HIST 390-001 The Digital Past Fall 2013

The fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates can be summarized in five " pillars"

I attended one of the Open Access Week events in which a contributor from Wikipedia came and spoke about Wikipedia. I found the presentation to be really interesting. He spoke about the five pillars of Wikipedia (which we've already learned about) among other things.

Thanks, Paola. I'll add 5 points to your Exam 2 grade when I grade it.

A site with some useful tips for people like me who never really learned how to study or are awful at memorizing things and information.

Generally useful. Thanks, Stephanie.

Its a good article about technology investment in Africa, something that we touched upon in Natasha's presentation. It seems encouraging because investment and opportunities have increased with different companies taking interest.

Great post, and very relevant! Thanks, Mahrokh!

An article from Technology Review discusses an important question many people bring up about the quality of articles on wikipedia. It also discusses the relatively small number of dedicated editors who play a fundamental role in the community. Due to the small number of editors and authoritative contributors to many of the articles on Wikipedia, the article also discusses that an algorithm that assesses the quality of Wikipedia articles could reassure visitors and help focus editors on entries that need improving. The computer scientists (Xiangju Qin and Pádraig Cunningham) have developed automated editorial tool that may reduce the workload that remains for the volunteer workforce.

The Wikipedia guy who came to speak told me about this article -- it's a big deal in the Wikipedia community.

I attended one of the events during Open Access Week about the future of libraries and Wikipedia. Jake Orlowitz, recipient of a Wikimedia Foundation Individual Engagement Grant, spoke about "The Wikipedia Library." The Wikipedia Library was a new project he founded in 2012 for the goal of connecting Wikipedia editors with the reliable information sources they need. In the first part of his presentation, he discussed much of what wikipedia is and how it is run. He basically summed up much of what most people don't know about wikipedia and a lot of assumptions that people make about how unreliable information on wikipedia is. Then he went on to discuss more about the wikipedia library and how it would benefit wikipedia editors with vital current reliable sources that they need to do their work. I thought the presentation given by the presenter was very informative and interesting. I learned more about wikipedia and how its more useful than I thought. The most interesting point he raised during his presentation were the benefits of the Wikipedia Library. The thought of connecting university libraries with the wikipedia library will present students and many others information that is reliable and easy to access. Many scholarly articles and information from databases we usually have to pay for will be available for universities to provide students at a much lower cost.

Thanks, Rebecca. I'll add 5 points to your Exam 2 grade.

A great read for the next few weeks of presentations! A how-to on constructive criticism!

Thanks, Claire! It's all been pretty constructive so far, I think, but this is helpful.

Good tips on how to improve your presentation.

Hey guys, I thought this would help with the 5 comments and questions we have to submit, its an interesting way to learn how to give constructive criticism. I was having problems with this earlier.

researchers says that 0pen-source software projects need to improve vulnerability-handling practices,

Madalyn's presentation informed all of us on how Instagram started and about its founder, Kevin Systrom. This article explains to new feature of Instagram. Now your followers can view photos that other people have uploaded and you can be tagged in photos as well.

It's a list composing of free accessible, open source software for different categories such as finance and even computer simulation.

If you want to know about the highlighting moments in the history of Open Source, here it is.

We heard from Mahrokh the other day about Snowden's email provider Lavabit shutting down -- turns out they've come back with a program called "Dark Mail." By the way, did you know that the email state employees (such as faculty like me who work at state-funded universities like GMU) are all technically public records? As long as the email isn't covered by student privacy acts like FERPA, anyone can request to see my GMU email because it's a public record. Technically.

wow, this is a great a article! I was actually thinking about what they were going to do after Lavabit and Silent Circle both closed their e-mail systems, especially since Zimmerman was not one of those people who seemed to stop coming up with new ideas. Its interesting to see how this new technology plays out.

Multiple sources licensed under creative commons.

A friend of mine on Twitter said that he remembers when the MIME format for email attachments was competing with the UUencode format for email attachments -- kind of like VHS versus Betamax. Here's the Wikipedia article on the format that lost.

For my upcoming presentation i just wanted to share a little background knowledge of who i am presenting on! Enjoy!

Just a few tips to consider if/when you feel your audience is losing interest. A lot of these tips are common sense and straight forward. However, although they are simple, at the same time they can be easily overlooked and under utilized. Lastly, most of these would not work with our class presentations. They are geared more towards larger presentations that take up more time.

A great list for those that are still unsure about using powerpoint for their presentations.

For those who still have not decided what presentation software to use, here is a list of alternatives from those that offer cool transitions and animations to those that are actually animated.