Digital Campus

Episode 53 – Open and Shut

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:30:47 +0000

The podcast regulars Dan, Tom, and Mills are joined this week by irregular Jeff McClurken, who discusses how he used videos of TED talks in his class last fall. We also talk about the impact of the technology lawsuits and patents awarded recently, which put a cloud over many platforms academics and museums use. It also makes us wonder about the sustainability of digital creations, both from a technical standpoint and from a financial one. And no podcast would be complete without a crazy Facebook post.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Jeff’s TED Talks class
As Grants Run Out, Universities Pony Up Cash for OpenCourseWare
East Stroudsburg U. Suspends Professor for Facebook Posts
Apple sues HTC
Facebook Gains News Feed Patent to Secure Its Social Network

Running time: 48:52
Download the .mp3

Episode 52 — What’s the Buzz?

Mills Kelly — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:04:21 +0000

The Internet is buzzing about Google Buzz and so why should Digital Campus be any different? With Mills as host, we welcome Amanda French from our Corps of Irregulars to help us sort out the challenges to personal privacy posed by Buzz. We also considered whether Facebook rants against a teacher by a student should be considered protected speech and all four of us were more than a little shocked by a story about a school district that used security software in laptops given to students to spy on those same students by turning on the laptop webcams without anyone knowing. In an age when your movements can be tracked via the GPS capabilities of your cellphone, managing privacy is becoming more and more of an issue for universities and students. We also dipped our toes back into the eBook reader waters long enough to wonder whether or not the iPad and its inevitable imitators meant a new day for academic libraries.

Links:

Google’s response to public outcry about Buzz
Are Facebook rants protected speech?
Schools spying on their students via laptop webcams
eLibrary Economics
Tracking your movements via your cellphone

Running Time: 50:36
Download the .mp3

Episode 51 – The Inevitable iPad

Tom Scheinfeldt — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:58:16 +0000

Jennifer Howard of The Chronicle of Higher Education joins the podcast as the regulars give Dan a rest and Tom takes a turn at hosting for the first time. On the morrow of the big Apple announcement, the Digital Campus crew offers its thoughts on the possible impact of the iPad for teaching, publishing, and research. In other news, the Cornell library asks fellow institutions to pony up to help with costs of maintaining ArXiv.org, Flickr Commons closes its doors to new members until 2011, and publishers make more money by dropping copy protection.

Also mentioned on the podcast:
Monty Python’s free web video increased DVD sales by 23,000 percent
The iPad shows up the Kindle; will Apple’s iBooks store challenge Amazon?
5 Ways the Apple iPad Could Change e-Books
The Public Domain Manifesto
Google Editions Embraces Universal E-book Format
Collections in the Cloud?
MuseumMobile Pocast

Running Time: 51:26
Download the .mp3

Episode 50 – The Crystal Ball Returns

admin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:02:28 +0000

For our golden anniversary podcast, regulars Tom, Mills, and Dan look into their crystal ball to see what the future holds for 2010 and the coming decade. We also look back at the biggest stories of 2009 and the prior decade. Via Twitter, we also share prognostications from our very smart audience.

Running time: 1:01:18
Download the .mp3

Episode 49 – The Twouble with Twecklers

Tom Scheinfeldt — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:57:04 +0000

Does Twitter make conferences more productive, less hierarchical, and more friendly, or does it just give new voice to confidence-crushing comments from the peanut gallery? Steve joins Mills, Dan, and Tom to talk about the phenomenon of “twecklers” and Google’s efforts to speed up the Web, including a SPDY internet protocol, a new DNS (Domain Name System) service, and a new systems programming language. And, by popular demand, we bring back our picks of the podcast.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Danah Boyd on Twecklers
Conference Humiliation from the Chronicle of Higher Education
The Overbite Project brings Gopher to Firefox
The Art of Community, by Jono Bacon
Readability
Zotero File Storage

Running Time: 53:53
Download the mp3

Episode 48 – Balkanization of the Web?

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:33:54 +0000

What will be the impact of the loss of non-Anglophone books in the revised Google Books settlement? How about the loss of News Corporation content in Google’s search? Or the loss of physical books from the library? And what exactly does the loss of tens of thousands of editors mean to Wikipedia? Mills, Amanda, and Dan discuss these changes to our information environment in a special Thanksgiving edition of the podcast.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Revised Google Books Settlement
News Corp. Weighs an Exclusive Alliance With Bing
Report: Wikipedia losing volunteers
Syracuse University Library Considers Relocating Books
Citizendium
Top 100 Books Cited by Wikipedia

