HumaniTech1: A Discipline‐Centered Approach to Technology at UCI
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07419050610692316 |
| Published date | 01 July 2006 |
| Date | 01 July 2006 |
| Pages | 34-36 |
| Author | Barbara L. Cohen |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
HumaniTech
1
: A Discipline-Centered Approach
to Technology at UCI
Barbara L. Cohen
34 LIBRARY HITECH NEWS Number 6 2006, pp. 34-35, #Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 0741-9058, DOI 10.1108/07419050610692316
As early as 1988 a set of technology
resources was put into place for
humanities faculty. Each year
following, for almost the next ten years,
the resources continued to expand and
improve, but most humanities faculty
were not using them to any great
advantage, even if many were buying
computers. A few faculty at the highest
end of the technology bell curve were
doing sophisticated work using
complex databases and hypertextuality.
At the lowest end, there were some not
yet getting their feet wet even with
e-mail. As to the biggest group in the
middle, they were using e-mail, and
some among them were practicing
word-processing composing MS Word
documents. Those faculty who were
curious about the possibilities of new
technologies did not see a clearly
defined route for application to their
own work. Some did not know where to
go for answers, and others who were in
contact with the school's programmers
were having trouble communicating
their needs to them and/or
understanding the responses. On their
part, the humanities programmers felt
underutilized and isolated ± as one
programmer described it to me,
somewhat like the lonely Maytag
repairman. Many consultations and
committee meetings later, an
experiment to create a (then part-time)
position, called director of new
classroom technologies, to bridge the
gap between the faculty and tech
people, was put into motion. (In
keeping with the humanities, it was
described in terms of translation.) Thus
began HumaniTech
1
, a name
substituted a year later for the original
one, both too unwieldy a title and too
narrow in scope for a program.
At its inception, HumaniTech
1
's
mission was to encourage and
incorporate the use of technology in
humanities teaching and research in a
very hands-on and pragmatic way,
through individual consultations and
three to four quarterly workshops in
PowerPoint, web site creation (at that
time primarily composer), and scattered
specific workshops on the intersection
of technology and humanities, such as
``Effective humanities web searches,''
and ``E-books in the humanities.'' The
current mission remains basically the
same, but the approach, resources, and
audience have broadened.
HumaniTech
1
has expanded its base
from faculty only to faculty, graduate
students, and staff. Individual
consultation and workshops remain
important, but with ten to twelve
workshops per quarter that run the
gamut from the still popular web site
creation and PowerPoint sessions to
EndNote and Modern Language
Association software to ``Finding and
using images'' and video editing. In
addition to workshops, there are
colloquia where faculty share with their
peers their recent technology
innovations, both in pedagogy and in
research. And, in the current climate of
expanded copyright term limits, the
need for understanding of copyright
parameters and fair use in the university
environment has opened up another
area for HumaniTech
1
± research and
dissemination of information on
intellectual property as it affects
Humanities faculty, staff, and graduate
students (Figure 1).
One of the most important
developments in HumaniTech
1
was
the launch several years ago of a lecture
series on ``Humanities and technology.''
The goal of this series, which adds an
intellectual and theoretical component
to HumaniTech
1
, is to raise awareness
of the changed conditions of ``being
Figure 1
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