The Bamboo Planning Project is an 18-month planning and community design program where through a series of conversations and workshops, we will map out the scholarly practices and common technology challenges across and among disciplines, and discover where a coordinated, cross-disciplinary development effort can best foster academic innovation.

Input into the Bamboo process will be sought from individuals who come from a diverse range of institutions (small liberal arts colleges to research universities), organizations (consortia to content providers), professional backgrounds (faculty, librarians, researchers, IT leaders, and technical specialists), and regions.

We will evaluate our findings through the creation of demonstrator software and pilot applications, which will in turn refine and inspire future discussions with a progressively diverse audience. As we lay the roadmap for shared services development, we will create a rich community wherein any faculty member, scholar, or researcher can use and reuse content, resources, and applications no matter where they reside, what their particular field of interest is, or what support may be available to them. The final outcome of our planning project will be a detailed argument and blueprint for the development of the Bamboo implementation program.