Working with the DEV Studio means creating innovative projects, hosting conferences and symposia where new ideas are shared, and exploring the border between the physical and virtual. We’re always looking for new collaborators!

Dartmouth Faculty

The DEV Studio supports faculty in both research and teaching application of extended reality. We can partner with faculty who want to:

  • Give students access to 3D visualizations and experiences, including on mobile devices during remote teaching.
  • Brainstorm applications of augmented or virtual reality to new research projects.
  • Capture, edit, and display 3D data or video.
  • Apply for funding to build AR/VR projects.
  • Create and distribute new immersive software

For more information contact John Bell.

Dartmouth Students

The DEV Studio employs some students directly (and will post here if and when there are openings). Students doing UGAR sponsored research can also reach out to John Bell about working in the DEV Studio. In the future, we will call for applications to work on specific projects use DEV Studio resources (more information will be posted when this option becomes available).

What to Expect

The DEV Studio pulls together teams that cut across boundaries of discipline and status to produce compelling immersive experiences for teaching and research. To be successful, all collaborators on a project need to both work toward meeting their own goals and support the goals of others in their group. Individuals may have wildly different needs based on where they are in their lives, what reward system dominates their job or discipline, or their own personal interests and personality. Regardless of what drives them, all of these goals should be respected by other members of the group.

Though it is not exclusively a digital humanities lab, the DEV Studio’s model for collaboration draws heavily from the work digital humanities has done in recent years to better recognize the multifaceted contributions and goals of individuals making up a hybrid project team1. We support the Collaborator’s Bill of Rights and expect all participants in DEV Studio projects to recognize that the intellectual merit associated with a project comes in a variety of forms.

Principles for working with the DEV Studio

  • The best projects include all collaborators from the beginning and change in response to new ideas.
  • Diversity, in a variety of forms, is a tool that makes projects better.
  • Collaborators are people, not gears in a machine, and everybody in the group has a life outside of the project that needs attention from time to time.
  • Becoming part of a collaborative team is creating an obligation to all other members of the team that you are expected to fulfill.
  • While they may have different roles and bring different forms of expertise to the group, no member of the team works for another within the context of the project group–all work with each other.
  • All group members share the responsibility of recognizing, understanding, and compensating for the inherent power differences among faculty, staff, and students in a group so that all will feel comfortable contributing.
  • Progress is rarely linear and does not always look–or feel–like progress, so trust and patience are key skills in the creative process.
  • Progress toward another group member’s goals may not be progress toward your goals, but it is still important work to be accomplished.
  • Rewards for work come in a variety of forms–wages, course credits, personal growth, academic credit–and a team member receiving one form does not surrender their right to receive other forms as well.
  • Openness is a virtue and all participants are encouraged to bring attention to a project by speaking or presenting on their role in it publicly, listing it on cvs or portfolios, or publishing based on their contributions (when appropriate).

Following these principles will necessarily flatten traditional academic hierarchies and allow all team members to make meaningful contributions to a project, improving the end result.

1 In particular, we drew great inspiration from the Praxis Program Charter at UVA ScholarsLab and the UCLA HumLab Student Collaborator’s Bill of Rights. Reading how these programs have built a culture of collaboration may help you better understand what the DEV Studio intends to be. Thanks to them for charting the course!