{"id":75321,"date":"2013-04-05T14:37:54","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T18:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=75321"},"modified":"2013-04-10T10:35:18","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T14:35:18","slug":"symposium-highlights-unprecedented-academic-collaborations-created-by-digital-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/04\/symposium-highlights-unprecedented-academic-collaborations-created-by-digital-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Symposium Highlights Unprecedented Academic Collaborations Created by Digital Media"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tim<\/a>
Tim Hunter, head of the Department of Digital Media and Design, speaks at the Digital Media Symposium held on April 4. (Ariel Dowski ’14 (CLAS)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The old model of research and teaching \u2013 in which disciplines and specialties were walled off from each other in \u201csilos\u201d which permitted little chance to collaborate \u2013 is rapidly changing, thanks in large part to the growing field of digital media, a packed house attending a symposium at the UConn campus in Storrs heard Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Digital Media Center\u2019s \u201cInnovative Collaborations\u201d Symposium drew speakers and panelists from a host of top institutions, while highlighting the University\u2019s commitment to growing its presence in the dynamic field of digital media and design.<\/p>\n

One of the symposium\u2019s main goals was to show researchers and students alike that the benefits of incorporating digital media into academic work renders old distinctions between disciplines largely irrelevant.<\/p>\n

\"Tim<\/a>
A packed house attended the Digital Media Symposium in the Rome Ballroom. (Ariel Dowski ’14 (CLAS)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cDigital media is so important to such a broad array of fields,\u201d President Susan Herbst told the crowd. \u201cIt really is like an umbrella discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plenty of examples of that principle could be found in the afternoon\u2019s panel sessions, which ranged from digital media\u2019s ability to help students learn new languages to its impact in the field of health to its use in finding new business models for the journalism industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really can\u2019t escape digital media,\u201d said Tim Hunter, director of the Digital Media Center and head of the newly created Department of Digital Media and Design. \u201cIt\u2019s all around us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The launch of the new department \u2013 which by the fall will have eight full-time faculty members, 23 courses, and both BA and BFA degree programs \u2013 is the most high profile demonstration of the University\u2019s commitment to the growing field, but it\u2019s only one of many. Researchers from across the University are collaborating on projects using digital media to help in everything from public health to agriculture and natural resources, Hunter said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis, in all of our minds, is really trans-disciplinary,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s intended to reach from one school to another to another to another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ga\u00ebl<\/a>
Ga\u00ebl McGill, director of molecular visualization at Harvard Medical School, said it is crucial to be able to visualize complex research problems and data. (Ariel Dowski ’14 (CLAS)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

UConn is already making a name for itself in the field, as demonstrated by some of the researchers in the discipline who attended the conference, like keynote speaker Ga\u00ebl McGill, director of molecular visualization at Harvard Medical School, and Tom Scheinfeldt, director-at-large of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.<\/p>\n

McGill, a biologist, used his presentation to explain how crucial it is to be able to visualize complex research problems and data, something he said had been ignored too long by some researchers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may be firmly entrenched in your field with your own research interests, but if the proper training and collaborative tools are in place, you can fold in some of these insights and techniques into your own work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Scheinfeldt, talking about the use of digital media in the humanities, said the field actually calls to mind a much earlier model of scholarly collaboration: that of the agora, the central gathering place in ancient Greek cities where important artistic, cultural, and political developments were hashed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cDigital humanities is a return to an earlier era when scholarship was done in public,\u201d he said. \u201cI think this is good news for all of us working in the humanities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A packed house heard about the benefits of incorporating digital media into academic work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":75290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[131],"class_list":["post-75321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 15:13:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75321"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75613,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75321\/revisions\/75613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/75290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75321"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=75321"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=75321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}