ENGL 481: Digital Humanities

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.

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.

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.

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 They emphasis that they do not publish based on possible "impact" or "interest," but focus on scientific soundness.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.

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.

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.

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."

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).

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.

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.

This article written by Rebecca Frost Davis discusses the use of crowdsourcing in order to create a stronger integration with digital humanities and undergraduate curriculum. Having students work on large scale collaborations allows for professors and scholars teach them knowledge in a more creative way. While crowdsource projects may not cause students to take on professional work in the digital humanities field, it will nonetheless cause them to be more aware of how to use digital humanities in their real lives. Frost confronts the problems of such projects, such as the issue of what kind of project best fits into each class and the time constraints encountered. Moreover, whether the students each have access to computers inside and outside of class. With matters such as these properly organized, Frost encourages crowdsourcing projects for undergraduate students.

Matthew G. Kirschenbaum goes into detail about what digital humanites, and how the humanties can be affectively used in the English department. Kirschenbaum gives ideas on how open acces can be useful in the classroom. In his article he explores the different types of free accessible websites that were used in an English clasroom while students were reading Shakespeare to Second life. Students were able to view the entire thirty-two copy extant quarto copies of Hamlet online. This free accesability allowed students to be quized on the material and to get a better understanding of what they were reading. Kirschenbaum believes that the notion of free accesability will help expand the knowledge of English beyond the classroom.

Alan Lu and William G thomass III are humanities chairs with a long involvement in digital issues who have experienced budget cuts in regards to digital technologies, which are driving changes in higher education. They believe humanities faculty members, chairs, and adminstrators right now have a choice. This choice consist of taking no systematic action on the digital humanites front, and to let the long term digital future build for them. The other option is for humanities faculty, chairs, and adminstrators to plan how to intergrate the digital humanities systematically throughout the different departments.

In this article Brian Croxall introduces the three digital workshops that will be on display at the 2013 MLA. Coxwell gives the importance of each workshop and he explains how they can be helpful while using MLA formating in the classroom. The first workshop entitled Digital Pedagogy Unconference is popularized in academia and is targeted for people who have never used technology in the classroom. The second workshop welcomes scholars who wish to pursue or join digital scholarly projects but do not have the institutional infrastruce to support them. The last workshop entitled ThatCamp is an open, inexspensive meeting where humanists and technoligies of skill levels learn and build together in sessions proposede on the spot.

The Initiative for Digital Humanities, Media, and Culture has received funding as part of the Academic Masters Program. There are three goals presented in the mission statement: 1) To global affect the digital world through multiple content areas 2) Having it easily accessible 3) To utilize TAMU's resources to the best of their capabilities.

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.

ProfHacker in The Chronicle of Higher Education put a notice out that people new to digital humanities can receive a mentor through DHCommons to help guide them. It also notes that those who have experience in DH can apply to be a mentor. Although ACH has had a mentor program, it seems to have been more unofficial and the technical sign-up was confusing (and funny!). The partnership with ACH and DH Commons allows greater access, and less confusion, for people to sign up.

Sean Sherlocks speech at Digital Repository of Ireland, and international workshop, addressed the funding provided by sponsors. He states that they will use the funds to create multiple PhD positions specifically allocated towards the digital humanities and it's future in Ireland. He believes that these positions, and all research in digital humanities, well aid Ireland in becoming socially and economically an international powerhouse. He believes that work in the digital humanities will help create jobs, promote economic stability, and will put Ireland in the forefront of education.

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.

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."