Higher Education: Institutions, Research and Projects

This page is part of a bibliography/appendix for ‘The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age’ project. It is a work in progress. It is not meant to be an exhaustive or all-inclusive list but is instead a resource for educators and learners striving to make a difference in a digital age. It is also a collaborative effort and will constantly evolve to take into consideration suggestions and feedback. Please let us know what you think by using the comment tool located at the bottom of the page. For more information about this document please see the introductory page.

HIGHER EDUCATION: INSTITUTIONS, RESEARCH AND PROJECTS

Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) – http://www.hastac.org
• HASTAC (“Haystack”) is a virtual consortium of humanists, artists, scientists, and engineers, researchers and nonprofit research institutions who are committed to new forms of collaboration across communities and disciplines fostered by creative uses of technology. The HASTAC network consists of more than eighty institutions, including universities, supercomputing centers, grid and teragrid associations, humanities institutes, museums, libraries, and other civic institutions. HASTAC works to develop tools for multimedia archiving and social interaction, gaming environments for teaching, innovative educational programs in information science and information studies, virtual museums, and other digital projects. Its mission is two-fold: to ensure that humanistic and humane considerations are never far removed from technological advances; and to push education and learning to the forefront of digital innovation. Similarly, HASTAC is dedicated to the idea that this complex and world-changing digital environment requires all the lessons of history, introspection, theory, and equity that the modern humanities (broadly defined) have to offer. The infrastructure of HASTAC is jointly supported by Duke University and the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI). Funding for HASTAC has come from grants from the National Science Foundation, the Digital Promise Initiative, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as well as from its member institutions.

The John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies, Duke University – http://www.jhfc.duke.edu/
• The Franklin Center is a consortium of programs at Duke University that are committed to revitalizing notions of how knowledge is gained and exchanged. Inspired by the example of John Hope Franklin—Duke professor emeritus, historian, intellectual leader, and lifelong civil rights activist—the Center encourages participants from a broad range of disciplines, perspectives, and methodologies to come together and explore intellectual issues. The Franklin Center’s mission is to bring together humanists and those involved in the social sciences in a setting that inspires vigorous scholarship and imaginative alliances. The Center is also committed to employing advanced technologies, such as multimedia and high-speed videoconferencing, not only as a means to an end, but as objects of critical inquiry themselves. In sum, the Franklin Center seeks to meld past knowledge and present questions, international perspectives, and technology with local concerns, timeless scholarship and timely issues.

University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) – http://flatiron.sdsc.edu/projects/uchri/index.php
• UCHRI is a multicampus research unit that serves all ten campuses in the UC system. Founded in 1987, UCHRI promotes collaborative work representing different fields and institutions both within and beyond the University of California. The Institute’s research addresses topics traditional to the humanities such as literature, philosophy, classics, languages, and history, as well as the pressing human dimensions that arise in the social and natural sciences, technology, art, medicine, and the professions. UCHRI interacts with UC campus humanities centers and with individual faculty to promote collaborative, interdisciplinary humanities research and pedagogy throughout the UC system and the larger academic world. Stressing interdisciplinary research, UCHRI bridges gaps between disciplines across the humanities and human sciences and seeks to overcome the intellectual and institutional barriers that can separate the humanities from other fields.

HASTAC on Ning: A Synergistic Symposium for the Cybernetic Age – http://hastac.ning.com/
• HASTAC on Ning is a social network created by Mechelle De Craene. This network was started as a companion site to http://www.hastac.org and is a way for members of the HASTAC community to learn more about each other and share ideas and information. Members of this site can post videos, links and participate in a group blog in order to promote new models for thinking, teaching, and research. Ning is a Palo Alto, California based company that allows anyone to create their own customizable social network about anything (http://www.ning.com/).

The Anthropology of the Contemporary Research Collaboratory (ARC) – http://anthropos-lab.net/
• ARC is a collaboratory in the human sciences founded by Paul Rabinow (UC Berkeley), Stephen J. Collier (New School for Social Research, NY), and Andrew Lakoff (UCSD). The goal of this virtual institution is to explore the anthropology of the contemporary through the encouragement of collaboration, communication and research inquiry across disciplines and academic institutions. ARC focuses on developing techniques and tools in fields such as synthetic anthropos, nanotechnology, vital systems security, biopolitcs, and concept work. Through collaboration ARC aims to create the conditions for successful creative inquiry and original research.

The Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies (CALT) – http://www.calt.insead.edu/
• CALT is a project launched by INSEAD, and international business graduate school with campuses in Singapore and France. CALT was officially founded in 1995 in order to promote the understanding and study of the effect of new media and technologies on management theory and practice. The CALT Research Agenda specifically studies the impact of new media and technologies on the virtual business environment (e.g. internet-based business practices and the management of virtual communities) and on the way management skills are learned. CALT researches produce materials in diverse formats, such as academic articles, technical papers, conference presentations, knowledge dissemination events and workshops, and on-line content.

Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University – http://chnm.gmu.edu/
• Founded in 1994 by the historian Roy A. Rosenzweig, the Center for History and New Media researches and develops innovative ways to use digital media and computer technology to democratize history. By ‘democratizing history’ the Center means working to incorporate forgotten voices and multiple viewpoints, reaching diverse audiences, and encouraging popular participation in presenting and preserving the past. In order to accomplish this goal CHNM is currently working on more than two dozen digital history projects that include World History Matters, which helps teachers and their students locate, analyze, and learn from online primary sources; Echo: Exploring and Collecting History Online, which collects, organizes, and preserves digital materials in the history of science, technology, and industry; Interpreting the Declaration of Independence, which uses foreign translations to promote a richer understanding of the Declaration; History News Network, a web-based magazine that places current events in historical perspective; and three Teaching American History projects in collaboration with Virginia public school districts. The Center also collaborates with the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at the Graduate Center of The City University of New York on several digital archiving projects, most prominently the September 11 Digital Archive. CHNM also works to develop free tools and resources for historians. Many of these, such as Zotero, Web Scrapbook, Survey Builder, Scribe, Poll Builder, and Syllabus Finder, have had a significant impact on the way humanities research and education is being carried out.

Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at University of California, Berkeley – http://ucberkeley.citris-uc.org/
• CITRUS brings together faculty and students from four UC campuses (Berkeley, Davis, Merced, and Santa Cruz) with industrial researchers at over 60 corporations from the private sector in the common goal of creating information technology solutions for social, environmental, and healthcare issues. Founded in the late 1990s, CITRUS was one of the first organizations in the nation to create a public-private partnership specifically to explore the potential of technology. The Center is currently focusing on several fields of research, including the improvement of access to healthcare through the development of intelligent infrastructures and innovative technologies, finding sustainable and environmentally friendly energy solutions, and bringing technological knowledge to developing regions, both in the United States and throughout the world.

Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of California, Berkeley – http://cshe.berkeley.edu/
• CSHE is currently implementing a number of projects that contribute to our understanding of how learning institutions are adapting to the digital age. The most relevant of these is the Higher Education in the Digital Age (HEDA) project directed by Dr. Diane Harley. The goal of the HEDA program is to research the policy implications for institutions of higher education trying to incorporate emerging technologies. Ongoing research takes place in one of two broad and interrelated areas of inquiry: the costs and benefits (economic, academic, and social) of digital technology in higher education, and patterns of institutional change during the process of integrating these technologies. Under the broad umbrella of the HEDA program are smaller, more focused projects such as the Digital Resource Study, which seeks to understand the use of digital resources in undergraduate education in the humanities and social sciences, the Future of Scholarly Communication, which researches the needs and desires of faculty for in-progress scholarly communication (i.e., forms of communication employed as research is being executed) as well as archival publication, and the Regulation of E-Learning, a project that explores current and ongoing debates in the regulation of technology-mediated higher education both domestically and internationally. HEDA is also tracking and analyzing all on-line distributed education projects that are taking place throughout the University of California system.

Connexions – http://cnx.org/
• Last year Rice University started the first all-digital open-content university press, Connexions. Through Connexions scholars are able to collaboratively develop, share, and publish academic content on the web. For the most part Connexions favors small modules of learning material (as opposed to complete books) that can be rapidly produced and easily incorporated into larger collections or courses. In this way Connexions hopes to mimic the modular and non-linear style of learning that is favored by the today’s younger generations. They also hope to actively involve users in the development process by encouraging collaboration and additions, thereby allowing knowledge to be shared and lines of communication to be opened. Content is currently being developed for students and educators of all levels and is freely accessible under the Creative Commons ‘attribution’ license.

