NEH Interim Performance Report
Feb. 28, 1999 Contents:

• Cover Page
• Narrative
  1. Tasks Required by the Original Schedule
  2. Changes and Additions
  3. Report on Fundraising Activities to Meet Matching Grant
  4. Appendices

Cover Page Grant Number: ED-20822-97
Project Title: Transcriptions: Literary History and the Culture of Information
Project Director: Alan Liu
Grantee Institution: University of California, Santa Barbara
Date Submitted: February 28, 1999
Narrative

The Transcriptions project began work as planned in August 1998. The project team (faculty, research assistants, and staff) met a total of 10 times between August 1998 and January 1999 to organize its work, design and create resources, and critique the implementation of plans to date. Besides functioning as a committee-of-the-whole, this team worked in two overlapping subgroups: one developing instructional resources and the other Web design. In addition, the team convened two public meetings to present the project to the English department and other interested parties. Development of the project has so far been satisfactory. With some exceptions (noted below), Transcriptions has met its schedule of interim goals. In addition, it has begun implementing some new goals that arose in the process of its early work. (For a chronology of the main project activities from Aug. 1998 through Jan. 1999, see the online project log at http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/project/logs/project-log.shtml).

1. Tasks Required by the Original Schedule

Transcriptions filed its original work schedule with the NEH in the document titled, "Revised Work Plan" of May 27, 1997. The discussion of progress below follows the order of the categories in that document relevant to the present interim period:

A. Workplan for Development and Maintenance of Computing Studio

Transcriptions researched, purchased, and built a new computing studio in the English department. The studio is a dual-use facility where computing work occurs on high-end personal computers at one end of the room while meetings and small classes occupy a seminar table at the other end. Currently, equipment consists of four 450Mhz PCs with large monitors, a 266 Mhz laptop for meetings and conference talks, a scanner, a black-and- white printer, a color printer, and a multimedia projector. (Plans call for the addition of another 4-6 PCs by next year.) The PCs run Windows 98 and are networked to a dedicated Windows NT server running Microsoft's Backoffice suite. Besides providing Web service, Backoffice allows for Web access to the project's Exchange Server messaging environment–a medium for threaded discussions and other permission-controlled collaborative forums (intended for classroom use). Since the project's rationale commits humanists to engaging as fully as possible with information technology, members of the Transcriptions team–including its director–dedicated an intense amount of time in November and December 1998 to helping to set up the server themselves, administrating it, upgrading components of its operating system, configuring the Exchange Server messaging environment, networking the client computers, and so on. The studio became fully operational in late December 1998, approximately one month behind schedule due to difficulties in configuring the server software (a delay that was not significant). Even before the server came online, faculty and students in the project worked to familiarize themselves with the new Web-authoring and image-editing software on the PCs in the studio–including the project's primary production programs: Macromedia's Dreamweaver and Fireworks, SoftQuad's HotMetal, and Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator. (For a fuller description of the studio, see http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/studio.shtml).

B. Workplan for Assignment of Student Assistant Positions

Recruiting and selecting graduate-student research assistants was accomplished on schedule. The selection of undergraduate research assistants has been delayed due to the difficulty in finding students with the necessary technical expertise. In particular, Transcriptions has been looking for undergraduates with experience in digital multimedia work and the creation of sophisticated graphics for the Web. The project will soon be interviewing one such student. (This delay has not to date slowed down Web site development.)

C. Workplan for Course Development (including Web pages for courses)

As planned, Transcriptions will not teach its first courses until academic year 1999-2000. It was decided that it made most sense for the project to concentrate first on developing its overall Web design and central Web site before creating the individual pages for its courses next year. Development of the project's first course pages, therefore, has been deferred until Spring quarter 1999 (though steps were taken to compensate for this delay by advancing the schedule of work in other ways; see below). To date, Transcriptions has made the following start on preparing for next year's courses. It has scheduled (and secured approval from the English Dept. for) the following courses next year:

• Alan Liu, "The Culture of Information" (undergraduate)
• Alan Liu, "The Culture of Information" (graduate)
• Carol Pasternack, "Scroll to Screen" (undergraduate)
• William Warner, "Free Speech and Censorship" (undergraduate)
• Christopher Newfield, "Business Culture" (undergraduate)

It is also arranging for one of its research assistants, Chris Schedler, to teach a course next year on "Native American Literature, Oral tradition, and the Internet." Courses planned for future years include (in addition to repetitions of courses already mentioned):

