David Green
Executive Director
National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage
Daniel Cohen
Associate Director
George Mason University
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
Assistant Professor of English
University of Maryland
Stephen Ramsay
Senior Programmer
University of Virginia
The Internet was built on Open Source software. Recently, there has been renewed interest within the humanities in using open source methods to build tools across communities: collaborative instruments for collaborative work will demonstrate. This session will review the issues involved in developing open source software, and two examples of current work in this area: The Historians’ Toolkit, under development at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the Virtual Lightbox, an image-based whiteboard for the web, designed to bridge the gap between image-based tools for the desktop and image-based applications for networked environments. The discussion will include issues related to the development and implementation of standards and the kinds of training and support campuses need to provide to support these tools.