EDUCAUSE – http://www.educause.edu/
• EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association made up of institutions of higher education and corporations serving the higher education technology market. Their mission is to advance education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. In order to do this they develop professional development activities, teaching and learning initiatives, provide online information services, and publish relevant texts. Current major initiatives include the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI), a community of institutions, organizations and corporations committed to advancing learning through innovative technologies, and Net@EDU, which is working to promote advanced networking between institutions of higher education, governments, and business.

Electronic Learning Community (ELC) Lab – http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/elc/index.shtml
• ELC is a research institute associated with the Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing. They focus on discovering how online communities are designed for learning and how this can be improved. ELC research is inspired by an educational theory called constructionism that posits that people learn best when they are making something that is personally meaningful to them. While constructivist learning traditionally focuses on individuals, the ELC Lab aims to incorporate this philosophy into the online environment. Current projects include Science Online, a science wiki that focuses on high-quality scientific information for students and educators, research into how large-scale collaboration occurs in online animation communities, and GameLog, a blogging environment where gamers can explore the features and design elements that make particular games successful.

EQUEL – http://www.equel.net/
• EQUEL (which stands for ‘e-quality in e-learning’) is a virtual center that brings together researchers and practitioners from fourteen European institutions of higher education in order to research innovations in and practices of e-learning. The organization is supported by the e-learning initiative of the European Commission. The primary goal of EQUEL is to foster increased knowledge and understanding of the effect of e-learning practice, theory and philosophy through a network of researchers and practitioners. The center ultimately plans to offer a range of consulting and evaluation services, including e-learning courses, based on the tools and methods developed by its members and affiliates.

Euro Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) – http://www.euro-cscl.org/
• Euro CSCL is a web-based community that gives its members a forum where they can share and discover information about the field of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). Membership is open to practitioners (teachers), researchers and school administrators. The website is funded by The European Commission in the Information Society Technologies (IST) framework: IST-00-III.2 'School of Tomorrow'.

Experiential Technologies Center (ETC) at UCLA – http://www.etc.ucla.edu
• Originally founded in 1997 as the Cultural Virtual Reality Lab (CVRlab), the ETC explores the application of emerging digital technologies to cultural heritage projects. The CVRlab was originally established in order to facilitate a collaborative project to reconstruct Trajan’s Forum in Rome and the ETC has continued this work, bringing together the knowledge of experts in a variety of fields and to creating a solid methodological approach that addresses all aspects of virtual environments: visualization, sound, temporalization, spatialization, and other experiential factors. Recently the Center has expanded their mission to include pedagogy (both for higher education and K-12 schools), performance, and the development of open source tools for creating dynamic virtual environments.

Digital Partnerships for Engaged Learning at Wayne State University - http://www.otl.wayne.edu/dpel/
• Digital Partnerships for Engaged Learning is a portfolio of projects managed by Wayne State University’s Technology Resource Center (TRC), a collaboration of the Office for Teaching and Learning (OTL), Computing and Information Technology, and the Digital Projects Initiative of the Wayne State University Library System (WSULS). Partnerships foster purposeful integration of digital media in teaching and learning by bridging faculty and TRC expertise, building faculty learning communities, and collaborating with other institutions in the community. Three major projects illustrate the current variety of innovative activities on campus: the Digital Media Learning Community, the Art History Luna Project, and the Digital Learning and Development Sandbox. The portfolio may be viewed at http://www.otl.wayne.edu/dpel/. This program was named by HASTAC as an exemplary model of digital learning and teaching with new technology.

Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering: Needham, Massachusetts – http://www.olin.edu
• Olin College is a small, tuition-free college that is trying to reinvigorate the field of engineering by designing a new kind of engineer who will be able to easily bridge science, technology, enterprise and society. The college opened in 2002 and was founded by the F.W. Olin Foundation, which literally put all its resources into the creation of the new school. Olin has not only redesigned the field of engineering but has redesigned traditional engineering curriculum: instead of academic departments there is a single, synthetic interdisciplinary program that focuses on entrepreneurship and humanities as well as technical skills.

The Game Pit: Northern Virginia Community College
• The Game Pit was originally dreamed up by the Dean of Business Technologies at Northern Virginia Community College, John Min, as a way to raise falling enrollments in the college’s IT classes. It is a open-access classroom equipped with consoles for Xbox and PlayStation and 15 high-end PCs devoted to playing games such as World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike. Administrators are also hoping that the availability of a gaming center on campus will give students a place to meet and socialize, creating an enhanced feeling of community and camaraderie in a largely commuter school. See the following link for video depicting the Game Pit and its most devoted users: http://chronicle.com/media/video/v54/i09/gaming/.

