The Instructional Technology and Digital Media Center recently held a campus wide "Name The Center" contest to come up with a new name. The center integrates the Arbor as well as services previously provided by Illustration Services, Instructional Media and the Center for Advanced Information Technology (CAIT) into one unit under the Office of the Vice Provost, Information and Educational Technology. "Given this combination and the emerging nature of instructional technology, I thought a new, slightly different name was in order for the center," Dr. Harry Matthews recently declared. "It should validate our presence as a part of the whole IET organization, but also reflect our slightly different administrative structure."

So with this in mind, a panel of judges representing faculty, staff and the center reviewed more than 120 entries, agreeing the new name should be:

• short or have a meaningful abbreviation
• descriptive of the functions of the center
• distinguishable from other units on campus
• attractive, easy to remember, and pronounceable.

With this in mind, the judging panel quickly reduced the entries to a handful. The panel also veered away from acronyms citing the overuse of such names on campus. Some names were variations on campus units that had come and gone (e.g., CAITER and Instructional Media Services), and the judges felt this might be unduly confusing if one of those names was selected. Other names, like Imaginasium, Magic and Wizardry, while fun, were just a little too whimsical for the campus environment. Many submissions included variations and combinations using "technology," "education," "digital," "information," and "visual." The panel struggled with the challenges that no one descriptor conveyed it all and a long list of modifiers would not be a substantial improvement over the current Instructional Technology and Digital Media Center name.

The judges liked The IDEA Center (for Instructional or Informational Design and Electronic Arts) and suggested changing "Center" to "Studio." However, in the end the panel felt this too did not quite capture the diverse services offered by the center.

After much fascinating discussion, the judges all gravitated toward one submission, Mediawerk, submitted by Dan Rackerby. They suggested several variations however -- Mediawork, Mediaworks, and MediaWorks. The panel felt this name (or a variation) reflected both a "work of media, as in production" as well as a crafts-oriented "workshop." The judges also liked the idea of adding an 's' to "work" which created a double entendre, suggesting "Media... it works!" .

Congratulations to Dan Rackerby for submitting the winning entry in the ITDMC Naming Contest. His prize is a $75 gift certificate. The official announcement regarding the name change from the Instructional Technology and Digital Media Center to IET Mediaworks will be sent to campus soon.