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EPIC
- Engaging People in Cyberinfrastructure
A collaboration led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Boston University
EPIC Virtual Institutes: Minority Serving Institutions
A Virtual Institute is a community
of people who are investigating, researching, or developing,
focused on a specific subject and who meet regularly on the Access
Grid to plan activities, study a subject in depth, share outcomes
and formulate
conclusions.
The VI is a means to an end; it is a way to accomplish
goals. The key ideas are that the VI has:
1) a focus topic,
2) a commitment by the participants to regularly meet and contribute,
3) sufficient support effort that the meetings are well organized
with a list of expected participants, agenda,
reading materials, action items, etc. before each meeting and
follow-up
after each
meeting. Meeting frequency is monthly
and bi-weekly.
This is of course little different than a “thrust area”, “expedition”,
etc from past experience. However, it has the advantage that
the unique name carries with it the obligations mentioned above
and hopefully VIs are efficient and effective. It also emphasizes
some specific focus or element of an overall activity and should
be reserved for such topics and not for continuous programmatic
issues.
By
Greg Moses (3-18-05)
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