Global Text Project – http://globaltext.org/
• The Global Text Project was founded in January 2004 by Richard T. Watson of the University of Georgia and Donald J. McCubbrey of the University of Denver with the goal of delivering freely available open content electronic textbooks to developing nations (books will also eventually be available in hardcopy, CD, or DVD format). The project’s first title, Information Systems, was released this past fall and is currently being used at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and Atma Jaya Yogyakarta University in Indonesia. A second book, Business Fundamentals, is slated for release early this year and nine others are in development. In order to produce these textbooks, the Global Text Project recruits professors and experienced professionals from around the world to write at least one chapter on a topic of their choice (all work is done pro bono). The chapters are reviewed and assembled into complete books by scholars and editors. At times the chapters will be written using wikis, so that multiple participants can contribute to and edit the material during the writing process. The books will also constantly evolve to build on current events and to incorporate the expertise of those (both instructors and students) using the texts. The project aims to set itself apart from other open textbook efforts, such as Wikibooks, by making sure that scholars have editorial control over the finished project. Ultimately the Global Text Project hopes to develop 1,000 titles in a variety of languages, an endeavor that will require approximately 20,000 volunteers.

Human Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute (H-STAR) at Stanford University – http://www.stanford.edu/dept/h-star/cgi-bin/hstar.php
• H-STAR is an interdisciplinary research center initiated by Stanford University with the goal of furthering our understanding of how we are affected by technology. Some key questions asked by the center are: how do people use technology, how can we improve technology to make it more user-friendly (and competitive in the marketplace), how does technology affect our everyday lives, and how is technology used to create innovation in learning, business, and entertainment? H-STAR researchers use these questions to develop projects that aim to reduce the complexity of technologies, close the digital divide, create technologies that respond to specific human needs, and address issues of trust and security in widespread use of technology. Within H-STAR are two smaller interdisciplinary centers that focus on particular projects, CSLI (the Center for the Study of Language and Information) and SCIL (the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning – see below), and an industry partners program, Media X.

Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) at the University of Virginia – http://www.iath.virginia.edu/
• The goal of IATH is to explore and develop innovative ways of incorporating information technology into scholarly humanities research. At the Institute humanities and computer science research faculty, computer professionals, student assistants and project managers, and library faculty and staff come together in a collaborative effort to document and interpret the record of human achievement in digital form. IATH was founded in 1992 with a major grant from IBM as a way to enable to use of sophisticated technical tools in the arts and humanities. Their mission has since evolved to specifically address the problem of making sure that humanities research is able to persist through time and across media in a constantly changing digital world.

The Illinois Center for Computing in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Science (I-CHASS) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign - http://www.chass.uiuc.edu/index.html
• I-CHASS is a recently formed collaboration venture between the humanities (e.g. humanists, artists, and social scientists), computer sciences, and engineering. The Center seeks to foster innovation by bringing these fields together in order to identify, create, and adapt computational tools that can be used in humanities education and research. I-CHASS’s mission is to bring together the expertise and experience of humanists and information technology specialists in a way that is mutually beneficial to the future development of both fields, as well as other fields in the sciences and technology. I-CHASS is also making a concerted effort toward the democratic redistribution of technological knowledge through participation in programs such as the National Science Foundation’s Engaging People in Cyberinfrastructure (EPIC). They believe that because technology is evolving at such a fast pace it is increasingly important that a concerted effort be made to close (or at least shrink) the information gap before it spins out of control.

Immersive Education - http://immersiveeducation.org/
• Immersive Education is a non-profit initiative that encourages international collaboration in the development of virtual-reality software for educational purposes. The currently available software package, which uses interactive 3-D graphics, web cameras, internet-based telephony and other digital media, is designed to work within already existing open-code virtual worlds, such as Second Life. The endeavor was founded by Aaron Walsh, an instructor at Boston College, in the hopes of creating 3-D, interactive learning environments that would have the same attraction to students as popular massive multiplayer games. These games encourage self-directed learning and collaborative action in ways that many scholars would like to see transferred to the classroom. Originally only available to university students, the next generation of Immersive Education software is broadening its scope to include K-12 education and non-academic users (such as corporate training programs).

