Anyone can blog on the Project Bamboo Planning Wiki...

Confluence, the software that drives the Planning Wiki, calls blog posts "news" so the way to create a post is to click the "Add News" link in the upper right corner of any page in the Planning Wiki space.

(Not sure what a "blog" is? Though the term is often used to describe an on-line log or diary authored by a single person, the Planning Wiki blog is open to contributions by anyone in the Project Bamboo community. A series of comments and thoughts contributed in the form of mini-essays -- that might be more or less formally constructed depending on their author -- this blog will evolve into a survey of topics of interest and concern to our common effort to evolve and describe Project Bamboo. You don't have to write a blog to comment on someone else's post ... sometimes the dialog that follows a provocative post is as interesting as the idea that started things off.)

The most recent blogs, and the comments posted in response to them, can be viewed on the "Blog Posts and Discussion" page on the wiki, which is linked (as "Blogs & Discussion") in the "Quick Links: Project Bamboo" panel that appears on the right side of most pages. Anyone can also use a pre-made RSS feed link (or create a new one), to monitor new posts with an RSS reader (details can be found on the page itself, http://wikibamboo.uchicago.edu/x/HIAv).

Who should blog what? That's largely up to the Project Bamboo community. We've created the "Blog Posts and Discussion" page to encourage discussion of ideas, proposals, projects, and other efforts that intersect with the core question Project Bamboo aims to address: how can we advance arts and humanities research through the development of shared technology services? We hope and expect that new themes of scholarship, future directions for Project Bamboo, and discussion of consortial models will surface in blog posts and discussion ... and "wiki gardeners" will encourage dialog-participants to add their ideas to Community Design pages as they emerge.

Please feel free to respond to blog posts with your ideas, and post a new blog entry if you have something to say that merits community consideration or discussion. As a part of the community design process, our on-line dialog will help to shape the evolution of Project Bamboo.

As previously announced, the dates for activities related to Workshop Two are 15 October through 18 October 2008. Because we expect a number of new participants to join us for Workshop Two, we're planning a pre-workshop boot camp for late in the afternoon and early evening of 15 October. The formal workshop will begin the morning of Thursday, 16 October, and run through Saturday, 18 October. We will try to adjust the end time of the workshop on Saturday to best accommodate flight times. Additional information regarding the workshop venue, agenda, etc. will be posted when available.

The Bamboo Planning Project (Project Bamboo for short) launched four months ago to begin to tackle the question: "how can we enhance arts and humanities research through shared technology services?" Five structured workshops with community input between each workshop make up the program for the project and by September 2009, our goal is to have a roadmap, plan, and proposal to launch a community-based cyberinfrastructure initiative for humanities, arts, and interpretive social sciences. We are happy to report that with the completion of Workshop One, over 350 people representing approximately 90 institutions and organizations joined us to share their thoughts and reflect upon current and future scholarly practices in the arts and humanities. As we are now moving into the community input stage between Workshop One and Workshop Two, we're extending another invitation to those interested in this topic to help us analyze the data and shape Project Bamboo as it moves forward.

Scheduled for October, Workshop Two will focus on three topics that were specifically identified and arose out of discussions in Workshop One. First, we will select and refine common themes that emerged out of the scholarly practices discussions. These themes will be used to identify and specify technology services that should be included in the services roadmap for Project Bamboo. The second topic, direction, will take the recommendations from the community regarding what Bamboo should become and refine them further. This will include adjusting the scope of Bamboo, exploring what issues the effort should concern itself with, and enumerating what relationships should be developed as the project moves ahead. Finally, we will engage in preliminary discussions around different organizational and consortial models as the capstone topic of Workshop Two.

Because the participants in Workshop Two need to grapple with the themes, directions and issues that emerge from the community, we are looking to the community-at-large to help us identify the important pieces Bamboo should tackle as a project. Therefore, we invite anyone who may be interested in Bamboo to join us in analyzing the data and sharing their thoughts on what we've collected to date.

If you are interested in assisting with this effort, please visit http://projectbamboo.org/join-us to learn more about how to contribute to the project. For more information on Project Bamboo, visit http://projectbamboo.org/. If your institution, organization, or company is interested in participating in Workshop Two, instructions for how to apply can be found on the "Join Us" page as well.

