The network began in Southern California in 2012 with
Anne Balsamo and
Alexandra Juhasz as co-founders and co-facilitators. In a peer-reviewed concept paper, the founders more concretely described the project as one of interdisciplinary community building. Distributed open collaborative courses (DOCC), FemTechNet's primary initiative, uses networked technologies in many innovative ways, including developing “nodal” classes around shared themes that are augmented by video discussions available on FemTechNet's website by participating university instructors. The first DOCC, "Dialogues in Feminism and Technology," was initiated in 2013 as for-credit courses at the following institutions: •
Rutgers University •
The New School •
CUNY •
University of California at San Diego •
University of Illinois •
Ohio State University •
Bowling Green State University •
Pitzer College •
Colby-Sawyer College •
Penn State University •
California Polytechnic University •
Ontario College of Art and Design •
Brown University •
Yale University •
California State University, Fullerton Non-traditional students take the course via the FTN website's free, self-directed learner component. In 2014 - 2015 the second Distributed Open Collaborative Course (DOCC) series was offered at the following nodes. In 2013 FemTechNet launched "Storming Wikipedia", which aimed to encourage students to engage in
Wikipedia editing. Described as a response to
Wikipedia's gender imbalance, the assignment is also used to highlight "the significant contributions of feminists to technology". "Wikistorming" got the attention of mainstream media networks, including a story by
Fox News and CampusReform.org, which derisively framed the effort as counter-factual. ==See also==