The Agora Factor(y): Architecture and Assembly in / of MOOs

In "The Agora Factor(y): Architecture and Assembly in / of MOOs" Cynthia Haynes and Jan Rune Holmevik, co-creators of Lingua MOO, an electronic learning environment located at the University of Texas at Dallas, will discuss the organization and design of electronic forums as spaces for discussion and debate. Haynes and Holmevik brought together their rhetorical and historical training to design and operate a MOO specifically for researchers and teachers working at the intersection of humanities and electronic scholarship and pedagogy. Their presentation foregrounds the care with which the MOO is designed and programmed to facilitate on-line discussion, debate, and recording of such meetings. In addition, they discuss ways in which the network of MOO researchers they have fostered provides a crucial set of links with other forums. Specifically, they will explain the genesis of and their participation in a number of research collectives that host open forums at Lingua MOO, as well as how Lingua is interconnected with other MOOs for accessibility to research archives, notices of meetings, sending and receiving mail, web interfaces, and interMOO synchronous communication.

Building upon their discussion of the planning and implementation of the MOO as a research forum, the authors will discuss future innovations in MOOs that promise to enhance the electronic "agora," and they will outline future plans for the use of MOOs in the growing trend toward blurring the boundaries between the humanities and technology in general.