• Charles Bazerman, "History of Written Culture"
• Carol Pasternack, "The Imperial Text"
• Alan Liu, "Canon Revision"
• Christopher Newfield, "Business Culture"
• Mark Rose, "History of Authorship"
• William Warner, "Digital Media Culture"
• William Warner, "Techno-Gothic"
• Alan Liu, "Postmodern Theory"

Transcriptions has also done considerable research on the instructional use of information technology and created a set of Web resources on the topic (see http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/resources.shtml) In addition, the project has added a "prototyping" phase to its original plan. Two of its faculty, Alan Liu and William Warner, will advance the schedule of the project by teaching courses in Spring quarter 1999 (the year before courses were to begin) that prototype the curriculum and technologies of the project. Such prototyping will aid in the development of course pages and course design for next year.

D. Workplan for Development of the Project's Central Web Site

After the computing studio became operational, the project began developing its central Web site. Because this phase of the project was only one month old at the end of January 1999, the Web site is clearly "under construction." Early progress has been rapid and intense. Work on the site has consisted of researching/creating content, planning the site architecture, designing standard page templates, and inventing protocols for collaborative Web authoring. At the time of the writing of this report, the site consists of 17-24 individual pages (depending on how they are counted). Most of the present pages focus on the rationale for the project or on background resources (including annotated guides to resources on the instructional use of technology, Web authoring for beginners, etc.) Detailed planning for the project's "topics" pages has also begun (see http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/topics.shtml). The Transcriptions Web in its present form may be seen at http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/

2. Changes and Additions

As previously reported to our NEH project supervisor, one faculty participant (Prof. Carl Gutiérrez-Jones) left Transcriptions before it began, and another (Prof. William Warner) joined the project. Prof. Warner has also assumed the duties of fundraising officer for the project. Transcriptions has grown in two significant ways:

1. Colloquia: Transcriptions is initiating a series of workshops/colloquia in Spring 1999 on topics that bear both on the internal interests of the project and on the research interests of a broader audience. This semi-regular series of colloquia will be formalized next year (if approved by the English dept.) as a full-scale colloquium series featuring both UCSB and extramural presenters and hosting an audience that combines faculty, graduate students, and (for certain events) undergraduates. The colloquium will allow graduate students to attend for credit. Though plans for the colloquium are at an early stage, Transcriptions has already lined up extramural and intramural presenters on the topics of Native Americans and the Internet, hypertext fiction, and technical writing. In addition, extramural scholars who will visit the program in future years for the combined purpose of speaking/refereeing will play a part in the colloquium (Kathleen Biddick, Martin Irvine, Jerome McGann, J. Hillis Miller, Allucquere Rosanne Stone).
2. Publicity Initiative: Transcriptions is designing a publicity initiative that will disseminate its ideas more broadly. It is creating publicity literature to announce its itself to UCSB undergraduates as well as graduate students and scholars at other institutions. Its director is presenting the project this coming spring to the Friends of the English Department (a group of local-community supporters of UCSB). And plans are being made to present the project at other universities next year.

3. Report on Fundraising Activities to Meet Matching Grant

Transcriptions has worked on several fronts to meet its matching grant. In the summer of 1998, the project developed a database of former UCSB English department alumni and mailed approximately 600 of these contacts a letter requesting help with funding. In addition Transcriptions has raised several hundred dollars in private donations from faculty and staff in the department who are not involved in the project. The total raised through the above methods currently amounts to about $1,200. For the last two years Transcriptions has been working with the UCSB Development Office in order to tap corporate or private resources that would qualify for the NEH matching grant. So far, these efforts have not borne fruit. However, in the fall of 1999 Transcriptions applied for approximately $10,000 from the UCSB Foundation, a private foundation that supports university activities. There are also several fundraising projects planned for the coming year. Transcriptions will do another larger mailing to alumni and friends this summer; Alan Liu will speak to the Department's support group, The Friends of English; and the project is planning a University-wide fundraiser. At the same time Transcriptions will continue to work with the UCSB Development Office to raise private and matchable money.

4. Appendices

Supporting material for this interim report consists of the Transcriptions Web site (which includes project-development documents). The URL for the site is http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/

This page created by Alan Liu for the Transcriptions Team, 2/24/99 (revised 2/24/99)