craigbellamy.net » education

Materials Library @ King’s

cbellamy — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:06:34 +0000

One of the more interesting research groups here at King’s. They do research into the materiality of flesh!

Materials Library is an interdisciplinary collaborative team that make objects, events and exhibitions that foreground materiality. We are also engaged in both scientific research and artistic practices that explore the senso-aesthetics of materials.

At the heart of all we do is the creation, curation and development of the physical space that is The Materials Library; a resource, laboratory, studio, workshop, and play pen for the material minded. A home to some of the most wondrous matter on earth, The Materials Library contains an ongoing collection of material-objects that foreground the materiality of stuff (link).

Winning Grants to support Postgraduate Study from the Voluntary Sector (by Luke Blaxill)

cbellamy — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:09:41 +0000

Our aim at Gradfunding is to help postgraduate students of any nationality, academic background, or subject area fund any aspect of their studies- be it living expenses, fees, or research, travel, and conference costs. We are an advisory agency which specialises in winning grants from the voluntary sector (e.g. charities, foundations, and trusts). The voluntary sector in the UK is large, and generous, and there are thousands of bodies with grant-making power totalling millions who are prepared to consider student applicants (thanks to Luke Blaxill for the link)

New Group: Social Software in the Digital Humanities

cbellamy — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:25:06 +0000

(This new group on Arts-humanities.net may be of interest to punters. It is primarily focussed upon ‘social software’ theory, techniques, and applications within the Digital Humanities. As it is a new group, we are more than open about its skippering within the choppy Web 2 sea).

The aim of this group is to critically discuss and share thoughts about the use of social software applications, techniques, and principles within the Digital Humanities. Join this group here http://www.arts-humanities.net/deliberative_humanism_social_…

For the purpose of this group, the Digital Humanities is defied as the application of computational methods and associated tools to address specific humanities research problems. Distinct from general computing approaches, the banner term ‘Digital Humanities’ is an ‘attitude towards computing’ that is embedded within the research concerns of the disciplines and sub-fields that make up the humanities. The methods employed in the field may be used to uncover new knowledge about corpora or to visualise research data in such a way as to uncover additional insights and meaning. Succinctly the Digital Humanities (or Humanities Computing) is about structuring, analysing and communicating humanistic knowledge in a critical way using computing technology.

And as in many fields, the social and participatory architectural frameworks associated with ‘social software’ is increasing a part of the Digital Humanities. Social software is usually web-based and is a way for researchers to share data and research-labour that comprises of a series of debates about tool, socio-technical design, and concept choice. Social software may be one way to open up new styles of collaboration in the Digital Humanities between software developers, humanists, and audiences. Join in the conversation!

*Suggested topics may include*:

*Collaborative labour arrangements for researchers (collaborative work functions)

*Maintaining on-line communities

*APIs, web services, and mash-ups

*Trends in the blogosphere

*New Social Software Applications

*Community annotation and tagging

*Computer mediated communication

*Service oriented architecture

*Governance (bottom-up or top Down)

*Work-flow analysis

*Designing Research Deliberation

(This images; utilising a matrix approach to critically understanding Web 2.0 design can be found at the medienpaedagogik blog at: http://medienpaedagogik.kaywa.com/social-software/index.html )

New Resource: British Literary Manuscripts Online c.1660-1900

cbellamy — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:32:48 +0000

(This new resource from the a private company Gale-Cengage Learning looks promising; at least according to the populist blurb in the Telegraph via the Melbourne Age. Strange how the article fails to mention that it was a homophobic ‘scandal’ and fails to do justice to the true nature of Wild’s and Bosie’s relationship. There is a self-reflective lenz that we probably need to reflect upon before we judge this tit-bit of history).

OSCAR Wilde’s clandestine relationship with the young Lord Alfred Douglas resulted in scandal and his eventual imprisonment. Now, the original letters laying bare the playwright’s love for the young “Bosie” are to be made available to the public for the first time.

The handwritten intimate correspondence is among 600,000 pages of British literary manuscripts and original documentation being put online — along with such items as early drafts of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, manuscripts by Robert Burns and Walter Scott and letters written by Charlotte Bronte.

In one letter to Bosie, dated 1894, Wilde writes: “My own dear boy — It’s really absurd — I can’t live without you … London is a desert without your dainty feet … but I have no words for how I love you — Oscar.” (link)

What is technological determinism?

cbellamy — Sat, 23 May 2009 21:06:43 +0000

(Watch out…technological deterministic drones will attack your free will)!

Technological determinism is circulated, maintained, and advanced within the pre-existing hierarchies in the world in which we live. Determinism has its own political agendas, its own rules, its own contexts and hierarchies and antagonisms to an imagined ‘other’. Determinism utilises a proprietary language and culture and although it cloaks itself in ideas of interdisciplinarity, deterministic discourse discourages intellectual critique, dissent, and justifies itself with the high ground of capitalist practicality. Determinist rhetoric is only interested in other knowledge so that it can demonise it, remediate it, appropriate it, make it better, wrestle it out of the hands of the ‘elite’ and make it more ‘democratic’, more in touch with ‘the people’.

