How Web 2.0 Will Transform the Humanities

Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, there are a few pro­fes­sors out there who actu­al­ly have their own accounts on Face­Book, much to the hor­ror of their stu­dents. Now you can hear their take on new media and the uni­ver­si­ty in a biweek­ly pod­cast, Dig­i­tal Cam­pus.
The series fea­tures a pan­el of new media schol­ars at George Mason Uni­ver­si­ty dis­cussing how Web 2.0 techonolo­gies will change human­i­ties teach­ing and research. Top­ics so far have includ­ed Wikipedia, YouTube and this week’s episode on social net­work­ing (mp3 — feed — web­site). As the most recent show points out, Web 2.0 is rapid­ly mak­ing it to the aca­d­e­m­ic primetime–the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan now offers a mas­ter’s degree in social com­put­ing.

The flip side of new media tech­nolo­gies is how they will trans­form research into more tra­di­tion­al human­i­ties sub­jects. The Dig­i­tal Cam­pus crew are all involved in the emerg­ing field of dig­i­tal human­i­ties. On the pod­cast they dis­cuss many of the chal­lenges of trans­fer­ring old media knowl­edge to dig­i­tal archives and struc­tur­ing those archives to make search­ing easy. In addi­tion to air­ing these ques­tions in the pod­cast, Dig­i­tal Cam­pus is pro­mot­ing a new wiki designed for new­com­ers and vet­er­ans alike.