When Michigan Changed the World!
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When Michigan Changed the World! Cyber Cloud Digital Library of Alexandria M Publishing, Hathitrust OCW Virtual Universities Profession Schools Consulting Law, Bus, Ed, Policy, Nat R State UG Colleges Nation Socialization World Massication Libraries (Knowledge resources) Biomedical Sciences Hospitals Med, Den, Nurs, Pub H (Medical Center) Graduate School Culture Universitas Public Museums Magisterium Performing Arts et Scholarium (Athletics?) Natural Sciences Spinos Eng, Phys, Chem, Math, SI US Priorities UM Research Laboratories Medical Campus North Campus Central Campus NCRC Basic Research Renaissance Campus Scholarship Innovation Translational Research DaVinci Project Basic Research Tech Transfer UM Ventures UM Global Open Source Franchising M&A © 2020 The Millennium Project, The University of Michigan All rights reserved. The Millennium Project The University of Michigan 2001 Duderstadt Center 2281 Bonisteel Boulevard Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2094 http://milproj.dc.umich.edu Table of Contents Prologue Chapter 1: Leaders and Best Chapter 2: The Hypothesis Chapter 3: The Precursors Universitas Chapter 4: The Internet Chapter 5: Cyberinfrastructure Renaissance Chapter 6: Books into Clouds Chapter 7: The Renaissance Campus Enlightenment Chapter 8: Universities and Enlightenment Chapter 9: Tomorrow’s World Chapter 10: A Roadmap for Michigan’s Future Appendix A: SpaceShip Earth Appendix B: Michigan Computer History Appendix C: Michigan Impact on IT Policy Appendix D: Duderstadts and the Machine 1 Prologue Three times in its recent history, the University of augmented reality). But the most profound impact Michigan has actually changed the world through has been through the Internet, built by a consortium the efforts of its faculty and its research and teaching led by the University of Michigan with IBM and MCI that developed tools remarkably similar to those that in the 1980s and 1990s and supporting software such created our modern civilization in purpose and impact. as the Worldwide Web, which has made this form of communication truly available on a global level. Universitas (enabling new “unions” of people) New “universitas” structures have appeared such as collaboratories (first developed by a consortium led by In the Middle Ages new social structures began to Michigan), social media, and broader exploration of the appear, first triggered by the role of the church, not so impact of “cyberinfrastructure” technology, again led much because of its religion, but because of its creation by several of the University’s faculty. of organizations such as monks and the communities of workers necessary to construct great cathedrals. Renaissance (providing access to knowledge to meet Latin served as the common language to enable the the needs of society…including its creativity) communication necessary to bring people together. Events such as the Crusades exposed Western Europe While the medieval university provided the model to the Islamic cultures of the East, and by the 13th for higher education, first in Europe, then in North Century, the guilds and cities necessary for trade and America, and eventually throughout the world, it was commerce were formed. largely a bystander to the great intellectual movements By the 14th century, schools and universities of the 15th and 16th century: the Renaissance and appeared to train citizens for the evolving civilization. the Reformation. (Lohmann, 2002) The medieval Great teachers such as Peter Abelard of Paris and universities held fast to the traditions of scholasticism, Irnerius of Bologna were attracting scholars from across both in philosophy and pedagogy. Europe to form learning unions consisting of masters Emerging from 14th century Florence, the discovery and scholars, or in Latin, Universitas Magistrorum et by scholars of many ancient texts in their original Latin Scholarium, the foundation of today’s universities. and Greek and led to the appearnance of humanism, Of course, resources for communicating and building the study of human nature and worldly topics rather “universitas” or unions have steadily evolved since than religious ones. Renaissance humanists believed Medieval times, through transportation (roads, ships, that the “liberal arts” (art, music, grammar, rhetoric, railroads, automobiles, planes,…) and communication oratory, history, poetry, using classical texts, and the (e.g., sign language, pony express, telegraphs, studies of all of the above) should be practiced by all telephones, television,...). But the unprecdented pace levels of “richness”. They stressed the importance of evolution of digital technology, increasing in power of self, human worth, and individual dignity rather roughly 100 to 1,000 fold a decade, has created entirely than religious dogma. As the printing press replaced new forms of communication, from e-mail to video medieval manuscripts with printed books, humanism transmission to immersive environments (virtual and moved from being an Italian phenomenon into being 2 a European movement. Scholasticism, the Inquisition, such as John Locke interpreted these as implying that superstition, and feudal society were decisively citizens held certain natural rights such as life, liberty, changed through the revolutions of the 17th and 18th and property, and that governments derived their centuries. (Haskins, 1957) existence from the consent of the governed and their Although the printing press enabled the distribution duty to protect these rights. The Enlightenment created of knowledge through books and libraries, these a strong movement for a general improvement in objects had limited access (constrained by cost, human life, location, languages, etc.) But by the early 1990s, A new paradigm for the university appeared the digitization of written material became both that would eventually dominate Europe: the research affordable and available (through the evolution of university. This approach was built on the belief that intellectual property laws). The Mellon Foundation the function of the university should be broadened took an important step through the support of the beyond learning to include scholarship, the creation JSTOR project enabling the University of Michigan to of new knowledge itself. While this provided the digitize and provide Internet access to large numbers model for today’s universities, any vision proposed of history and economics books. The implications of for the university’s future must consider the such projects to create “digital libraries” available extraordinary changes and uncertainties of a future to millions of scholars stimulated the University of driven by exponentially evolving information and Michigan to broaden its School of Library Science communications technology. The great connectivity to include information technology in its curriculum, provided by the Internet already links together the becoming the nation’s first School of Information, majority of the world’s population. To this, one can focusing on the production of “informationists” add the emerging capacity to capture and distribute capable of guiding searches in cyberspace rather than the accumulated knowledge of our civilization in simply librarians managing books. The University, digital form and provide opportunities for learning working closely with IT companies such as Google through new technologies such as augmented and (with the massive Google Books digitization project), artificial reality, collaboratories, and intelligent tutors. universities (with the even larger HathiTrust digital Universities will be key, but they must invest in new library consortium), and Internet organizations such resources combining not only the traditional learning as Wikipedia, helped to enable millions of people to goals of the curriculum but also the creative spirit of interact to access, modify, and create new knowledge the arts and sciences. They must both serve and adapt on the Internet. This collection of digital knowledge to an emerging global society no longer constrained resources and applications would acquire the name by space, time, monopoly, or archaic laws and instead “cyberinfrastructure”). The access to this knowledge even more dependent upon the elements of a new “in the cloud” has triggered a renaissance of creativity. Enlightenment based upon reason, science, humanism, and progress. Enlightenment (providing not only access to the existing knowledge of the world but as well the learning necessary to use it to create new knowledge). The intellectual movement of the Enlightenment, emerging in the early 18th century, had great impact on universities as scholars as not only created new knowledge, but learning begin to take on new forms such as the sciences to enable it to not only spread about the globe and trigger major social change. Although the Enlightenment idealized the concepts of democracy and republic from Greek and Roman civilizations, scholars 3 Universitas: From UM’s Computer Aided Engineering Network (CAEN) to NSFNET to the Internet Renaissance: From the HathiTrust to Collaboratories (UARC) Enlightenment: From Supercomputers, to Centers for creating and applying the news tools of technology 4 Chapter 1 Leaders and Best The University of Michigan clearly qualifies as “the mother of state universities,” noting it was for inclusion in the small group of institutions that the first to prove that a high-quality education could have shaped American higher education. Although be delivered at a publicly funded institution of higher premature for a frontier