I wrote this some time ago (link). A rather disturbing report I recently read on Web 2 and Education prompted me to re-visit this writing

Press Release: Fedora Commons and DSpace Foundation Join Together to Create DuraSpace™ Organization

cbellamy — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:54:44 +0000

(This is indeed excellent news for the Open Repositories movement in terms of creating such a large player in the field and in terms of pooling the expertise of both organisation to help foster an open research commons online).

(Fedora hats…much more interesting than Press Releases!)

Ithaca, NY, Boston, MA — Fedora Commons and the DSpace Foundation, two of the largest providers of open source software for managing and providing access to digital content, have announced today that they will join their organizations to pursue a common mission. Jointly, they will provide leadership and innovation in open source technologies for global communities who manage, preserve, and provide access to digital content.

The joined organization, named “DuraSpace,” will sustain and grow its flagship repository platforms – Fedora and DSpace. DuraSpace will also expand its portfolio by offering new technologies and services that respond to the dynamic environment of the Web and to new requirements from existing and future users. DuraSpace will focus on supporting existing communities and will also engage a larger and more diverse group of stakeholders in support of its not-for-profit mission. The organization will be led by an executive team consisting of Sandy Payette (Chief Executive Officer), Michele Kimpton (Chief Business Officer), and Brad McLean (Chief Technology Officer) and will operate out of offices in Ithaca, NY and Cambridge, MA.

“This is a great development,” said Clifford Lynch, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI). “It will focus resources and talent in a way that should really accelerate progress in areas critical to the research, education, and cultural memory communities. The new emphasis on distributed reliable storage infrastructure services and their integration with repositories is particularly timely. ”

Together Fedora and DSpace make up the largest market share of open repositories worldwide, serving over 700 institutions. These include organizations committed to the use of open source software solutions for the dissemination and preservation of academic, scientific, and cultural digital content.

“The joining of DSpace and Fedora Commons is a watershed event for libraries, specifically, and higher education, more generally,” said James Hilton, CIO of the University of Virginia. “Separately, these two organizations operated with similar missions and a shared commitment to developing and supporting open technologies. By bringing together the technical, financial, and community-based resources of the two organizations, their communities gain a robust organization focused on solving the many challenges involved in storing, curating, and preserving digital data and scholarship,” he said.

New Products

DuraSpace will continue to support its existing software platforms, DSpace and Fedora, as well as expand its offerings to support the needs of global information communities. The first new technology to emerge will be a Web-based service named “DuraCloud.” DuraCloud is a hosted service that takes advantage of the cost efficiencies of cloud storage and cloud computing, while adding value to help ensure longevity and re-use of digital content. The DuraSpace organization is developing partnerships with commercial cloud providers who offer both storage and computing capabilities.

The DuraCloud service will be run by the DuraSpace organization. Its target audiences are organizations responsible for digital preservation and groups creating shared spaces for access and re-use of digital content. DuraCloud will be accessible directly as a Web service and also via plug-ins to digital repositories including Fedora and DSpace. The software developed to support the DuraCloud service will be made available as open source. An early release of DuraCloud will be available for selected pilot partners in Fall 2009.

Key Benefits of the DuraSpace Organization

DuraSpace will support both DSpace and Fedora by working closely with both communities and, when possible, develop synergistic technologies, services, and programs that increase interoperability of the two platforms. DuraSpace will also support other open source software projects including the Mulgara semantic store, a scalable RDF database.

DuraSpace will pursue a mission that extends beyond these existing software platforms. This broader mission will include developing open technologies and services for the communities that have developed around these two platforms. The organization will also reach out to new communities who manage, preserve, and provide access to digital content.

DuraSpace will amplify the value of each individual organization, enabling it to sustain a larger community. With both organizations working in unison, there can be significant economies of scale, synergies in developing open technologies and services, and a strong position for long-term sustainability.

Learn More about DuraSpace

DuraSpace will be represented at the Fourth Annual International Conference on Open Repositories (http://openrepositories.org/). Please check the schedule and visit the Fedora Commons and DSpace information tables at the conference to learn more.

More information is available at the DuraSpace website (http://duraspace.org/), including Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

About Fedora Commons

Fedora Commons (http://fedora-commons.org/) was established in 2007 as a not-for-profit organization and the home of the Fedora repository software and related open source projects. Fedora is a robust, integrated, repository system that enables storage, access and management for virtually any kind of digital content. The Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture (Fedora) was originally designed by Sandy Payette and colleagues at Cornell University and was established as an open source project in 2001 by Cornell and the University of Virginia. Fedora has a large international user community and is installed worldwide at universities, libraries, research institutions, cultural organizations, and corporations. For more information contact Thornton Staples, Director of Community Outreach and Alliances at tstaples@fedora-commons.org, or Chris Wilper, Technical Lead at cwilper@fedora-commons.org. Also see: http://fedora-commons.org/confluence/x/KINB

About DSpace Foundation

The DSpace Foundation (http://dspace.org/) was formed in 2007 to support the growing global community of institutions using DSpace open source software to manage scholarly works in a digital repository. DSpace was jointly developed in 2002 by Hewlett-Packard and the MIT Libraries. Today, there are over more than 500 organizations worldwide using the software to manage, preserve, and share their scholarly output. To learn more about DSpace and its community of users visit www.dspace.org or contact Valorie Hollister, Community Outreach Manager at val@dspace.org.

