History of Hampedia

Background
Communication has always been one of the main challenges at Hampshire. This should not come as a surprise. At Hampshire individualism is celebrated; there a no majors, no grades, no tests, and no departments, among others. Hampshire is composed of individuals interested in defining and developing their our academic and non-academic path. As a result, every day individuals at Hampshire produces an immense amount of academic and non-academic content.

A fundamental limitation with producing so much academic and non-academic content is that if there is not an effective and efficient way to document and communicate what every member of Hampshire is producing then there is the risk that much of the innovations and experimentation that goes on at Hampshire will be develop in isolation. As a result the added value that every individual at Hampshire produces can potentially be limited. Such limitations may include lack of institutional resources, and deficiency of intellectual resources.

On the other hand if every individual at Hampshire has access to the content that everyone else is producing, then the probability for producing innovation and experimentations greatly increases. Further, if every individual can not only access the content produced by others but can actually contribute to the work of others, then the results are likely to be fascinating.

Before the Fall of 2007 Hampshire College lacked an adequate set of tools that could facilitate the communication and collaboration of content.

Formulation of the Concept
Hampedia was initially conceived by Jose Fuentes in the summer of 2007 while he was in Guatemala. The concept came about as a result of another project that Fuentes was developing with David Munoz. During August of 2007 Fuentes defined Hampedia as a documenting tool and a coherent information arena for all individuals related Hampshire's academics, life and, culture.

In mid-September Fuentes, back at Hampshire, came up with the name Hampedia, and on September 19th he registered the domain as an .org.

Original Statement About Hampedia
This was written by Jose Fuentes sometime in 2007 as the theoretical point of departure for Hampedia.

"The reason why Jose created Hampedia was that over his two years at Hampshire, he has come to appreciate two facts abou this institution: (1) there is no "we" and there is no "community". Thankfully "we" don't need one nor "we" should have one. Individuals who are related to Hampshire may choose to create a community, but is should always remain a choice never an obligation. (2) Hampshire is the true liberal arts institution in the United States. Sadly many individuals who are related with Hampshire are afraid of being what Hampshire actually is, and instead use the experimenting and value creating nature of Hampshire as an excuse rather than pride.

Jose thinks that Hampshire is an intellectual arena where individuals can academically do what they desire and with whom they desire. All members of Hampshire can even explore the academic perspective that they desire even if it is not establish. Jose sees Hampshire as a content driven institution and not a form driven institution. The challenge with a content driven institution is that all the content needs to be documented, otherwise the system tends to repeat previous mistakes and the any kind of advance is either isolated or its impart becomes limited. As a result, Hampshire as an institution advances at a speed that is less than desidered.

Jose’s attempt with Hampedia is to open an arena where the ideas (concentrations, independent studies, Division IIIs, Student Groups, etc ) that shape Hampshire can be documented so that Hampshire’s experimenting nature can be dynamic and constructive rather than isolated and ineffective"

Development
In September 2007, Jose Fuentes approached Alex Torpey with the concept of Hampedia. Torpey was initially interested in participating in the development of Hampedia, and because he had experience with web design he would have potentially been in charge of actually doing the MediaWiki installation for Hampedia. Torpey agreed to try to seek out a professional in the field who could devote their time soley to this project, as he could not devote the time to be the primary webmaster. Torpey was not able to find anyone interested, and expressed interest in participating in Hampedia in the future, though Fuentes continued the development of Hampedia without further mention of the project to Torpey.

In October 2007, while Fuentes was visiting Munoz at Princeton University, Fuentes received an email from the Associate Dean of Student Services at Hampshire asking him about student the status of group funding for the Spring of 2008 (Fuentes, as the Director of FiCom at the time wanted to transfer the application system from paper to online). At this point Fuentes decided to look for someone else to do the MediaWiki installation for Hampedia.

In October 23rd, John Belanger a system manager at UMass Amherst department of chemistry, hired by Fuentes, finalized the MediaWiki installation for Hampedia and created the first page. On November 3rd Jose Fuentes made the first edits to Hampedia.

Organization
Hampedia was first managed only by Jose Fuentes and John Belanger. In the Spring of 2008 Jose started working with Niko Kern to migrate Hampedia from an external server to Pitus. Also during the Spring Jose created the Hampedia Board of Trustees to represent Hampedia. Today Hampedia continues to be managed by the Board of Trustees.

Hardware and software
See Pitus for more information on the software and hardware the makes Hampedia possible.

Funding
The original funds to create Hampedia were provided Jose Fuentes. This funds included money to get purchase the domain hampedia.org and the server space to run the platform. Once Hampedia started growing, the Student Activities Fund provided funds to finance the purchase of hardware to run Hampedia locally at Hampshire.