After I raised the issue of bloggers doing collaborative research at Jill's talk, I've been thinking about how to legitimize such an activity. Of course, in technology fields, one of the holy grails of research respectability is NSF funding, so I took a look at upcoming program solications solicitations to see what might fit.
Found myself at the Information Technology Research (NSF 02-168) solicitation, which is written so broadly that it can be used to support a great variety of activities. And I think there's a lot of room here for potential impact of weblog publishing on scholarly activity and dissemination of information. So, how to put together a workable proposal?
Unfortunately, the deadline for "small" proposals is December 12 (small means no more than $500K for 3-5 years). But the deadline for "medium" proposals (up to $4 million!) isn't 'til February.
I suppose I could spend the break working on this, and try to get someting in next month. But I'm more intrigued by the idea of trying to do something larger and collaborative, and shooting for the medium version. Anybody want to play? (Alas, since it's NSF funding, we all have to be US citizens, I think.)
Ideas floating in my head involved designing new curricula, creating new professional publication models, sponsoring a conference, developing a new online resource center for microcontent publishing, etc, etc. Need to think more on the topic.
If I as a student can be of any help...I want to play! Any reason to design or develop web applications in a non-professional (non-work-related) environment is a good enough reason for me to be in front of the computer at 3am on any given night. :-) Now if I could just find a way to pay rent without actually having a job and embarking on those work-related programming endeavors...hummm...tricky.
Eric, good students are *always* welcome to play. And, in fact, NSF sets aside special funds for projects that involve undergraduates doing research. Of course, by then you'd be a grad student, but we also can and would ask for funding for grad assistants. Will keep you posted.
Meanwhile, ask Nick if she wants to help me design my new syllabus. (see previous post) I can probably get her grading $ for it.
I want to do an international collaborative blogging project! Let's try and coordinate a Norwegian project with a US project (are there other projects out there?) - that'd be so great - and we have a similar sounding program with funding applications due January 31, which'd match yours rather neatly... I'm sending you an email :)
Liz, I'm here via Seb's matchmaking skills :). I'm just "down the road" at U Buffalo. I would love to pursue an NSF proposal with you. I'm a new prof, so I was planning on going for the Early Career Grant this summer in ITR with a focus on automatic content analysis of the blogging world, but I'd rather do something larger and more collaborative. If you're game, I am!
A couple of folks in my department are back from a recent meeting with the ITR staff. We probably want to move quickly and scoot some preliminary ideas by them (either as an intent letter or more informally) pretty quick here if we are headed for a February deadline.
I'm very excited reading you initial thinking. Good to realize that Blogs can be researched - of course they can. If your interested in another international partner - here is one. And to Jill: couldn't we work towards an EU-funded programm.
I'm heading a newly established Center for New Media at the Danube-University Krems in Austria http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/znm . We are going to organize a Weblog-Conference in May 2002. Details coming up: http://event.web-log.org
Good Luck - and keep us updated
Thomas, you should take a look at http://www.it.rit.edu/~ell/blogresearch/, the blog I set up to facilitate discussion of this as a grant proposal. If you decide you want to join in, just ask, and I'll set you up as an author.
Liz
Thomas, that's great to hear about your plans for a blog conference! What are the dates? I'm hoping it doesn't collide with Digital Arts and Culture, which is in Melbourne May 19-23 - I'm planning on being there :) (There'll likely be some blog papers there, too)
An EU project sounds very interesting. I'd be interested in that, yes.
I am so interested in this conversation! Jill, you might remember me from http://www.kairosnews.org. I used the essay you wrote with Torill Mortensen as a source in a review essay about blogs. :) I'm a graduate student in rhetoric, and I want to write a dissertation on blogs and blogging eventually (I'm just in my first semester of the Ph.D. program). Liz, this is a great blog! I'm going to add it to my blogroll.