Friday, February 22, 2008

Finding a Needle in a HASTAC

from the HASTAC site:

In particular, the infrastructure of HASTAC has been supported by Duke University and the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI). Through programs such as Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS) and the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies at Duke and UCHRI’s system-wide extensive research, HASTAC has been supported by universities of exemplary quality and unusual risk-taking vision.

Oddly enough, it turns out that, out of hundreds of entries, four of the seven "innovation awards" (the bigger ones) in the HASTAC administered and MacArthur funded Digital Media and Learning Competition went to faculty from Duke or University of California schools.

I can think of several ways it might have come out this way, but none of them reflect very well on the competition. At best they discovered the most promising work in the field was mostly already in their own institutions, which would suggest that in retrospect, casting a wide net was a waste of many people's time. You might be able to come up with other interpretations.

Keiretsu anyone?

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