Institute for Digital Research and Education (IDRE) at UCLA – http://www.idre.ucla.edu/
• IDRE is a newly organized institution committed to researching and supporting innovative scholarship that takes advantage of new technologies. The Institute encourages collaboration between faculty from different departments and disciplines at UCLA, the opening of new research questions, and the enrichment of the learning environment. IDRE is meant to be a convergence point for interdisciplinary expertise, perspectives and methodologies through the implementation of networked local, national and international digital environments.

Institute for Multimedia Literacy (IML) at the University of Southern California – http://iml.usc.edu/
• The IML was founded in 1998 by the University of Southern California’s Dean of Cinematic Arts, Elizabeth Daley. Daley was inspired by a conversation with filmmaker George Lucas about the lack of educational programs dedicated to researching and addressing the changing nature of literacy in a networked culture. In order to remedy this situation the IML began developing educational programs that promoted effective and expressive communication through the use of multi-media applications and tools. Originally a program embedded within the Annenberg Center for Communication, the IML has since broadened its scope to include faculty and students from many different departments and backgrounds. The Institute works closely with faculty and researchers to integrate multimedia literacy skills and analysis into a wide range of classes. They also support an honors program in Multimedia Scholarship and have recently instituted a core curriculum aimed at teaching students across fields how to use and develop new multimedia technologies.

The Knowledge Media Laboratory (KML) – http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/programs/index.asp?key=38
• The goal of the Knowledge Media Lab is to create a future in which communities of teachers, faculty, programs, and institutions collectively advance teaching and learning by exchanging their educational knowledge, experiences, ideas, and reflections. KML is currently working to develop digital tools and resources (such as the KEEP Toolkit) for educators as a way to facilitate the sharing and creation of effective teaching practices. They are also researching how best to combine various technologies to create learning environments that entirely re-think traditional methods of teaching and learning. This initiative is funded by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

MATRIX: The Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online (Michigan State University) – http://matrix.msu.edu/
• MATRIX was originally established to host the computing activities of H-NET: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, an independent scholarly initiative by humanists and social scientists to find more innovative ways to use the internet. However, MATRIX’s mission was soon extended far beyond this and it became a full-fledged interdisciplinary center involved in research, educational practice, networking, publications, and outreach. As the best-funded humanities technology center in the country, MATRIX is deeply committed to not only advancing critical understanding of human nature and access to knowledge within academia but also to expanding its influence into developing nations. For example, the Center is currently working to build open-source inexpensive hardware and software that will be freely available worldwide. Through this project and other MATRIX hopes to become a true ‘matrix’ of interdisciplinary and international research.

MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) – http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
• MIT’s OpenCourseWare is a revolutionary internet site that allows open access to course materials used in MIT’s general curriculum. It was proposed by a faculty committee in the year 2000 as a way to advance life-long education around the world and was officially launched in 2003. Since that time OCW has grown to include syllabi, lecture notes, readings, videos and other course materials for over 1800 courses. Over 90 percent of the faculty at MIT have participated in this venture, voluntarily contributing their teaching materials to the website. All materials are published under an open license that encourages reuse, redistribution, and modification for educational purposes. In 2004 OCW began to create mirror sites at university campuses all over the world in order to facilitate access and to make translations available. OCW’s most recent venture has been to launch a new website, Highlights for High School, that reorganizes already existing course materials into a format that matches Advanced Placement curricula and thus makes the tool more accessible for high school students and teachers. MIT’s OpenCourseWare has inspired a global movement that has resulted in universities from around the world creating their own open courseware sites.

Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities at the University of Maryland (MITH) – http://www.mith2.umd.edu/
• MITH was founded in 1999 as a collaboration between the University of Maryland’s College of Arts and Humanities, its libraries, and the Office of Information Technology. The Institute functions as a think tank for research into digital tools, text mining and visualization, and the creation and preservation of digital information. Among its many current projects are the Electronic Literature Organization, an internationally recognized group devoted to the writing and publishing of electronic literature, the Preserving Virtual Worlds project, which develops methods to preserve the notoriously ephemeral world of virtual environments, and the production of web-based tools for archives and networking.

