HighEdWebDev 06 will take place on October 22-25 in Rochester NY.
I won’t be able to attend this great conference and put out a call for guest bloggers a week ago. Two readers have already offered to help, so there should be some coverage of HighEdWebDev on this blog (if you want to share your notes about one or two sessions you plan to attend, you’re still welcome to let me know by email at karine@collegewebeditor.com – you’ll get a byline on your favorite blog ;-)
Whether or not you plan to go to Rochester in 10 days, I’m sure you’ll be interested to read the Conference’s Program Chair Doug Tschopp’s perspective on this big event in the higher ed Web world.
1) This year’s theme is “Collective Intelligence.” What’s behind this catchy phrase?
The use of a catchy theme dates back in the history of WebDevShare when it was at Indiana University. We seek a theme that seems to capture the essence of the conference… sometimes it is based on a point-in-time theme like “2001: A Web Odyssey” (we all love sci-fi and the first seven years of the web sure seemed like an odyssey) or a reflection of where we seem to be as web professionals like “2004: Emerging Visions” (the combining of a eight-year old successful national conference program committee with a group in NY running a regional conference, but who had been laying the groundwork for a professional organization for web professionals in higher education).
The “Collective Intelligence” theme really brings us back to the core concept of this conference, that of sharing knowledge with each other. This conference is based on presentations by higher ed web professionals for higher ed web professionals. And, I have to admit that the sci-fi reference was a big plus in the decision.
2) So how is progress going on the professional organization?
The organization has its legal work done and is now starting in on defining what benefits web professionals in higher education want from a professional organization. I hope there is a lot of conversation about this at the conference.
3) Can you tell us a bit more about this year’s program? If somebody can only attend a few presentations or workshops, what should they be and why?
This is always hard to answer since there is a variety of programming that reflects the diverse job functions of today’s higher ed web professionals… communication, application development, design, project management, marketing, research, etc. So everyone needs to pick out the pieces of the program that help them most in their work.
But I can say that no one should miss the Wednesday morning programming, where we give the “Best of Track†awards and then repeat these presentations twice. This way everyone gets to see two of the best presentations that they may have missed. And there will be a bonus this year (your readers get this scoop), the two best showcase presentations will also repeat during this time slot!
I also personally like the poster session on Tuesday afternoon (with 18 presenters this year) and the in-depth discussions in the Special Interest Groups (roundtables) that are held after the posters.
To sum up the program, there are 32 one-hour presentations and 16 thirty-minute showcases this year… plus 18 posters… plus 7 corporate presentations… plus 2 special presentations… over 70 presentations in the main conference in addition to 12 great optional workshops.
