ECAR Symposium 2004

Innovation at the Boundary between Science and Science Fiction
November 15–17, 2004
Hotel del Coronado
Coronado, California

The 2004 Program: IT on the Edge: Innovation at the Boundary between Science and Science Fiction

Last year, Alan Kay, conceiver of the laptop computer and the architect of the modern windowing GUI, reminded those at the ECAR Symposium that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it." Increasingly, respected organizational consultants like Seth Godin advise us to look to the edges to stimulate and foster the impulse to innovate. The 2004 ECAR Symposium has been designed once again to bring together those who are crafting important changes in the world with those who study the effects of these changes on our institutions and work. Sessions will encourage interaction at the nexus of theory, analysis, and practice. The 2004 program reflects ECAR’s commitment to dwell on both the big issues facing society and higher education and the diversity of ECAR's research agenda. Topics for the 2004 ECAR Symposium include: “phantoms in the brain, “ virtuality and posthumanism, student uses of course management systems, and IT funding.

Our presenters include:

  • Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, Professor and Director of Center for Brain and Cognition, UC San Diego
  • Dr. N. Katherine Hayles, Professor of English, UCLA
  • Dr. Larry Smarr, Founding Director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology and Harry E. Gruber Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, UC San Diego
  • Dr. Joan Lippincott, Associate Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information
  • Dr. Dean Hubbard, President, Northwest Missouri State University
  • Dr. Kathie Gilbert, Special Assistant to the President for Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness, Western New Mexico University
  • Dr. Kendell Rice, Manager of Quality Initiatives, Datatel, Inc.
  • Ms. Mary Beth O’Connor Baker, MB Baker and Associates
  • Dr. Stella Bentley, Dean of Libraries, University of Kansas
  • Dr. Marilu Goodyear, Vice Provost and CIO, University of Kansas
  • Ms. Donna Liss, Associate Vice Provost, University of Kansas
  • Mr. Gary Hein, VP and Service Director of Application Platform Strategies, Burton Group
  • Mr. Phil Goldstein, ECAR Fellow
  • Dr. Robert Kvavik, ECAR Senior Fellow; Associate Provost, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
  • Dr. Don Spicer, ECAR Senior Fellow; Associate Vice Chancellor for IT & CIO, University System of Maryland
  • Ms. Judy Caruso, ECAR Fellow; Director, Policy, Security, and Planning, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Ms. Toby Sitko, ECAR Fellow
  • Mr. Richard N. Katz, Vice President, EDUCAUSE; ECAR Director
  • Ms. Judith A. Pirani, ECAR Fellow
  • Dr. Gail Salaway, ECAR Fellow

Office hours (break out discussions)

The ECAR Symposium also provides opportunities for small groups of participants to exchange ideas with the authors of ECAR research bulletins, including Leslie Hitch (IT professional development), Susan Metros (Learning Objects), Mark Nelson (The CIO in Higher Education), Charles Dziuban (Blended Learning), Steve Daigle (Total Cost of Ownership), Robert Albrecht (Instructional Repositories and Referatories), Judith Pirani (IT Staffing), and Brian Voss (Globalization and Higher Education Networks).

Symposium overview

The ECAR Symposium is a subscriber-only event, held annually at the incomparable Hotel del Coronado on San Diego's Coronado Island. Two individuals from ECAR Participating Subscriber institutions are eligible to participate and receive complimentary registrations.

The Symposium brings together world-class researchers and analysts whose study of higher education and information technology evolves either directly from work undertaken under the aegis of ECAR or from work that is likely to be highly complementary to work undertaken by ECAR. The ECAR Symposium program is designed in particular to balance experts from academe and ECAR research fellows with leading researchers and analysts from ECAR research partners such as Burton Group, IDC, INPUT, Gartner, and others.

Participants in the ECAR Symposium help shape the ECAR research agenda for the next 18 months. Significant time is allocated to an open-forum assessment of research priorities and evaluation of hot topics for research and analysis, including discussion of speaker and topic priorities for the 2004 Symposium.

To assist you with travel plans, the ECAR Symposium schedule is:

  • November 15, 5:30 p.m.: Reception and dinner
  • November 16, 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.: Symposium sessions
  • November 17, 8:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.: Symposium sessions