Virtual Worlds - Online

Note: We are also submitting an application to host C&W 2010 onsite at Purdue. We have kept the applications separate, for the most part, but this application does reference some aspects of the onsite conference, and vice versa. Because we're proposing to host both onsite and online versions and because the conference management and staff will be parallel, some information in the applications may be repeated with slight variation.

Background Information

1. Date of Application

November 1, 2008

2. Names of Organizing Committee Co-Chairs

David Blakesley
Director of Professional Writing and Professor of English

Samantha Blackmon
Director of Composition and Associate Professor of English

3. Institution

Purdue University

4. Postal and Email Addresses

Department of English
Purdue University
500 Oval Dr.
West Lafayette, IN 47907

blakesle@purdue.edu
blackmos@purdue.edu

5. Phone

765.494.3730 (Professional Writing and Introductor Composition office)
765.494.3772 (Blakesley's office)
765.409.2649 (Blakesley's cell)
765.494.3742 (Blackmon's office)

6. Year to host Conference

2010

7. Names, Affiliation, and Contact Information for All Other Organizing Committee Members

Because Purdue is submitting proposals to host both onsite and online versions of C&W 2010, the affiliation and mailing address of all members of the planning team is identical:

Department of English
Purdue University
500 Oval Dr.
West Lafayette, IN 47907

765.494.3730 (Professional Writing and Introductor Composition office)

The members of this planning team are Jennifer Bay, Linda Bergmann, Samantha Blackmon (Co-Chair), David Blakesley (Co-Chair), Tracy Clark, Tammy Conard-Salvo, Richard Johnson-Sheehan, Linda Haynes, Alexandra Hidalgo, Mark Pepper, Terry Peterman, Laurie Pinkert, Ehren Pflugfelder, Thomas Rickert, Shirley Rose, Ethan Sproat, Michael Salvo, Pat Sullivan, Tom Sura, Jeremy Tirrell, and Irwin Weiser.

We can supply individual email addresses for each member of the planning team if requested.

7. Year to Organize Conference

2010

We have proposed hosting C&W 2010 onsite at Purdue from Thursday, May 20  through  Sunday, May 23. We want C&W Online to jumpstart the onsite conference and C&W Onsite to continue the momentum of the online conference, so we're proposing that the C&W Online take place just prior to the onsite conference, with a timeline that looks like this:

April 15, 2010: projects, hypertexts, and other content posted by presenters.

April 15 - May 6, 2010: The C&W community reads and responds to previously posted content. Each presenter responds asynchronously to audience questions during this period, with moderation help from conference planning team.

May 6 - 13, 2010: C&W Online kicks into high gear, with daily "live" presentations, synchronous discussion, scheduled events in Second Life at the Purdue Island (meetings, live online exhibits, readings at the coffee house, and more), and Adobe Connect sessions.

May 20, 2010: C&W Onsite begins. We will draw attention to the online conference by showing highlights and, where possible and relevant, continuing conversations begun during the online conference. In some cases, online presenters may follow-up with onsite presentations. We also have planned an "onsite" reunion for those attending or presenting at both conferences.

Conference Media

1. What electronic media does your team plan to use? How accessible are these media for computer users around the world?  Please include hardware specifications and required software, if appropriate. 

We will adapt a variety of technologies to C&W Online 2010, to present verbal, visual, video, audio, and machinima content. One one principle of selection is that the technologies used should have obvious applications to or interesting implications for the teaching of writing, broadly conceived. None of these tools is homegrown, so all users will have easy access from around the world and will be able to utlize the technologies in their own teaching and research. There will also be special webinars hosted in advance and featuring an expert user who will demonstrate effective uses of each of the technologies listed below. C&W Online will also be a repository for the "best of" content from the onsite and online conferences (such as the Town Halls, TED-like presentations, etc.) so that this work endures and is accessible to the public.

We have not included specific online gamining media in this list of supporting technologies because we know that participants will have their favorites. However, we envision a cluster of activity on online gaming as well.

Drupal
We will develop this Drupal site as a hub for disseminating information for both online and onsite conferences. All proposals will be submitted and reviewed through this interface. Hypertexts and other presentations will also be published within this shell, as possible or desired, to allow for commenting/Q&A from readers. We have hosted many Drupal sites for a number of years and so have the technical expertise. Drupal has become a familiar system for many in the C&W community. It is a browser-based application and so requires no special hardware or software on the user end.

