise in applying advanced technologies to activities that affect teaching, research, dissemination and preservation.

Now in its sixth year, the institute takes place on the University of Victoria campus, and is generously hosted by the University of Victoria's Faculty of Humanities, its Humanities Computing and Media Centre and its Electronic Textual Cultures Lab. It is sponsored by the University of Victoria and its Library, University of British Columbia Library, Simon Fraser University Library, Malaspina University-College, Acadia University, the Society for Digital Humanities / Société pour l'étude des médias interactifs, the Association for Computers and the Humanities, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada's Image, Text, Sound and Technology Program and others.

 Editor's note: URL has been updated to show proceedings from the conference. 9/3/07

 

International HASTAC Conference
 "Electronic Techtonics:  Thinking at the Interface”
April 19-21, 2007

HASTAC ( "haystack”—Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory) is now soliciting papers and panel proposals for "Electronic Techtonics: Thinking at the Interface,” its first international conference. The interdisciplinary conference will be held April 19-21, 2007, in Durham, North Carolina, co-sponsored by Duke University and RENCI (Renaissance Computing Institute). Details concerning registration fees, hotel accommodations, and the full conference agenda will be posted to http://www.hastac.org as they become available.

Highlights include a keynote address by John Seely Brown (The Social Life of Information), a talk by legal theorist James Boyle (co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Creative Commons, and Science Commons), a conversation among leaders of innovative digital humanities projects led by John Unsworth (chair of the ACLS "Cyberinfrastructure and the Humanities and Social Sciences” commission), and a presentation by media artist and research pioneer Rebecca Allen. The conference will also include refereed scholarly and scientific papers, multimedia performances, an exhibit hall of innovative software and hardware, plus tours of art and scientific installations in virtual reality, learning-game, and interactive sensor space environments.

CALL FOR PAPERS
Six sessions will be devoted to panels with refereed papers on spects of "interface” spanning media arts, engineering, and the human, social, natural, and computational sciences.  Panels will be topical and cross-disciplinary; they will be comprised of papers that are themselves interdisciplinary as well as specialized disciplinary papers presented in juxtaposition with one another.
 
Deadline for Proposals:  December 1, 2006.

Established in 1965, IALLT is a professional organization whose members provide leadership in the development, integration, evaluation and management of instructional technology for the teaching and learning of language, literature and culture. Its strong sense of community promotes the sharing of expertise in a variety of educational contexts. (from IALLT Mission Statement)

From the Educause web site: 

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.

From the NERCOMP home page:

NERCOMP's mission: to enhance the communication and dissemination of information related to the use of computers, networks, and information technology in education, academic research and educational administration throughout the northeastern United States.

NERCOMP is an affiliate of EDUCAUSE. NERCOMP workshops and conferences offer quality, low-cost professional development geared to