A framework for designing constructionist approaches to community-centered messaging

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-143).Social constructionism is a term used to describe systems where individuals take an active role in development that can enhance their community's social setting. This thesis asks, "What is the role of communication technologies in a social constructionalist approach to community-centered messaging?" Towards answering this question, a framework is described for developing and assessing such a system. This framework accounts for the varying skills of the community members, the amount of support the network provider is willing to invest, and the effort needed to use tools. A well designed system can meet the ambitions of the community that employs them, while a poor design leads to frustration and apathy. An experimental platform, Canard, has been built in order to explore this framework. It provides a unified communication representation and tools that allow rapid development of community-centered communication applications that do not require significant expertise to use them. The Canard system has been used by diverse communities over the past two years with varying degrees of success. The degree of success is a function of the group's ambition and willingness to participate in the process of crafting communication solutions for personal and community benefit.by Pascal Roger Chesnais.Ph.D

Cooperative innovation in the commons : rethinking distributed collaboration and intellectual property for sustainable design innovation

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-127).Addressing global design challenges in the environment and underserved communities requires a cooperative approach towards sustainable design innovation, one that embraces multidisciplinary expertise, participatory design and rapid dissemination of critical innovations in the field. How can a rural farmer in Botswana cooperatively develop appropriate solutions for his community with external research expertise? How can a doctor in Sao Paulo access a network of medical device companies to help manufacture her design innovation? While there is a great emphasis on large breakthrough R&D innovations, there is often little support for developing and disseminating small-scale, affordable, and locally sustainable designs. The open source phenomenon has been influential in the software community, however distributed collaboration in engineering design requires awareness and sharing of physical artifacts, design tools and working environments as well as novel mechanisms to support social norms, communities of practice, and intellectual property rights for product innovations. ThinkCycle was created as a web-based collaboration platform with tools and shared online spaces for designers, domain experts and stakeholders to discuss, develop and peer-review evolving design solutions in critical domains. Over 2000 users worldwide access and contribute hundreds of concepts, resources, projects and publications on the site. ThinkCycle is emerging as a collaborative platform, open design repository and global community for innovations in sustainable design: http.//www. thinkcycle.org. Studies were conducted on the nature of design interaction, learning and intellectual property emerging from studio courses run at MIT in 2001-2002.(cont.) Cooperative design is best understood when viewed as a "social process", which is better sustained in online settings by peer-review from remote participants. There is a need for lightweight asynchronous interfaces with existing modes of communication like email. Social inquiry into notions of intellectual property reveal a typology of patterns with distinct forms of protection and disclosure, including patents and open source, adopted under different conditions. However, there is much ambiguity and conflict regarding how to deal with cooperative innovations as they evolve from being subpatentable learning experiments to functional and commercially viable solutions with potentially great social impact. The thesis provides a framework within which we can begin to explore these challenges.by Nitin Sawhney.Ph.D

Devils Tower National Monument: Historic Resource Study

This study presents historical contexts associated with Devils Tower National Monument (DETO). First, we describe the Tower itself. The following five chapters elucidate themes, better known as historical contexts. The first theme describes how Native Americans occupied the region since about 13,000 years before present. Evidence is clear of their continuous presence in the area. Eras of exploration and settlement follow. The establishment of Devils Tower as the nation’s first national monument, created by Theodore Roosevelt’s executive order under the Antiquities Act, occurred in 1906. During the 1930s, development of the park continued with some twists unique to Devils Tower. The CCC era is of particular interest for National Park Service sites across the nation, and Devils Tower is no exception. MISSION 66 improvements transformed the monument and laid out a modernized, standardized park landscape in Devils Tower. The history of climbing also has a significant and unique place in the history of Devils Tower. Buildings and structures dating from 1973 are now of sufficient age to be considered for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. We discuss the 1970s in several places in these narratives and offer a theme and historical context for the 1970s to the present. What is particularly significant for Devils Tower National Monument is how nature and culture come together in every age with the result that people perceive the Tower differently, draw various inspirations from it, and experience Bear Lodge/Devils Tower in unique ways.This is published as Devils Tower National Monument: Historic Resource Study. National Park Service, Intermountain Office, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2023. Document is available online at the National Park Service History Electronic Library & Archive: http://npshistory.com/index.htm. Posted with permission

Reports to the President

A compilation of annual reports for the 1988-1989 academic year, including a report from the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as reports from the academic and administrative units of the Institute. The reports outline the year's goals, accomplishments, honors and awards, and future plans

Reports to the President

A compilation of annual reports for the 1990-1991 academic year, including a report from the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as reports from the academic and administrative units of the Institute. The reports outline the year's goals, accomplishments, honors and awards, and future plans

The Object of Platform Studies: Relational Materialities and the Social Platform (the case of the Nintendo Wii)

Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System,by Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort, inaugurated thePlatform Studies series at MIT Press in 2009.We’ve coauthored a new book in the series, Codename: Revolution: the Nintendo Wii Video Game Console. Platform studies is a quintessentially Digital Humanities approach, since it’s explicitly focused on the interrelationship of computing and cultural expression. According to the series preface, the goal of platform studies is “to consider the lowest level of computing systems and to understand how these systems relate to culture and creativity.”In practice, this involves paying close attentionto specific hardware and software interactions--to the vertical relationships between a platform’s multilayered materialities (Hayles; Kirschenbaum),from transistors to code to cultural reception. Any given act of platform-studies analysis may focus for example on the relationship between the chipset and the OS, or between the graphics processor and display parameters or game developers’ designs.In computing terms, platform is an abstraction(Bogost and Montfort), a pragmatic frame placed around whatever hardware-and-software configuration is required in order to build or run certain specificapplications (including creative works). The object of platform studies is thus a shifting series of possibility spaces, any number of dynamic thresholds between discrete levels of a system

More than a memoir

This autobiography was written originally as a test of memory, as a means of diminishing piles of stored papers and file folders, and in an effort to record events as they actually happened. It had been my experience as a child, hearing oral histories presented by adult family members, that there was great variance in their perceptions. Perhaps I could set down the "facts" of a life and leave interpretations up to any readers. Each of the chapters was distributed to my four children, Kenneth, Marcia, James and David. Inasmuch as they read the sporadic mailings, I incorporated their corrections and tried to answer any questions they raised. I relied upon friends to check specific chapters against their memories and upon Peggy Phelps to offer penetrating criticism where she discerned opinion masquerading as fact. Diane Orona deciphered my handwriting sufficiently to produce a handsome, typed manuscript, and I thank her for her patience and her aim at perfection. Who will read such a manuscript? Who among the grandchildren or children has the time for it? With the completion of the story, can I hope that others may find it of interest? The very personal nature may decide against that. The diverse nature of the subject matter would guide toward selective readings: organic chemistry with some biochemistry and plant physiology; music, but mainly singing; bi-continental living and romance; family; travel; universities; extraneous material about foundations, research support, national and international organizations, even some talks (in the appendix). However, there is a whole to it -- the story of a sample life in the twentieth century and a bit into the twenty-first. I have found life's journey exciting and rewarding. I have been fantastically lucky. NJ