Promoting Creative Promoting Creative Interdisciplinarity in a Interdisciplinarity in a Disciplinary World: Disciplinary World: Part 3: Lessons from/for IT LandscapePart 3: Lessons from/for IT LandscapeDavid E. GoldbergIllinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering EducationUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, IL 61801

deg@illinois.edu; www.Ifoundry.illinois.edu

Promoting Creative Promoting Creative InterdisciplinarityInterdisciplinarityDifficult to overcome tyranny of

departments/disciplines.Human networks, not electronic

networks, as primary:◦Understand disciplines as religion.◦Linguistic naiveté and how to

overcome.◦Pairwork grows networks.◦Networks need mesolevel

institutional support.

Lessons from/for the IT Lessons from/for the IT LandscapeLandscapeHuman networks trump electronic

networks.IT does have important role to play.Some inobvious lessons:

◦E-mail is dead.◦Facebook rules & wikis drool.◦Mining, learning, & the future of active

collaboration.◦Overcoming NIH disease.◦Lessons from reinforcement learning for

credit assignment.

E-mail is DeadE-mail is Dead You’re a postmodern. You use e-mail. Your kids don’t. Sharethis did study of twentysomethings &

there’s demographic wave moving through. Computer usage:

◦ AIM box◦ Facebook page◦ Give e-mail password to parents to check.

What they seek: Immediacy, publc/private persona, relationships & sharing as primary values.

IT lesson: E-mail is commodity service & not central to creativity-interdisciplinary enhancement.

Why Facebook Rules & Wikis Why Facebook Rules & Wikis DroolDroolSocial networking (SN) & Facebook exploded

onto scene.Wiki usage in industry and academy hit and

miss (4 dreaded words: “We have a wiki.”).Key differences:

◦ Facebook offers rooted public/private identity to individuals & groups emerge from individual interactions.

◦ Wikis offer largely private group identity & groups are often primary centralized focus.

◦ Facebook powered enthusiastically by participants (Linkedin, too) & Wikis die when creator loses interest.

◦ Wikis exhibit tragedy of the commons. IT lesson. Model future IT after SN

model

DISCUS & Active Collaborative DISCUS & Active Collaborative SystemsSystemsDISCUS project

between Illinois Genetic Algorithms Lab and Automated Learning Group at NCSA.

Distributed innovation and scalable collaboration in uncertain settings.

Use text mining, social network analysis, and genetic algorithms to model semantics & networks.

Semantic Visualization w/ KeyGraph

Overcoming NIH DiseaseOvercoming NIH DiseaseNIH = not invented here.Universities are secretive, prideful entities.Seek competitive advantage by “owning”

systems, content, IP, curricula, etc.Leads to closed systems & reduction in

influence.Internet is open world. OCW, open-source

software, and commercial sharing sites.Offer advantages in traffic, convenience &

influence.IT lesson. Move toward openness on

multiple fronts, including use of commercial systems.

Credit AssignmentCredit Assignment How do research,

teaching dollars flow to different units?

Same problem in computer science: credit assignment problem of machine learning.

How do you set up triple jump in checkers?

Reinforcement learning (Q-learning) solves problem as iterative approximation to dynamic programming.

Notion of state critical.

Contributions to state:◦ Who hired.◦ Who invested in

startup.◦ Who provides office.◦ External reputation.

IT lesson. Use ideas from reinforcement learning to get beyond distorting formulae in use.

Bottom LineBottom LineHave considered

◦ Framework for understanding change.◦ Human dimensions of creative interdisciplinarity.◦ Lessons from and for IT landscape.

Times demand greater support of interdisciplinary research, education, and service.

Organizational (human) problem comes first.IT has supporting role for creating mesolevel

support of dot-connectors.Universities that “get it” will prosper, and

those that don’t risk falling in stature to those that do.

Promoting Creative Promoting Creative Interdisciplinarity in a Interdisciplinarity in a Disciplinary World: Disciplinary World: Part 3: Lessons from/for IT LandscapePart 3: Lessons from/for IT LandscapeDavid E. GoldbergIllinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering EducationUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, IL 61801

deg@illinois.edu; www.Ifoundry.illinois.edu