Second Life
Some events will be hosted at the Professional Writing region on Purdue's Second Life island. Professional Writing is co-owner of the island with ITaP (Information Technology at Purdue) and Purdue Libraries, so we have privileged access to shaping the space to suit the needs of C&W Online 2010. We plan to utilize the SL space well in advance of both conferences for planning and promoting the conferences as well. To access Second Life, users need a (free) account and the free client software. System requirements and software downloads can be found at the Linden Labs website: http://secondlife.com/support/downloads.php

Adobe Connect
Purdue has a site license for Adobe Connect and has the capacity to host numerous and large webinars with this software. It is browser-based and requires the Flash plug-in. It is viewable in all major browser types. Participants can participate in synchronous online conferencing, with video and sound, shared desktops, document sharing, and more. All sessions may be recorded and re-broadcast for those who could not attend the live session. Participants do not need a microphone or webcam to participate but they can use them if they choose. Read about Purdue's support of Adobe Connect.

Drop.io
Drop.io is a free project management and document cycling tool that we want to integrate with both online and onsite conference planning and events. It allows users to post and view content, share files, conduct free conference calls, post notes by phone, and more. Accounts are free. There are no special system requirements. Find out more about drop.io here: http://drop.io/about

Scribd
Scribd is "YouTube for documents" and uses iPaper as the interface for viewing a wide variety of documents. The service is free and allows users to post content at the Scribd site, set reader parameters, and embed projects in locally hosted sites, then tag and comment on them. To see an example, check out this iPaper version of the C&W 2010 onsite application presentation by Purdue's Conference Services. This document is actually a PDF presented in the iPaper format, prepared in seconds at Scribd, and then embedded in this Drupal site.

Sophie
Attendees of C&W 2003 at Purdue will remember Bob Stein's fantastic demonstration of the TK3 multimedia ebook and author tools. Sophie is the next generation software for ebook and born digital projects, and to carry on the tradition, we plan to feature Sophie during the online and onsite conferences. We will be inviting the Institute for the Future of the Book, where Sophie was developed, to be involved in both online and onsite conferences. To learn more about these project, the if:book blog is the best resource. Sophie books are viewed through a free client and may be downloaded from the Web. There are no other special system requirements. One goal of the C&W Online will be to make and publish a Sophie book for presentation online at C&W Onsite a week later.

YouTube, FlickR, Facebook, del.icio.us
We will work to integrate these (and other emergent Web 2.0 technologies) into the stream of C&W 2010 online. The Drupal site will the hub that either points to these online (and public) presentations or the site that embeds the content itself.

Podcasting/iTunes U
Purdue has a well-developed system for producing and publishing podcasts through BoilerCast, and one goal of C&W online will be to encourage presenters to present video and audio content that can be published through YouTube, iTunes, and embedded in the Drupal site. The planning team will help presenters with the logistics of preparing content for delivery as a podcast.

Animoto
Animoto is a mashup technology that allows users to create interesting multimedia presentations fairly easily, and its creative potential is vast. We want to sponsor an Animoto design contest and will seek support from vendors for prizes. Entries will be posted and judged in advance and then winners announced during C&W online. There will be an Animoto announcing this contest well in advance. Because Animoto is a browser-based technology, there are no special system requirements. Basic accounts are free. Find out more at the Animoto website: http://animoto.com/

2. What specific experience does each member of the proposed organizing committee have with each of these media?  

All of these technologies are regularly used in professional writing and composition courses here at Purdue, and we have an active network for supporting them that is well established. Samantha and Dave teach and write with these technologies regularly and have done so for a long time. Michael Salvo has special expertise in podcasting, as do a number of graduate students on the planning team. Several members of the planning team (Samantha, Dave, Mark Pepper, and soon others) are developing content in Second Life, with active technical support from Purdue.

2. What support structures are in place to ensure the successful operation of the specific technologies (servers, applications, etc.) to be used?  

Professional Writing and Introductory Composition at Purdue have well developed support structures for pedagogical applications of all of these technologies, as described above. Each program runs a Drupal site for presenting documentation and examples from classroom use. In addition, Professional Writing runs a VPS (virtual private server) via Liquid Web, which enables us to provide space for open source applications, site hosting, and other back-end server functionality. All systems are securely backed-up regularly. Purdue's Information Technology unit provides support for Second Life, Adobe Connect, and podcasting.

