DH for the People!

Posted on March 7, 2012 by mzbaile

I’m really excited about the types of DH projects university folks are creating. I’m also curious about discussing more applied DH projects that meet community needs and serve  people beyond university walls. Universities have notoriously contentious community relations and it seems like more intentional collaborative outreach could help. If communities were involved in DH, what kind of projects would be prioritized? I’d like to brainstorm ways to create community centered projects that not only advance academic goals, but help make our world a better place. What kind of SouthEast specific community based project can be dreamed up? All power to the people! 🙂

 

Categories: General | 6 Comments

Session Proposal: Building a local DH Community.

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Paul Logasa Bogen II

Having left an institute, Texas A&M, with a strong DH community and coming to ORNL which does not have a community of its own. I’ve been thinking about trying to bring together people to create a local community.

This session would be to talk about strategies, techniques, and challenges others are facing and have faced in their own localities and how we can get build DH even in areas where the activity may not be seen as favorably.

Categories: General | Tags: , | 4 Comments

Session Proposal: Is Coding Privileged in DH Work?

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Michelle Kassorla

I was struck by a blog post from the Miram Posner’s Blog entitled,  “Some things to think about before you exhort everyone to code.”

She writes:

Here, there, and everywhere, we’re being told: A DHer should code! Don’t know how?Learn! The work that’s getting noticed, one can’t help but see, is code. As digital humanities winds its way into academic departments, it seems reasonable to predict that the work that will get people jobs — the work that marks a real digital humanist — will be work that shows that you can code.
And that work is overwhelmingly by men. There are some important exceptions, but the pattern is pretty clear.

Is Digital Humanities equal parts Digital and Humanities, or are we privileging one area over another?  Is it easier to call yourself a “Digital Humanist” if you are more “digital” than “humanist”?

Can humanists who like to play with computers really call ourselves “DHers”?

If we say that humanists need to learn to code, should we also ask that coders learn Humanities, or should we admit we come to this profession with a preformatted division of labor?

I think this is an important discussion to have.

 

Categories: General | 1 Comment

Session Proposal: “Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges!” . . .

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Michelle Kassorla


Universities are offering mega-classes online for no cost, the badge movement is growing, and it appears that Higher Education might be headed for a major overhall.

  • What exactly are “badges”?
  • Who is offering them?
  • Who is earning them?
  • Who is accepting them?
  • What do they mean for the future of Higher Education?

I think it would be great for everyone to share what they know about this growing phenomenon.

Categories: General | 2 Comments

Session Proposal: The Digital Public Library of America

Posted on March 6, 2012 by richardurban

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is an initiative that has brought together “leading experts in libraries, technology, law, and education” to develop a “realistic and detailed workplan” for launching “the first concrete steps toward the realization of a large-scale digital public library that will make the cultural and scientific record available to all.” (see dp.la for more information about the project)

This session will offer an opportunity to get caught up on the latest DPLA developments from DPLA Workstreams.

As a former member of the DLF DPLA Beta Sprint and IMLS Digital Collections and Content Project, I am able to lead a variety of discussions about DPLA.  We also hope that Emily Gore, member of the Technical Aspects Workstream, will be able to join us.

In the spirit of an un-conference,  this post is also a call for your comments. What do you want to know about DPLA?  Are you working on a DPLA project?  Want to know what DPLA means for your collections?  What does should a DPLA mean for academic and public humanities scholars? Join us!

Categories: General | Tags: , , | 4 Comments

Adding Video Segments and Annotations to Omeka

Posted on March 6, 2012 by William Cowan

While I am perfectly willing to discuss broader digital video issues, I would like to focus on adding video segments and annotation to Omeka, specifically Omeka Exhibits. I feel that rather than putting the burden of video editing, that is finding and cutting all the video segments you want to use from say a two hour interview, on the creator of the video in order to upload those segments individually as Omeka items to get the highlights or often the significant parts of the video online is not the best approach. I am proposing that we allow access to the entire video but that we can segment and annotate that video in a separate tool, in this case the Annotator’s Workbench (AWB), an open source, Java tool that allows the segmentation and annotation of video files, producing an xml file that contains this information. I then want to upload that xml file as a set of Omeka items that are based on the segments and annotations I created in the AWB. I should then be able to use those video segments and annotations as items in an exhibit without having to create a bunch of individual video files. I have done some work with this and would like to show everyone where the project stands and get input on whether such a plugin is valuable and how it might be improved.

What digital video segmentation and annotation might look like in Omeka

 

I might add that I have a NEH ODH start-up grant to work on this project so this session can have some direct impact on how such a plugin would be built.

Categories: General | Tags: , , | 1 Comment