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The research and education environment of the future will reflect fundamental
change spurred by information technology.
- Collaboration:
communities of researchers, irrespective of physical location, will
collaborate both on the provision of information and the review and
analysis of it. Virtual centers of topical expertise will provide
the vehicle for these communities to come together.
- Trans-disciplinary
conceptualization: the research disciplines of the future have not
yet been defined. These research disciplines will transcend current
disciplines and will depend on the capacity and flexibility of the
academic environment to facilitate, accommodate and incorporate alternative
and emerging perspectives. The IT infrastructure will provide the
necessary virtual home and digital media will provide the digital
language, flexibility and nimbleness to accommodate the dynamic and
distributed nature of new ideas.
- Information
assimilation: networked repositories of digital media will become
the new and significant vehicles for doing research. These repositories
will require data structures that reflect the requirements for merging,
linking and managing diverse, interdisciplinary digital assets. These
data structures will manifest the language of the future disciplines.
- Insight: significant
and new insights into information will be possible through the perspectives
and perceptions afforded by visualization and the presentation of
digital media. The richness of insight will depend on diversity of
perspective.
- A New Literacy:
the convergence of human-machine media into a single digital language
of data, the increasing sophistication and scale of carrying out individual
tasks for generating, organizing and manipulating data, the aggregate
effects of bringing combinations of tasks together, the unprecedented
ability to link and combine information to generate new insight and
the world-wide scale and scope of application and impact, come together
to contribute to a new literacy.
The successful research university of the future [omit comma] recognizes
that the future requires creating an environment of digital adventure
and fostering an emerging culture that encourages exploration and fosters
relationships beyond traditional disciplines. The IT infrastructure
must be developed and used not only to position for but spark advances
in as yet unknown directions. The ability to embrace digital media in
bringing the perspectives of disparate disciplines together is a necessary
condition. Exposure and experimentation by faculty, staff and students
about living in an information age encourages a culture of digital adventure
and builds the perspective and know-how for moving forward.
We propose the formation
of an Institute for Social Interfaces and Networks, Advanced Programmable
Simulations and
Environments, or SINAPSE.
The mandate for SINAPSE is three-fold:
- It will increase
collaboration and communication among UCLA faculty and graduate students
working in digital media through Internal Fellowships that will provide
release time and a collegial setting for discussions, collaborations
and catalyzing interactions. A limited number of External and Visiting
Fellowships will bring into this community distinguished researchers
in digital media from elsewhere around the country and the world,
increasing the visibility of SINAPSE/UCLA and promoting research in
digital media.
- SINAPSE will
further enhance collaboration and communication by serving as a juncture
with other UCLA Centers and Institutes. Digital media will be used
to connect SINAPSE electronically with every other Center on campus
doing research related to digital media and willing to partner with
SINAPSE. These could include, for example, the Center for Digital
Innovation, the Brain Research Institute, the California NanoSystems
Institute, the Center for the Study of Evaluation, and the Center
for Computational Social Science. Events in these Centers would be
streamed live into SINAPSE, either passively or with the capacity
for SINAPSE participants to interact live with the on-site lecturer
and audience. In addition, events at SINAPSE would also be streamed
into these Centers, creating a rich and diverse interdisciplinary
environment of lectures, conversations, debates, and research collaborations
in digital media. In this way digital media becomes both the focus
of SINAPSE research programs and the method whereby SINAPSE integrates
and catalyzes research in digital media . . .
- SINAPSE will
serve as a coordinating center for grants and extramural funding in
digital media, drawing on the collaborations and research agendas
of participants to develop grant proposals in simulations, interfaces,
and networks. To carry out these mandates, SINAPSE will have its own
space of at least 6,000 square feet, additional space in a South Campus
facility, 5 FTEs for Internal and External Fellowships, an equipment
budget, a Director, a full-time administrative staff person and technical
support staff.
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