Conference Program and Events

1. Briefly describe your plans for the conference program--its structure and focus.  What sorts of events will you host? 

The calendar above provides an outline for the conference program:

• April 15, 2010: projects, hypertexts, and other content posted by presenters.
• April 15 - May 6, 2010: The C&W community reads and responds to previously posted content. Each presenter responds asynchronously to audience questions during this period, with moderation help from conference planning team.
• May 6 - 13, 2010: C&W Online kicks into high gear, with daily "live" presentations, synchronous discussion, scheduled events in Second Life at the Purdue Island (meetings, live online exhibits, readings at the coffee house, and more), and Adobe Connect sessions.
• May 20, 2010: C&W Onsite begins. We will draw attention to the online conference by showing highlights and, where possible and relevant, continuing conversations begun during the online conference. In some cases, online presenters may follow-up with onsite presentations. We also have planned an "onsite" reunion for those attending or presenting at both conferences.

The theme for the online conference is, in concert with the onsite conference, "Virtual Worlds." We will encourage presenters to submit proposals that radiate from this center, but we also recognize that the range of topics relevant for the Computers and Writing community is broad. So will stretch the conference theme appropriately. Virtual Worlds for us entails online virtual spaces like Second Life (and similar alternatives), online gaming, Web 2.0 communities and social networks, filmic and machinima representations, and other complex activity systems where writing, visual communication, and identity play significant roles.

"Events" will consist of live events in Second Life and in Adobe Connect, asynchronous community dialogue moderated by the presenters and hosts at the conference Drupal site, and webinars hosted by presenters and the planning team on emergent technologies.

Contests

Vendors will sponsor some contests to provide incentives for presenters and stimulate participation by the C&W community in judging. We want to have contests for "Best Animoto" and "Best Game Mod," for example. Parlor Press has already agreed to provide books to winners, and we will ask vendors to sponsor these contests with gifts of software, cash, or other goodies.

2. Who will you ask to review proposals to ensure high quality?  

We plan to involve a substantial number of people in the review of proposals, including specialists in the field who have previously served as C&W proposal reviewers. David Blakesley (Co-Chair) has substantial experience facilitating peer review, as both an editor (TWI, KB Journal, WPA, and Parlor Press) and a conference chair (2002 Triennial Conference of the Kenneth Burke Society and Computers and Writing 2003). Samantha Blackmon (Co-Chair) has served C&W as a proposal reviewer for many years as well. Our aim is to involve a sizable team of reviewers from a variety of institutional settings, nationally and internationally, tapping the goodwill and expertise of past C&W proposal reviewers. Members of the conference planning team will also serve as reviewers.

3. An important part of hosting Online is collaborating with the onsite organizers.  What specific options do you plan to propose? 

We are proposing to host both the online and onsite conferences and will be closely linking them, with the online conference building momentum and excitement for the onsite conference, and the onsite conference providing a forum for reflecting on the online conference.

4. What specific features are you planning to make your meeting unique or to improve or enhance Computers and Writing Online? 

We've touched on some of these features already, but to summarize: tight integration of online/onsite conferences; interactive in-world events in Second Life and in webinars; and sponsored contests. We also want to explore the viability of launching an online RPG and gaming network that can begin before the online conference and culiminate at the onsite conference.

We also want to lead coordination of the archived content from this online conference and others, in what could evolve much like the supporting sites for the O'Reilly technology conferences and TED. There is too much important and useful content that should be accessible to a wider community, but it sometimes remains hidden, sparsely distributed, or lost forever. This archival function could be coordinated with Kairos, which has done a great service in preserving the best of past onsite conferences.

Conference Management

1. What kind of help or advice from past organizers would you find most useful

We're interested in learning what feedback has been received regarding types of program events for the online conference. While we have experience hosting the onsite conference, hosting the online conference will be a new experience for us.

2. Would you be willing to serve on the CCCC's Committee on Computers and Composition for the year preceding and following your sponsoring the conference, to receive and then provide counsel about sponsoring the conference?

Yes, absolutely. Samantha and Dave are both willing. Dave has served this way in the past, and Samantha has remained involved through the 7Cs list.

3. Which previous Computers and Writing Conferences have you and/or your Co-Chairs attended?

Dave has attended numerous C&W online conference events, but he has not presented at any. Samantha has attended online conferences as well. Members of the conference planning team have attended and presented at the online conferences also, including Michael Salvo.

3. Please add any other comments you might have regarding plans for the Conference on Computers and Writing.

We're very excited about the prospect of hosting C&W 2010. We found that the C&W 2003 energized our various programs, motivated further development of new technologies, created lasting networks of interest, and inspired graduate and undergraduate students. We also want to say that, although we have hosted the conference previously, we are very amenable to suggestions of the 7Cs. We're not set in our ways, in other words, simply because this would be Round Two. We are especially interested in involving more of Purdue in hosting the conference, which can help us bring both onsite and online conferences to a bigger stage and wider community.

— Respectfully Submitted,
David Blakesley and Samantha Blackmon