Running Time: 49:38
Download the .mp3

Episode 47 – Publishers Bleakly

admin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:01:30 +0000

On this podcast we’re delighted to introduce another two “irregulars,” Jennifer Howard, a writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Josh Greenberg, the director of digital strategy and scholarship at the New York Public Library. Jennifer and Josh give us terrific insights into the challenges that digitization and open access are posing to libraries and publishers, and speak of new models that are emerging out of the chaos, including coalitions of publishers and the Internet Archive’s BookServer.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Research Librarians Discuss How to Sell Scholars on Open Access, and More
Columbia and Cornell Libraries Announce ‘Radical’ Partnership
Open Access to Research Is Inevitable, Libraries Are Told

Running time: 44:25
Download the .mp3

Episode 46 – Theremin Dreams

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:43:30 +0000

How and why do a critical mass of people adopt new technologies such as virtual worlds or the Theremin? That’s just one of the issues we discuss on a freewheeling podcast featuring another two “irregulars,” Steve Ramsey and Bryan Alexander. The news roundup includes an analysis of the Nook and the Droid, among other oddly-named devices, and an exploration of what real-time search could do for researchers.

Running time: 54:10
Download the .mp3

Episode 45 – Wave Hello

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:51:55 +0000

While Dan is distracted and rendered unintelligent by his first experience with Google Wave, Mills, Tom, and newcomer Lisa Spiro manage to have a cogent discussion of whether Wave will have any (positive) impact on education, update the ongoing Google Books saga, examine Chrome within Internet Explorer, highlight the Kindle underperforming on campus, debate the FTC’s ruling on bloggers accepting gifts (including university presses giving free books to bloggers), and look at advance of net neutrality. Picks of the podcast include a wiki for seeing into the future, an assessment of collegiate internet use, tools for Twitter and RSS, and a time-waster of a blog.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Horizon Report wiki
Everyday life, online: U.S. college students’ use of the Internet
Twitter Feed
RSS Digest (WordPress Plugin)
Futility Closet blog

Running time: 43:45
Download the .mp3

Episode 44 – Unsettled

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:38:00 +0000

In this installment of Digital Campus, we couldn’t decide if we were happy with Google or mad at Google. Tom, Dan, and Mills were so confused about our feelings on the whole Google issue that we invited two new “irregulars” to join us — Jeff McClurken and Amanda French — but they proved to be just as unsettled as we were. Even though they didn’t help us much on our core problem, we enjoyed having them on the show so much that we’ve decided to ask them back on the show again along with some other irregulars to be named later. All five of us also discussed the future of libraries in the digital age and a new raft of picks you should check out.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Libraries of the Future conference
Google study tips
Invincible Cities
Planned Obsolescence
TED talk: Schools Kill Creativity
TED talk: The Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen
Jeff McClurken and Tim O’Donnell’s seminar using TED talks
Social Media Governance

Running time: 51:01
Download the .mp3

Episode 43 – Summer Wrap-up

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:07:30 +0000

The Digital Campus team is delighted to be back after a summer hiatus with a new podcast covering the many important developments from the past few months related to academia, libraries, museums, and technology. We cover and make pointed (and occasionally wisecracking) commentary upon the status of the Google Books settlement, ebook readers, and cameras on student devices, among other topics. We also cover shiny new things like Google Wave, RSSCloud, and PubSubHubbub. Picks include a new blog, an article on the future of journals, and how to take command of the command line. We’re looking forward to another year of the podcast, and hope you are too!

Other links mentioned on the podcast:
Sugar on a Stick
ProfHacker.com
Learning Unix
Is There a Future for Journals in the Humanities?
Cool-er ebook reader

Running time: 50:21
Download the .mp3

Episode 42 – The Real World

Tom Scheinfeldt — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:17:08 +0000

Dan and Mills welcome Tom back from paternity leave with a whirlwind roundup of the last month’s news. The regulars try to keep it real, exposing a scandal in scientific journal publishing, assessing the buzz surrounding the launch of a new computational search engine, questioning recent applications of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and delving once again into the Google Books settlement and some late breaking developments at the University of Michigan Library.

Episode 41 – Interview With Stan Katz

admin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:02:17 +0000

While Tom was out on paternity leave, Dan and Mills took the opportunity to interview Stan Katz (Princeton University). For those who don’t know Stan, he is the past president of the American Council of Learned Societies, an accomplished legal historian and Vice President for Research of the American Historical Association, and a lifetime Chicago Cubs fan. Stan is also, in many ways, one of the fathers of digital humanities. In the interview he discusses the past, the present, and the future of digital humanities from a perspective few can offer. We also ripped our way through the news of the past two weeks, including the incredible news that spending time on Facebook can lower your grades. Who knew?

Other links mentioned on the podcast:
Crowdsourcing on Twitter
The Twitter Revolution That Wasn’t

Running time: 48:15
Download the .mp3

Episode 40 – Super Models

admin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:21:22 +0000

In a freewheeling news roundup we discuss the significance of a number of major changes in academic publishing, including MIT going open access, the University of Michigan Press going digital, Sony putting 500,000 books on their digital reading device, and the impact of budget cuts on presses and journals. We explore new models for academic publishing in the face of the economic downturn and the digital revolution. Picks of the week include a way for new Twitter users to find others in their discipline, documents from the National Security Archive, and a deadline for an unconference.

