The conference opened with a reception in the Samek Museum followed by dinner and a thought provoking keynote by Digital Sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom (Virginia Commonwealth University). The following day, Safiya Noble (UCLA) presented the second keynote, which addressed algorithmic bias in search engines. All weekend, the conference hashtag #budsc16 revealed engaging presentations, collaborations, and conversations around digital scholarship. Bucknell’s conference has become known for its focus on projects and programs that display the range of expertise and collaboration needed to create and sustain digital scholarship efforts, as well as our commitment to showcasing outstanding student research. Bucknell faculty, staff, and students were central to the conference, presenting on the innovative work being done here across disciplines.
Prior to the conference, participants in the “Crossing Borders” Pre-conference Summit gathered at Bucknell for three days to discuss both challenges and opportunities of cross-departmental collaboration. The competitive application process resulted in the selection of nine participants including technologists, librarians, a faculty member, a grants manager, as well as others whose work moves beyond traditional job categories. Summit members represented a wide range of schools from small liberal arts colleges to very large state universities. In addition to submitting a letter to the Chronicle of Higher Education, participants created, an open wiki to share individual stories of successes and how “failures” can be transformed into learning opportunities.