ISIS RESEARCH
ISIS functions as a central organizational node in the larger network
of research at Duke University by encouraging and initiating new interdisciplinary research collaborations in the pervasive fields information science and information studies. Some key areas where we hope both to develop new courses and foster collaborative research include:
Research Spaces:
Data Visualization
One of the most notable aspects of ISIS programming is the way we draw together faculty, staff, and students from all over the campus. Rachael Brady, as our Events Forum Coordinator, sponsors the VizFridays speaker series, where an interdisciplinary group get together for lunch and presentations on the latest developments and applications in visualization methodologies. ISIS courses have included collaboration with the Visualization Technology Group to explore the Duke Immersive Virtual Environment. Students in Classical Studies, Visual Arts and Computer Science worked together on the Visions of the Underworld project, for example, which combined classic myths with an innovative 3-d presentation space. The ISIS Focus cluster helped introduce students to authoring in the DiVE environment as well. In Spring 2008, the ISIS 200 Capstone Course will develop an interactive, multimedia kiosk for the John Hope Franklin Center using state-of-the-art multimedia authoring tools from Content Interface. Supported by a generous grant from the Duke Digital Initiative, this project will benefit both the Franklin Center and serve as a roadmap and hopefully inspiration for other groups developing other kiosk solutions on campus.
Networks, Information Fluency, and Ethics
In our Millennial remix, capture, multitask, and share digital culture we encounter a host of challenges to traditional intellectual property questions. Meanwhile, the concept of editorial oversight over factual content shifts from a single authority to folksonomic collaborations where popularity can mean as much as truth. Emergent Web 2.0 technologies compound the challenges and opportunities. In our ISIS 100: Perspectives on Information Science and Information Studies and special topics courses we consider the impact of digital culture on how we "write," do research, create knowledge, and determine makes an original or discrete object unique (and copyrightable or patentable), and how that impacts future intellectual work across disciplines. With visits from the Center for the Public Domain at Duke Law and collaborations with Creative Commons in developing course materials, ISIS highlights these issues in both teaching and research. Courses like ISIS 169S: Internet and Politics and ISIS 270: Bodyworks have focused in depth on related themes.
New Media Arts and Cultures
ISIS recently launched its Graduate Certificate in order to provide students a place to examine in depth the relationship of information technology and new media to their disciplinary and interdisciplinary work. The ISIS 250S course, Critical Studies in New Media, focuses on the theoretical and practical implications of new media on the academy. In the new ISIS 240: Technology and New Media in the University, students take a hands on approach to trying out new media and internet tools as teaching and research resources. Special topics courses have included cross-lists like ISIS 150: Digital Textuality, ISIS 166S: Making Media, as well as the debut of Gender and Digital Culture in Fall 2007. In Spring 2006 we offered a hands-on Digital Storytelling class in the new Arts Warehouse that we plan to reprise in Sring 2008. As a partner to the HASTAC consortium in their InFormation Year series for 2006-07, we provided local opportunities to converse about the big issues brought up by the national, streamed conference proceedings. As founding partners in Duke's Visual Studies Initiative we are deeply involved in Visual Studies program development as well.
Serious Games, Virtual Worlds, and Simulations
ISIS debuted the Game2Know Focus Cluster this year. Four connected courses, a writing course, and a weekly dinner-meeting brought students and faculty together around the topic of "serious games" and simulations as ways of producing and interpreting knowledge. Students learned to program games, explored visualization techniques, researched game motifs in economics, literature, and the arts, visited game companies, spoke with developers, and examined their own gaming practices and assumptions in light of critical readings and podcasts. Last year ISIS 210: How They Got Game took advantage of the new IMPS space in the Franklin Center for student project development as well. ISIS is helping form a new partnership with the North Carolina Advanced Learning Technologies Association (NCALTA) to help explore how game techniques and principles can facilitate knowledge-production and how students can learn the "grammar" of this emerging discipline as not only consumers but also producers. In 2007-08 we introduced the Duke ISIS Oasis, and island in Second Life, where various ISIS courses and campus partners are developing spaces. We are also partnering with the Open Croquet Consortium on use-case scenarios and desiderata for tools development, with an emphasis on virtual archives and collaboration spaces for digital media authorship and critique. In addition, in February 2008 ISIS affiliates were co-awarded a grant from the MacArthur Foundation to explore "Virtual Conflict Resolution."
Digital Media and Pedagogical Practice
A vital part of the ISIS philosophy is to learn by doing, to instantiate theory with practice, and to become an active producer of knowledge. These educational principles affect not only what we teach but how we teach it. ISIS courses have been in the forefront of the Duke Digital Initiative as faculty in ISIS 100: Perspectives on Information Science and Information Studies , ISIS 210: How They Got Game and other courses challenged students not only to listen to podcasts and vodcasts, but also to produce them. Visit our Gallery to see examples of student work. Or, try out Duke's interactive online map, or view the eFlyers in the Bryan Center and on the web--ISIS 200 Capstone students developed and protoyped these projects as part of their Undergraduate Certificate capstone experiences.In February 2007 ISIS co-hosted the Podcast Academy V conference in collaboration with GigaVox. ISIS speakers have represented our work at conferences such as the Educause Learning Initiative, the Educause main conference, the Modern Language Association, and the m-Learning conference in Bogotá, Colombia. ISIS is also featured in the upcoming Teagle Foundation report on Information Fluency in Higher Education, and in the Educause podcast series on higher education innovation.
Interested in working together?
Please contact us if you'd like to develop a course with us, cross-list an existing course as an ISIS elective, or work on a future project or event with us.
ISIS Project Wiki
Second Life: Duke ISIS Oasis and Duke Metaverse
RESEARCH SPACES
ISIS Deep Lagoon (IDL) Mac Lab
The ISIS Deep Lagoon (IDL) Macintosh computer lab is a recent addition located in room 036 John Hope Franklin Center. The IDL currently consists of 1 desktop Mac Pro and 14 laptop G4 Mac Powerbooks from the newly refurbished Mobile Multimedia Macintosh Cluster (M3C). A podcasting station is also available. The IDL is open to all ISIS course students and certificate students Monday-Friday from 9am-5pm. After-hours access is also available. Please email or see Cristin Paul in JHFC room 220 for access. View complete information on the IDL.
Interactive Multimedia Project Space (IMPS)
Made possible through the generous support of and collaboration between the Office of the Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies, Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS), the Kimberly J. Jenkins Chair in New Technologies and Society, and the John Hope Franklin Center, IMPS provides Duke University faculty, staff and students with opportunities to experiment with new modes of technology-inflected teaching, research and collaboration. Please visit the IMPS webpage for detailed information.
Click here for a list of all gaming components.
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