Creativity and iSchools – iConference Roundtable

Next week I will be participating on a roundtable at the iConference, in Seattle, WA, along with fellow panelists Eric Cook (Michigan), Kurt Luther (Georgia Tech), and Dan Perkel (UC Berkeley). The roundtable is at 4:00 pm on Wednesday, February 9. Our main question is what the creativity agenda does, could, or should look like for iSchools. Below is the abstract from our proposal:

Broad shifts are taking place in the way we think about the relationships between ICTs, creativity, and creative expression. Access to low-cost, powerful computational tools of creation and dissemination has engendered new forms of aesthetics and expression, new opportunities for individuals, and new threats to traditional industries. In the iSchool academic community, there is a similar shift in research interests beyond a traditional focus on formal workplace settings and instrumental uses of information technology towards social, expressive, and generative concerns.

In this roundtable proposal, we invite conference participants to engage and discuss these trends, and reflect on what the creativity agenda should mean in the iSchool context.  The roundtable will consider the impact of this agenda along a variety of dimensions, including research, outreach, and curriculum design. We seek to highlight an emerging new direction of intellectual activity within the iSchools, as well as foster an ongoing conversation on how to address and seize the opportunities brought about by these shifts.

We’ve put some planning into this and we’re very excited about it. If you are at the iConference, we’d love to have you join us!