We would like to update you on the next steps for Project Bamboo and to invite interested institutions and organizations to join us in the next phase of planning for the Bamboo implementation project.

Project Bamboo launched in April 2008 with the first workshop at Berkeley. We held three additional instances of Workshop One (Chicago, Paris, and Princeton), and in the process met with over 360 arts and humanities faculty, computer scientists, librarians, information technologists, and others from over 90 colleges, universities, and private and public organizations who were interested in advancing arts and humanities research through shared technologies. We sincerely thank all of you who joined us in these discussions as the insights and recommendations you generated about scholarly practices in the humanities, and the directions that Bamboo might pursue, have been invaluable. That said, we are pleased to announce that the data from all instances of Workshop One have been posted on the Bamboo Planning Wiki for public discussion (http://wiki.projectbamboo.org/display/BPUB/Home).

As some of you know the response to the invitation to participate was far greater than we had expected and as a result, a number of institutions and organizations that wanted to participate in Workshop One were unable to because we didn't have enough physical space to accommodate all parties. The program team has been committed to creating opportunities to participate in Project Bamboo even if an institution or organization was not able to participate in Workshop One. The first step was to remove the Workshop One participation requirement to move on to Workshop Two. The second step has been to create virtual and non-workshop-related ways to contribute. It is important to remember that the central goal of the project is by September 2009 to form a consortium of institutions and organizations who can work together to support and develop shared technology services to advance arts and humanities research. To accomplish this goal within the planning project timeframe, we need both broad and focused input from the community.

Through the rest of the planning project, we are asking the Bamboo community to help us analyze the data we collect and refine the concepts and ideas that will eventually define the scope of Bamboo. These activities will occur on the wiki and/or virtually between workshops and are open to all interested parties, whether or not they've participated in a workshop. To begin, we have created four activities related to the data collected in Workshop One (scholarly practices), and we are asking you to explore them on the wiki (http://wiki.projectbamboo.org/display/BPUB/Home) and contribute your thoughts as the analysis will feed directly into Workshop Two and future planning activities. Your input is crucial as it will help us build a roadmap of shared technology services, initiate the first round of Bamboo demonstrator projects, and outline aspects of the organization that will underpin implementation.

For the remaining face-to-face workshops, we will shift from the broad input of Workshop One and toward focused guidance and direction. Now through the end of the planning project we are seeking workshop participation from institutions and organizations that have serious interest in building a consortium based on the input provided by the community. By the end of the planning stage, we hope a subset of these institutions and organizations will form both the core of the implementation project and the Bamboo consortium that will lead, guide and help sustain the effort into the future.

Workshop Two will take place during the week of October 13 and will likely be in Berkeley, San Francisco or Seattle. We are currently working through the meeting logistics and expect to finalize the date and location of the workshop by the end of August. With Workshop Two, we have set the first stage of requirements to participate. In order to participate in the next phase of the Bamboo planning process institutions and organizations will need to:

(1) contribute to the development of the Bamboo community by using the Bamboo wiki to interpret and organize data about scholarly practices, refine Bamboo future directions, and/or analyze possible consorital models;

(2) create a local Bamboo team at your campus or organization made up, as possible, of humanities faculty, information technologists, librarians, and/or others who you believe can effect change in support of digital humanities at your institution/organization;

(3) submit a letter from a senior campus or organizational leader that indicates and illustrates support for participating in the Bamboo Workshops Two and Three; and

(4) cover workshop travel and lodging costs for your team.

Given the interest in Bamboo by over 120 institutions and organizations (90 of whom participated in Workshop One), we will have to limit size of the teams that can attend the second workshop. For colleges and universities, the team must include at least one humanities faculty leader and one leader from the IT and/or Library organization, and may also include one more faculty member or other key campus leader (for a minimum team of two and a maximum team of three). For organizations and industry, the limit will generally be one person per organization. We want to stress, however, that we strongly encourage institutions and organizations to create local Bamboo teams made up of larger numbers of representatives who can support the team attending the workshop and gather and share ideas and opportunities at your local institution.

