088 - Metis meets Empirical Modelling: from ancient wisdom to emerging technology
Abstract
The Métis project brings together a global virtual team for the collective creation of an advocacy advertainment film for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This team includes computer and human scientists, artists, NGO officers, students, global Olympics volunteers and industrial partners from Europe, Africa, China and North America. The ambitious scope of Métis demands a technology for cooperation that can address the intercultural mediation of creative and innovative processes and that is highly adaptive to unstable contexts and unpredictable situations. As is suggested by its motto: 'Shooting the film while building the camera', Métis envisages the development of such a technology and infrastructure for cooperation as part of the concurrent responsibility of the global virtual team. This paper reviews the progress of the Métis project to date, with specific reference to the broad challenges being faced in deploying current technologies for computer-supported collaborative working and learning (CSCW/CSCL). These challenges, which stem from the diversity of the cultures, contexts and processes for creation, communication and production represented in Métis, relate yet more broadly and generally to topical issues concerning eAdoption worldwide. The paper discusses the prospects for addressing these issues with reference to the future emerging technology of Empirical Modelling.