August 2004


Champion of Open Source, KMDI aims for human-centered design of technology

When radio and moving pictures came along, society took the new technologies in stride. Initially, even television didn't overly complicate our lives. Today, in addition to the "500 channel universe", knowledge media is increasingly pervasive and digital: remote access databases, Internet, Intranet, PDAs, WiFi, video conferencing, webcasting, interactive graphics, virtual reality environments, artificial intelligence.

Our ability to think, communicate, learn, and create knowledge is increasingly mediated by technology. It's not a question of too much or too little technology; it's about how appropriate the technology is for our skills, needs and circumstances. As technology evolves ever faster, can individuals and society adapt to keep pace? Can the technology be designed with a more humanistic focus?

Bold, innovative, forward-thinking and uniquely Canadian, the University of Toronto's Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) takes a constructively critical look at how technology both shapes and is shaped by people's interactions with it. Their goal is the human-centered design of technology.

The institute is a catalyst for collaboration on a variety of research and design projects that pull together teams from among 65 faculty members and 25 disciplines in science, social sciences, humanities and professional schools. Through the development of innovative partnerships with other universities, the private sector, non-profit organizations and government, the institute is also taking an active role in the shaping of public debate and the development of public policy.

KMDI's recent Open Source Conference in Toronto is an excellent example of where the institute is coming from and where it plans to go. The conference was the first of its kind in Canada, and the most comprehensive ever held anywhere.

Unlike similar events on this subject which tend to focus on technical aspects of software code and its production, this conference took the approach that open source is a social movement with moral, legal, political, technical and business implications.

"KMDI is at the forefront in focusing on the interdisciplinary aspects of the 'Openness Movement'," said Gale Moore, a sociologist and Director of KMDI. "This is no longer a radical or fringe idea. It's rapidly becoming mainstream and those who are not part of the leadership will miss opportunities. KMDI is positioned to take a leadership role."

The notion that everyone benefits by sharing is, for some, primarily a statement on the dominance of companies like Microsoft; for others, it's about building a community of knowledge from which innovation and freedom can flourish.

"It is a myth that successful businesses have to maintain proprietary control of their product and marketplace in order to be successful" said Bob Young, CEO co-founder of the world's most successful alternative software company Red Hat. "Innovation is ultimately the key to success for any business. Closed systems actually discourage innovation."

KMDI also intends to walk the talk through an open source release of ePresence, the interactive webcasting and archiving system developed by their ePresence Lab. A Consortium has been formed to take this forward and membership is growing.

"The practice of education is changing as educators begin to think in terms of using more visual materials in courses and as a variety of new and different content management systems become available," explains Moore. "One of our goals at KMDI is also to design and build technologies in a way that respects peoples' needs, and to adopt a more inclusive design practice that involves not only experts from different fields but the people who will eventually use these applications."

KMDI has consistently beta-tested ePresence by using it to webcast their own lectures, garnering a world audience in the process. "One European group said to us 'we love your lectures but we love your software even more'," recalls Moore. They are now members of the ePresence Consortium.

A successful open source release will put KMDI in the company of universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Michigan, Indiana, and Stanford. KMDI is receiving legal support from UofT and are fortunate to have the U of T's Adaptive Technology Research Centre, a recognised leader in open source as a partner in this project.

For more information on KMDI, visit the Institute's web site at www.kmdi.org. A multimedia archive of the full conference has now been released and is openly available at http://osconf.kmdi.utoronto.ca.


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