New Book: World Wide Web of Research

cbellamy — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:51:47 +0000

A new book will be released soon titled: World Wide Web of Reseach: Reshaping the Sciences and Humanities (Cambridge; the MIT Press). It is edited by Bill Dutton and Paul Jeffreys, both of Oxford. Dutton is Director of the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) whilst Paul Jeffreys is Director of IT at Oxford. I believe the book will be focussed upon the issues of eResearch in the Sciences and Humanities; very important issues for the Digital Humanities. The eResearch aganda primarily encapsulates data-reuse and research collaboration through such systems as VREs (Virtual Research Environments). We have a progamme in this field here at King’s called AHESSC (Arts and Humanities eScience Suport Centre). I look forward to the book; I tried to pre-order it on Amazon but with no luck. You can find Bill Dutton’s blog here..

(as researchers, perhaps we are spiders stuck in a web)

Seminar on new forms of Doctorates

cbellamy — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:28:07 +0000

This seminar in London on new styles of PhDs will be of interest to educators and students within the Digital Humanities who are grappling with the question of how to include digital components within their work as part of the PhD assessment. As someone who started a practice-based PhD way back in 1998 and successfully completed it in 2003 ( minus a few limbs), I would not recommend it unless you have an academically strong, and socio-technically aware research environment. Technology is neither good nor bad nor is it neutral; so the application of computing technology within a PhD is neither good not bad nor is it neutral. Succinctly, some technologists may not always have your best interest in mind (and as the Digital Humanities is inherently inter-disciplinary; non-technologists may have a superficial or negative understanding of research computing) . A PhD is always an academic qualification and any innovation must always advance the nature of the qualification; not unwittingly undermine it. As a learning process for the Digital Humanities the inclusion of digital components within a PhD adds to its educational worth, not lessens it. See Arts-Humanities.net for details of the seminar…

MA Digital Asset Management

cbellamy — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:03:37 +0000

The Centre where I work at King’s, the Centre for eReseach, in conjunction with the Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH), is starting a new MA course this year in Digital Asset Management. Details of the new course are as follows:

The Programme will equip students with the necessary critical and reflective capacities, set within a thorough grounding in the theory and practice of digital curation. Students will also gain a great deal of practical
hands-on experience, working on real problems and digital collections throughout the course. If you wish to discuss it; feel free to send an email (link).

HEFCE launches strategy for technology-enhanced learning

cbellamy — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:32:40 +0000

Press Release:

HEFCE has today (March 26, 2009) published ‘Enhancing learning and teaching
through the use of technology – a revised approach to HEFCE’s strategy for
e-learning’ (HEFCE 2009/12). This revised approach follows an independent
review of the strategy and is designed to provide further support to higher
education institutions as they develop their own e-learning strategies.

The new approach is intended to support institutions in considering where
they may wish to prioritise their technology-related investment over the
next few years, and to develop appropriate institutional learning and
teaching strategies. Support and guidance is available from JISC and from
the Higher Education Academy.

Findings from the review, which was carried out with the support of the
Higher Education Academy and JISC, suggested the strategy has been useful in
motivating institutional activity, but that some of the information has
become outdated, given the current level of maturity in e-learning in the
sector.

In order to assist institutions in achieving their strategic aims for
enhancing learning and teaching through technology, the document suggests a
framework focusing on: pedagogy, curriculum design and development; learning
resources and environments; quality; and research and evaluation.

John Selby, HEFCE Director (Education and Participation), said: ‘Our
emphasis is on recognising that technology has a fundamental part to play in
higher education, and that it should now reflect commitment from senior
management in institutions within an institutional context. Our revised
approach to e-learning will contribute to the Government’s aim to position
the UK at the front of technology-enhanced learning internationally, and
continue to build a knowledge-based economy.’

David Sadler, Director of Networks at the Higher Education Academy, said:
‘The Higher Education Academy is pleased to have been involved in this
review and the revised policy statement, and its emphasis on enhancement is
one that highlights how technology can be used by practitioners to support
students in their learning. It focuses on the benefits and the outcomes from
using technology to support learning, teaching and assessment, which will be
different in each institution, and could make a real difference to the
learning experience of students across all higher education institutions.’

Dr Malcolm Read, Executive Secretary at JISC said: ‘JISC welcomed the
opportunity to work with its partners to contribute to this review, and
suggest how technology can enhance teaching and learning to assist in the
delivery of higher education institutions’ strategic missions.

‘Part of this strategy is already beginning to take shape through the
current investment being made in the open educational resources pilot. This
work aims to open access to high-quality education resources on an
international scale. It shows a new approach to virtual education, and will
help to maintain the UK’s position as a global leader in online learning.’

Further infomration on how JISC is contributing to this strategy can be
found at:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/elearning/programmeelearning/hefceframework