Description:
TWUMOO is poised to be the revolutionary medium for womens expression, scholarship, and collaboration. Short for Multi-User Domain, Object Oriented, a MOO allows multiple users to manipulate objects, as well as converse and conduct research online in real-time. TWUMOO stands for Texas Womans Universitys MOO. This virtual land of female voices interweaves female scholarship with community outreach through the many programs currently in place. The Female Collected and The Female Collective form the two areas of focus through the archiving of womens writing online, and, the real-time interaction among women and all MOO participants in a multi-dimensional online environment. The Female Collected is an exploration of the digital womens collection, which currently includes the Womens Collection of Electronic Texts (WCET) and The Gallery of Women Rhetoricians. The Female Collective serves as the clearinghouse for teaching, research, and service. MOO gatherings such as the upcoming 1999 "Feminisms and Rhetorics" Conference, discussions, archives, and the actual building of virtual spaces demonstrate the pedagogical virtues that have emerged from what used to be a text-based multi-player gaming environment. Two case studies unveil how MOOs have transformed higher education and creative arts.