iDMAa 2005 - Overview

iDMAa 2005 is THE Conference for Digital Media and Arts Academics

iDMAa 2005 is a unique conference, with a unique structure. It is designed to answer the key questions for faculty and administrators building Digital Media and Digital Arts academic programs, and to facilitate the development of partnerships for research and creative projects.

The Topic: Around the world, universities and colleges are creating new programs and departments to teach and conduct research in Digital Media and Digital Arts. These programs are emerging from partnerships of Art, Computer Science, Communications-Radio/TV-Journalism, English, Music, Theater, Film and other disciplines.

These programs, and our conference, are "Way Off Center – Right On Target.” What do we mean by this playful motto?

Way off center – Digital Media and Digital Arts programs are novel creations within the university. They exist on the interdisciplinary margins where traditional disciplines meet. Margins are frontiers. New ideas and creative opportunities happen in these places.

Right on Target – These programs are among the fastest-growing units in many unjiversities, and are offering some of the most popular majors and subjects. Computer game development is a particularly hot topic, for instance.

Digital Media and Arts programs address the production of content for existing media such as the Internet, radio and TV, digital cinema and video, computer games, cinematic special effects and animation, as well as for new emerging media such as:

• mobile computing (GPS, personal digital assistants, cell phones)
• ubiquitous computing ("smart houses", "information appliances")
• interactive television (now making big money in Europe)
• online role playing games and video games of all sorts
• virtual reality

Faculty and administrators are asking questions like these:

CURRICULUM

• What should we teach once we go beyond web design?
• What is the intellectual core of Digital Media and Arts?
• How can we provide students with the best immediate job-related skills?
• How can we foster the development of life-long intellectual skills to enable our students to become leaders in new media content creation?
• What kinds of graduate programs are emerging in Digital Media and Arts?

RESEARCH AND CREATIVE WORK

• What are leading areas for innovation? What new media are emerging?
• How can our faculty stay current, produce publishable results, find fame and glory?
• What areas of new media are most attractive for industrial and governmental grants and contracts for faculty research and creative projects?

RESOURCES

• What kinds of laboratories and other resources are needed?
• How can you convince your university to provide them?
• How can you involve external sponsors in supporting your academic program?

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT

• How can you identify, recruit, nurture and retain the right faculty?
• How can you help in-place faculty develop new skills for the new discipline?
• How can work in such an interdisciplinary area be fairly evaluated for promotion and tenure?

Backwards in Time – What in the world do these iDMAa people mean by this expression? How can a conference run backwards in time?

Most conferences are places where people present the results of research or creative projects. You go there to hear people brag, or get roasted, and occasionally you get a new idea.

The iDMAa conference is a place go to start new research and creative projects. The workshops are designed to stimulate a rich collection of ideas, partnerships, introductions to funding sources and opportunities. The most valuable thing you have – your time – is spent differently at iDMAa than at other conferences. At iDMAa, your brain is fully engaged. You are finding opportunities and making plans.

And when you have developed an idea into a project, the iDMAa Journal is a great place to publish about it!