CTWatchBlog Redux
At long last, we are restarting CTWatch blog. In doing so, we (i.e. CTWatch Quarterly editors) wanted to make at least a couple changes from our previous installment. First, we want to try to give it a more unique and personalized perspective. The people who post to CTWatch (just us for the moment) should feel free to speak in there own voice and from their own point of view. When we started the blog originally, we felt inhibited on this front because CTWatch Quarterly, which is the main focus of our effort, is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) via the CyberInfrastructure Partnership (CIP) of SDSC and NCSA. But a newsy blog written in an impersonal way just didn’t work too well, partly because the wide world of cyberinfrastructure technology is replete with blog-like, news oriented, on-line publishers. Recycling news items can be valuable, but will only take you so far. Within the boundaries of CTWatch’s general mission, and along with continued flow of pointers to other news items, we want to encourage CTWatch bloggers to talk about the things that they care about and that are happening in their own world.
The other change we plan to make is to increase our focus on the use of new communication media by the cyberinfrastructure (CI) community. This includes blogs, but especially the use of multimedia, such as podcasts, on-line video, screencasts, etc. Although such new media are an important part of what advanced CI enables, their use within the community is not well covered by traditional outlets.
We’ve tried to start taking account of this in the new incarnation of the blog. You’ll notice that the links on the right hand column point to blogs from CI notables and other such-like folk, and also multimedia publication/netcasting efforts within the CI community. (We would be happy to expand this list as appropriate, so please send us your suggestions.) Notable among this group is the European Gridcast, which the folks International Science Grid This Week alerted us too. As far as I know, this use of video podcasts puts the Grid community on the other side of the pond out in front of the US in the use of this new medium. In the spirit of friendly “coopetition,” we plan to use the CTWatch blog to track of what’s happening on this front and help the US close the gridcasting gap!!
