ENGL 481: Digital Humanities

Two scientist are able to identify a sound that an object makes specifially when it collides into something else. This article identifies the sounds and introduces the two nobel-prise wimming acientists work.

This news article by Casey Gould for Campus Times of the University of Rochester addresses the Presidential Symposium and their meeting to discuss what to do with and about the humanities in higher education. The panel discussed what to do with the humanities to continue to make it relevant in times where many are claiming that it isn't. The discussion of digitizing the humanities came up to some agreement and disagreement.

Brett Zongker of Huffington Post reports how the $1 million federal grant for the Digital Public Library of America helps spread digital humanities for the nation. The plan is not only to digitize books, but to build systems for libraries and incorporate partnerships such as Google Books to maximize free access for everyone. The reality is that such a project will take more than a one million dollar donation, but it is a growing start to this digital library. Zongker reports the possibility of incorporating the European Union's digital library (Europeana digital library collection) with the Digital Public Library of America.

In this article a case study is shared discussing car manufacturing company Volvo and their strategy in organizing their big data in order to improve their company as a whole. By implementing digitized reports in organized topics such as product design and vehicle diagnostics in to their large Teradata system, data can be processed and completed in one minute, rather than the hour it used to take to process a single query. Moreover, the Volvo company now analyzes a number of issues in an integrated and organized way. For instance analysts can predict failure rates of vehicles over time through the monthly stored collected reports of cars that have experienced specific failures. They can also correlate mechanical failures with the specific geographical areas the vehicle is located in. A car in urban Japan will most likely experience different conditions in rural France, and with DRO error codes (diagnostic read out data recorded in each car about performance and mechanical failures) collected through the Teradata system, analysts can figure out how certain mechanical failures connect to different locations. It is with this strategy in organizing digital information that Volvo can create large goals such as creating vehicles no one will be killed or injured in by 2020.

Cohen blogs about the emergence of several new ways of publishing within the scientific field that is still considered scholarly and many times peer reviewed. Some of the websites mentioned offer to publish a writer's work for a lifetime, for a few dollars. The emergence of these self-publishing, academic, scientific sites also shows a slight shift in philosophy. By restricting the publication through certain channels, the publishing companies and universities were choosing what will be the topic "of next year." Some times they were right, sometimes they were wrong, but either way, great and important papers were lost because they were not considered "the next big thing" or they are too "normal."

PLOS One is a open access, peer reviewed journal set up specifically for scientists. PLOS One does not pick and choose which papers are important. It peer reviews all articles/journals to make sure all of the material is sound, then publishes it. This means, that any work that is holds validity and is scientifically sound will get published. Because PLOS One is open access, it allows anyone to download, reprint, copy, etc... as long as a credit is given without fees or other charges. It also keeps the writer/researchers right of ownership.

arXiv is another open access collection/publication (?) maintained by Cornell University. The publications are based primarily in any field of science and mathematics (such as work on K-Theory and quantitative biology). It does not state if the articles are peer reviewed, but it does say that "Submissions...must conform of Cornell University academic standards." I don't know if this means that all of the work in the collection is by students and teachers, or if the were able to scan in articles from the library.

PeerJ is an open access journal that researchers in Biological and Medical Sciences publish their works for a one time membership fee, which covers their lifetime. The PeerJ, Inc. has two different publication venues: PeerJ is a peer reviewed journal and PeerJ Preprint is where they can post their unfinished works for feedback.

Scholastica is a server that allows people to publish journals and articles. The main point is to bring together "editors, authors, and reviewers" to one area. It also emphasizes the idea that using their system makes the process of getting material published in and peer reviewed is much simpler, less time consuming, and generates genuine interest and collaboration between all parties. It is open for all subjects, and even welcomes people to create a journal in a content area that may be lacking. It is a paid membership, but also provides options of community support with their "The Conversation," what I am assuming is a question-answer section.

Peerj offers three different types of memberships, each with their own advantages and restrictions, but all are for life. They emphasis that they do not publish based on possible "impact" or "interest," but focus on scientific soundness. They also offers "No questions asked" waivers for people in certain countries.

This website is used to archive any information, like personal work, including texts, websites, pictures, audio, and video. I recently used this site for a Tech Comm project and it stores anything you want. to put onto the internet. It allows fellow users to access the things you want to archive and share.

Open Library is an editable library catalog that is aiming to digitize every book ever published. Any user has the ability to contribute information and make corrections to the catalog. This project allows for the exploration of texts for scholarly or everyday purposes. Much like some archives that we have looked at, this website is a much larger site that wants all books available online.

Creative Commons is a website, or tool, that you can use to create your our copyright restrictions. Instead of have a traditional blanket copyright, creative commons allows publishers/creators personalize the copyright and protection of their material. For example, a person who uses Creative Commons to set up restrictions for their photographs can allow other the repost and cite his photos. However, it restricts companies from using it in ads (like on facebook).

This website is an interactive site for anyone interested in The Digital Public LIbrary of America. The Digital Public Library of America hosted one of the largest public event that focused on the building of a digital public library. This event brought together many professionals including students, government leaders, and other humanities professionals. The members began discussing the development of a DPLA prototypes and encouraging the participation of the public. The Digital Public Library of America hosted one of the largest public event that focused on the building of a digital public library. This event brought together many professionals including students, government leaders, and other humanities professionals. The members began discussing the development of a DPLA prototypes and encouraging the participation of the public.

This website, ThinkingCulture, aims to exercise the cultural imagination. Figure/Ground conducts a series of interviews for the website, continued here with Miriam Posner. Miriam Posner teaches Digital Humanities at UCLA. The interview with Posner focuses on the her path into her academic post. Posner explains her struggles with tenure and her early career in academics. The interview continues on to discuss Posner's teaching, digital humanities work and her writing plans.

Cohen blogs about the future that he sees for The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). His passion sees to lie in collecting data and content from small, local libraries and museums. He still holds this goal despite recognizing the issues they would face in attempting to convert the material from physical to digital. He also talks about the technical layout and the best way to get it into peoples' hands (incorporating it into an app). He also touches upon technology that we do not have yet or is not yet out of the beta testing stage, and could be in the future of DPLA.

The main page for Stanford's CESTA is in a blog format. The moderator posts announcements, such as research positions that need to be filled, projects that they would like to 'spotlight,' and new/interesting information collected through one of the 3 projects. There are also posts of events/seminars/workshops/lectures/publications that relate either the subjects being researched in CESTA or about the digital humanities itself.

Stanford's Lit. Lab is a collection of short-term research-based projects/experiments. It is a new 'project,' created in 2010 by Matthew Jockers and Franco Moretti. They make a note that all projects are collaborative, even if only one author is cited. The best way to describe this project is a collection of 'mini-research-based' projects/experiments presented in/through a "digital and quantitative nature."

I linked this page from ADHO. It is a descriptive article of Gregory Chatonsky's project (?), The Subnetwork. A majority of the article focuses on the abstract relationships that Chatonsky uses to connect many aspects of his work, including participants' interaction (passive and active), animation, and general presentation of the work. It also notes that Chatonsky use of 'metaphor' goes beyond the accepted academic definition of the term, and uses it as an active 'member' or 'tool' to connect the text/concept to the presentation.

Google Books is a service that allows searches of full-texts of books and magazines that have been scanned by Google. These texts are stored into a digital database and with the use of "character recognition", a user can locate any textual material. This website discusses the legal aspect to Universities access and use of Google Books. With a proposed agreement between AAP and Google Book Search, the proposal was unfortunately rejected.