Multimedia Research Center at UC Berkeley (BMRC) – http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/
• Founded in 1995, the BMRC is an interdisciplinary group of artists, educators, professionals, and scientists who are committed to building partnerships between academia and the media industry. All participants are joined by a common interest in experimenting with interactive multimedia technology and finding new ways to incorporate this into professional practice and education. The group focuses on four areas: multimedia authoring (including the development of advanced learning environments), teaching and learning (distance learning as well as interactive and collaborative course materials such as the Open Mash Toolkit), infrastructure (such as a system to support the networking of all multimedia content on the UC Berkeley campus), and public programs (lectures, seminars and symposia).

New Media Consortium (NMC) – http://www.nmc.org/
• The NMC is an international non-profit consortium of nearly 250 educational organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. Member institutions include colleges, universities, museums, research centers, and private companies across the US, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia. The Consortium has identified three core areas of long-term research and activity; these are the Dynamic Knowledge Initiative, which explores how developing technologies are driving the formation of new knowledge, the Emerging Technology Initiative, which seeks to identify and make public emerging technologies that have educational relevance, and the New Collaborations Initiative, which encourages interdisciplinary and cross-sector idea sharing. Through collaborative research and development programs in each of these core areas the NMC aims to promote the use of new technologies to support learning and creative expression.

MIT Media Lab – http://www.media.mit.edu/
• The Media Lab opened its doors in 1985 with the mission of “inventing and creatively exploiting new media for human well-being without regard for present-day constraints.” This statement set the tone for the Lab’s ongoing reputation as a cutting-edge innovator in radical technology. The Lab was originally conceived in 1980 by Nicholas Negroponte (who would go on to found One Laptop Per Child) and former MIT President Jerome Wiesner. It was, and still is, housed within MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning—a location that is indicative of its commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration between the arts and sciences. The Lab is not solely interested in IT innovations but in inventing and reinventing how human beings experience technology and, by extension, how technology is changing the way we experience the world. All its myriad projects and inventions have been bound by a common goal: designing the technology to allow people to create a better future. Currently the Lab is in the process of a major expansion. When finished the new complex will house the Okawa Center, which focuses on exploring how children live, learn, and play in the digital age, the List Visual Arts Center, the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, as well as other pedagogical and lab-based programs.

Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning (SCIL) – http://scil.stanford.edu/index.html
• SCIL was established in 2002 as an independent center within the H-STAR (Human Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute – see above) program. It is devoted to advancing scholarly research in the science, technology and practice of learning and teaching. The center is housed in Stanford's new Wallenberg Hall, an experimental facility where educators and administrators can explore new ways of integrating technology into the classroom environment. SCIL is dedicated to cross-cultural collaboration: the center’s goal is to bring together teachers, researchers and students from across the world to develop improvements in formal and informal learning environments of all types. The center is co-directed by Roy Pea, professor in learning sciences and technologies, and Stig Hagstrom, professor materials science and former chancellor of the Swedish university system.

UCLA Center for Digital Humanities (CDH) – http://www.cdh.ucla.edu/
• The Center for Digital Humanities seeks to be an international leader in the development, application, and interpretation of digital technologies for use in the humanities. Its primary function entails enabling the faculty, students, and staff of the Division of Humanities at UCLA to explore innovative uses of technology. The Center also hopes to foster an understanding of how these technologies affect the humanities through ongoing research projects that have implications reaching far beyond the UCLA campus.

Virtual Knowledge Studio (VKS) – http://www.virtualknowledgestudio.nl/index.php
• Launched in the Fall of 2006 the Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences is an international research and teaching institute hosted by the International Institute of Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The VKS supports e-research in the creation of new scholarly practices in the humanities and social sciences and encourages the incorporation of this research into the learning environment. Social scientists, humanities researchers, information technology experts and information scientists work together to integrate elements of design, analysis and knowledge across academic and geographic boundaries. In June 2007 VKS partnered with the Erasmus University in Rotterdam to open the Erasmus Virtual Knowledge Studio, the institute’s first physical campus, as a point of contact for visiting fellows, collaborators, and students.

Voice of the Shuttle (VoS) – http://vos.ucsb.edu/
• Voice of the Shuttle is one of the oldest humanities resources on the web. While it was initially conceived as an introduction to the internet for humanities scholars within the University of California, it became a public resource in early 1995. Voice of the Shuttle provides links to online humanities and humanities-related resources. Links can be submitted by anybody, but all suggested links are checked and, where necessary, edited to ensure quality and reliability.