The Process and the Pauses

Although Project ECLIPSE began as a one year grant with a $25,000 seed money in the summer of 1999, the decision was made not to rush the project to release it at the end of the grant period. Enthusiasm was high that first year, but team members were available only sporatically after that. Thus, there were long periods of time when this work was put on the back burner while Kay Vandergrift, Principal Investigator, and Jane Anne Hannigan, Project Manager, focused their attention on other responsibilities and funded projects. Kay, as Associate Dean of SCILS, assumed the responsibility for the development of a new undergraduate program in Information Technology and Informatics in the school. As founding director of that program, she diverted time and energy from ECLIPSE to getting ITI through the academic hurdles of the approval process for a new program. In addition, as a part of the ITI program, she was funded for the design and development of Habitat, the technological environment that supported the program. Two additional funded projects in 2001 further diverted the her and Jane from a focus on ECLIPSE, although they and various volunteers continued to tinker with it from time to time. Of course, the total absence of funding for this project during those years did inhibit its progress. It was only when Kay left the Dean's Office to go back to full-time teaching and then took a sabbatical for the spring 2004 semester that concerted effort was again spent on this site.