The Digital Lyceum: Emerging Frameworks for Participation in Live Humanities Events

FAIN: HD-50200-07

Emerson College (Boston, MA 02116-4624)
Eric J. Gordon (Project Director: April 2007 to November 2009)

Research regarding best practices for producing discussion forums that would mix live and off-site participants.

Scholarly presentations now extend beyond the lecture hall. Participants can contribute by their live presence, by joining chat sites or blogs, or by using "avatars" in interactive environments like Second Life. Digital technologies can enrich these events by fostering greater interaction among all participants, and preserving the exchanges for further research and discussion. From 10/2007 through 3/2009, this project aims to create a framework that will: (1) identify best practices for producing humanities forums that mix live and off-site participants (seating, displays, recording, bandwidth, etc.); (2) determine how best to foster and coordinate interaction among presenters, on-site audience, and off-site participants across various media platforms, and to record and store all their interactions; (3) outline the prototype for an open source database scheme and application that would archive and retrieve the variety of records generated from such "mixed reality" events.