We ask institutions and organizations fill out the application to participate in Workshops Two and Three by midday Friday, September 5, 2008. The link to the application can be found on the Project Bamboo website under the "Join Us" link (http://projectbamboo.org/join-us). After we review the applications, we will let all who have applied know no later than Monday, September 12, about the status of their application and ability to attend to Workshop Two. Decisions will be made based on completeness of the application, the four criteria outlined above, and available space. For planning purposes only, please let us know by August 22 (or earlier) if your institution or organization intends to apply (institutions can still apply even if you do not send us early notification of intent). To let us know of your intent to apply, send an email to bamboo_event_coordination@lists.berkeley.edu on or before August 22.

We have been extremely encouraged by the interest and enthusiasm of those who have participated in the first Bamboo workshop. We are heartened that many individuals and institutions want to find new ways to work together to develop cyberinfrastructure for the arts and humanities. We hope that those who participate in the next stage of Project Bamboo will continue to help us define a community-driven project that will enable the participation of many more than those who can attend face-to-face workshops.

Thank you again for your support and interest, and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to email us directly.

Sincerely,
David & Chad
Co-Directors, Project Bamboo

Bamboo participants may be interested in attending or presenting papers at the 2008 Digital Humanities/Computer Science (DHCS) colloquium held this year at the University of Chicago (Nov. 1st - 3rd). The goals of the colloquium (sponsored by Northwestern University, IIT and the University of Chicago) share much in common with Project Bamboo: "..to bring together researchers and scholars in the Humanities and Computer Sciences to examine the current state of Digital Humanities as a field of intellectual inquiry and to identify and explore new directions and perspectives for future research." For more information about the DHCS colloquium, including the Call for Papers, please see: http://dhcs.uchicago.edu.

Back when we submitted the proposal, we were concerned about finding 50 or so institutions that would be interested in Bamboo. Well, the community more than exceeded our expectations and as a result, all of the workshops including the additional one at Princeton are now full with a waiting list for open slots. Because this, we are currently exploring ways for those who were unable to obtain a slot at one of the workshops to join in the conversation at a later date or in a different manner. Participants at the Chicago workshop that wrapped up on Saturday, May 17, provided a number of recommendations and options that we will explore in the coming weeks. Stay tuned and thanks for both your interest and patience.

Much to the surprise of most members of the Bamboo team, response to the call for participation has been far greater than expected. To date, well over 80 institutions and organizations have agreed to participate in one of the four instances of Workshop 1, "Understanding Scholarly Practice." With the Berkeley workshop complete, both the Chicago and Princeton workshops full and the Paris workshop filling fast, the Project Team will be taking a closer look at the workshop program to figure out how to capture and incorporate the broad interest across institutions and organizations without slowing the planning process.

"A lot was learned during Workshop 1a, and we've made some changes to future workshops in response to the feedback we received from the Berkeley participants," says Chad Kainz, Co-Director of Project Bamboo. "Our model is based on group discussion that provides material for subsequent workshops. However, with so many interested parties, we may need to get a bit more creative in figuring out how to incorporate input from the ever-growing list of institutions and organizations that want to take part in the project."

Given the tight scheduling early in the project, the focus right now is moving ahead with both the Chicago and Paris workshops and keeping the project on track. "After Paris, we will take a good look at what we've done and adjust the plan accordingly."

Registration is now open for the fourth instance of Workshop One, 1d, which will be held at on July 14-16. Special thanks to Center for Arts & Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton for helping sponsor the workshop.

The addition of a fourth workshop is welcomed as the Chicago workshop 1c is rapidly filling to capacity and registration has shifted to a waiting list. Institutions and organizations who formally register for the workshop will be notified by the Bamboo staff if they have a confirmed space.

To accommodate a wider range of institutions, the Bamboo Leadership Council agreed to add a fourth instance of Workshop 1, "Understanding Arts and Humanities Scholarship." The new workshop, Workshop 1d, is planned for July 14-16 and will be held on the East Coast. Location information will be posted as soon as it becomes available so teams can plan accordingly.

Institutions and organizations interested in participating in the Bamboo Planning Project are invited to formally join the effort by registering their team for one of the offerings of Workshop One, "Understanding Arts and Humanities Scholarship." Although we encourage teams to attend a workshop together, we realize that individual schedules may not allow that. As a result, your team members may attend separate workshops by selecting "Special Request" in the form and detailing your request in the comments field at the end of the application.

To register, visit the Join Us section of the site.