CNI
Program
Themes |
The work of the Coalition is structured around three central themes which we believe are the essential foundations of the vision of advancing scholarship and intellectual productivity:
Developing Networked Information Content
A network which will play an integral role in scholarly discourse and productivity must be rich with content and information resources. The Coalition seeks to mobilize and bring together the many diverse communities that create and manage content. It works with these communities to develop methods of creating, organizing, evaluating, managing and preserving networked information resources. The Coalition also furthers the development of economic, policy and legal frameworks that sustain the creation and management of networked information and facilitate its access.
Transforming Organizations, Professions and Individuals
The use of networked information will transform institutions, professions, and the practices of learning and scholarship. Success in the new environment will require an unprecedented degree of collaboration among libraries, information technology groups, faculty, instructional technologists, museums and other units. Organizations will need to develop and share new strategies, policies and best practices. Of equal importance is the need to assess and measure the impacts of the new environment on institutions and their activities as the transformation progresses. Professions will need to develop new competencies, and enter into new dialogs which cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. The Coalition seeks to facilitate these collaborations and dialogs, and to help professions and institutions to work together both in program strategy formulation and impact assessment.
Building Technology, Standards and Infrastructure
The networked information environment relies extensively on the development and deployment of standards and infrastructure components in order to enable the discovery, use, and management of networked information. The ability to use collections of resources in a unified, consistent fashion is essential: this requires a continuing focus on interoperability of services. At the same time, promising new technologies are constantly appearing which need to be explored, assessed and tested, and sometimes adapted to the needs of the CNI community. No one institution acting alone can build the needed infrastructure, or explore the full range of new technologies as they become available. Accomplishing these goals requires a coordinated community-wide effort; CNI seeks to provide leadership in this undertaking, to offer a context for collaborative experiments and testbeds, and to serve as a focal point for sharing knowledge about new technologies.
The specific program initiatives which further these themes change from year to year. The initiatives and strategies planned for 1997-1998 are described below. Many of the initiatives seek to make strategic progress relevant to more than one theme. It is important to recognize that the networked information environment is evolving very rapidly; CNI is continually adapting its activities in response to new developments and opportunities. Indeed, the Coalition believes agility is essential in the current environment and invites a continuous dialog with the members of the Task Force on the need for additional program initiatives.
In addition to initiatives to advance these overarching themes, the Coalition also carries out an ongoing program of education and advocacy for the development of networked information and its role in transforming organizations and scholarly activities. This is accomplished through both print-based and network publications; through participation in various conferences and meetings on an institutional, regional, national and international basis; through contributions to standards efforts; and through participation in organizations like the Internet Society and the Worldwide Web Consortium. The Coalition also contributes to the development of the networked information community by hosting electronic discussion groups and acting as a distribution point for materials.
Finally, the Coalition's twice-annual Task Force meetings not only allow CNI to highlight activities related to its program themes, but also provide a major opportunity for the membership to showcase and discuss a wide range of emerging issues and developments in networked information. For member organizations, these meetings offer a unique opportunity to remain informed about new developments that may reshape institutional plans, and a forum in which to establish collaborations and dialogs with others sharing common interests.
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