Digital tools for Duke: Blackwell Interactive

December 2007

Without wood and bristle—the traditional components of a paint brush—there would be no Mona Lisa. Without servers, web developers, interactive media support, programmers and a host of other tech services, there would be no digital  tools and resources at the fingertips of Duke faculty, students and staff.

To serve Duke’s many digital needs, OIT has launched Blackwell Interactive. Its mission: to help especially those parts of Duke that don’t have the time or resources to build and maintain their own digital services and media—whose efforts go into using digital media rather than building them.

  “There’s a very distributed technology environment at Duke,” says Stephen Toback, senior manager at Blackwell Interactive. That is, the extremely talented groups at Duke that provide technology support and development are spread across the university. This means there may also be gaps. “Blackwell will be a part of Duke’s Web and interactive media community available to provide hands-on help to any part of the university that needs it.”

That help will include:

  • Web site and custom application development
  • Web and video conferencing
  • iTunesU tech support and programming
  • Streaming video
  • 3-D learning-space development and support

Blackwell Interactive provides services at varied rates depending on the scope of the project. Toback says the group is also interested in starting a service that will update Web page content for busy content managers around the university.

Blackwell grew from WeST, the Web Solutions Team of Arts and Sciences and Trinity College, and Digital Media Services, a unit already within OIT. WeST, OIT and other tech-services offices had received numerous requests for help and support from around the university and medical center over the years. The creation of Blackwell as a centralized resource became the best response to those requests.

WeST staff moved to OIT’s office at the American Tobacco Campus, and Toback was hired to direct the new effort. Toback came from Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Calif., where among other things he helped develop technologies that enabled animators to draw by hand and have their work instantly turned into digital form. The adaptation of WACOM Cintiq digital tablets supported the artists’ traditional skills while turning the results into versatile digital formats. One of Blackwell’s goals at Duke is to work with university technology partners in such groups as CIT to help develop tools that will allow the talented staff, students and faculty at Duke to explore new approaches to their work utilizing digital applications and media tools.

For more information about Blackwell Interactive, please email blackwell-applications@duke.edu.

And about that wood and bristle—the bristle most commonly used came from a long-haired hog. This information was found by browsing the Web, which was built and is maintained and nurtured by legions of tech professionals.