Fund for Unfashionable Maintenance of digital Projects

*Not currently accepting applications*

The “Fund for Unfashionable Maintenance of digital Projects” (to go by the equally unfashionable acronym FUMP) is a resource for the maintenance and upgrade of completed past digital projects that serve important research or teaching needs in the humanities, arts, or social sciences, but which technological changes have rendered unusable or clunky for current users.

We intend FUMP to address the problem that digital projects often lack funds for their maintenance and upgrade, since funding agencies are often unwilling to invest money to this end. FUMP awards can also be used to update and bring to MIT outside resources that are no longer maintained (with the permission of the original creators).

Examples of needs that this fund might address include:

- Updating broken links, layouts, and general "code rot"

- Updating applications in obsolete formats (e.g., Adobe Flash, Java applets, Microsoft ActiveX and Silverlight) to modern HTML5 standards

- Creating mobile-friendly versions of projects launched before the mobile device revolution

- Updating media in obsolete formats (RealPlayer, download-only video, etc.) to modern streaming formats

- "Keeping the lights on" by paying for servers, hosting, domain registrations, etc.

- Open-sourcing previously closed projects

Smaller FUMP awards ($200–$1000) provide for the maintenance and repair of existing projects and will be awarded on a rolling basis: please send a brief email proposal.

Larger FUMP awards ($1000–$10,000) allow for the upgrade and expansion of projects and require a 100-300 word proposal: these will be reviewed periodically.

All MIT faculty, graduate students, and teaching staff are eligible to apply.

Please send applications and inquiries to digitalhumanities@mit.edu.