Other links mentioned on the podcast:
Stan Katz, “A Computer is Not a Typewriter”
UVA phasing out computer labs

Running time: 40:15
Download the .mp3

Episode 39 – Upgrade in the Downturn?

admin — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:50:13 +0000

The Digital Campus crew finally tackle the Great Recession: the significance of the financial meltdown on universities, libraries, and museums. What will change and what will stay the same? Are there technologies that can help us in our time of need? We also talk more about e-books, campus iPhone apps, and lecture podcasts.

Links mentioned in the podcast:
Google Apps For Your Domain
Duke U. Unveils Application Suite for iPhone
‘iTunes university’ better than the real thing
Tip Jar
Digital Archivists, Now in Demand

Running time: 44:41
Download the .mp3

Episode 38 – E-Book Redux

admin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:56:57 +0000

In a very special timetraveling episode, the Digital Campus crew journey back to 2007 to hear from their old selves–specifically, what they said about e-books when Amazon’s Kindle was released–and whether their present selves agree with their ghosts from the past in light of the release of the Kindle 2 and the mobile version of Google Books. Also covered on the podcast are the demise of rumor site Juicy Campus and music site Ruckus, the impact of Creative Commons and downloads on YouTube, and the addition of history to Google Earth. Picks for the episode include a programming interface for New York Times articles, a blog on the futures of learning, a search engine for open journals, and a site for medieval manuscripts.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Kindle 2
Google Book Search Mobile
New York Times Article Search API
Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts
Futures of Learning blog
Google Earth 5’s Historical Imagery
JURN search engine

Running time: 49:18
Download the .mp3

Episode 37 – Material Culture

admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:40:32 +0000

Aside from the technical challenges of moving museums online, there’s the cultural challenge of squaring the curator’s focus on the actual, authentic object with the free-for-all, non-hierarchical nature of the web. That’s the tension addressed in the feature story on this episode, a follow-up to concerns expressed at the Smithsonian 2.0 conference. We’re lucky to be joined in the discussion by Sharon Leon, Director of Public Projects at the Center for History and New Media. In the news roundup, we assemble our own stimulus package, talk about Creative Commons on the White House website, look at the impact of Gmail going offline, and debate a possible change to Wikipedia’s moderation policy. Picks include a new grant, Omeka training, museum awards, and (despite protests by Mills) a Twitter client.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Broadband, Computers Part of Stimulus Package
Wikipedia Co-Founder Calls for Major New Moderation Policy
New White House Copyright Policy
Smithsonian 2.0
National Postal Museum’s Arago website
Best of the Web at the Museums and the Web 2009 meeting
Digging into Data Challenge
TweetDeck
Omeka Workshops
Gmail Goes Offline

Running time: 45:14
Download the mp3

Episode 36 – Tweeting into 2009

admin — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:24:11 +0000

Tom and Dan kick off the new year by annoying Mills with tales of Twitter and tweets. In our newly extended news roundup, the panel looks at the use of Twitter at academic conferences; assesses the Palm Pre and the future of mobile apps for education, museums, and libraries; wonders about touch screens and the blind; thinks once again about the use of e-book readers on campus; discusses the end of Google Notebook and what it says about putting your research in services that might fail; debates the wisdom of putting academic articles on Wikipedia; and gives an update on Europeana, the EU digital library.

Other links for the episode:
Amanda French on the digital MLA experience
HearPlanet iPhone application
The American Association of History and Computing
ReframeIt and Web Annotation

Running time: 49:32
Download the .mp3

Episode 35 – Top Ten of 2008

Tom Scheinfeldt — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:37:12 +0000

Dan, Mills, and Tom round out 2008 with the top ten most significant stories, trends, and technologies of the year. The regulars discuss how netbooks, Google Books, e-books, and iPhones made 2008 a year to remember. What will make the list in 2009? The regulars offer some predictions as well.

Running time: 51:30
Download the .mp3

Episode 34 – Extra, Extra!

admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:47:35 +0000

This Thanksgiving week in the U.S. we have a cornucopia of news, starting with the reaction of Harvard to the Google Book Search settlement and including the end of email service for students at Boston College and two efforts to create an “academic Google.” We also launch a new segment, “We Told You So,” to gloat over the predicted death of Google’s virtual world, Lively, and over continuing problems in Second Life. Picks for this episode include a new site on place-based computing, a couple of easy (or bizarre) ways to write a book, and an easy-to-learn programming language.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Harvard on Google Book Search settlement
Lively No More
“Eric Reuters” on Second Life
Europeana
Boston College Will Stop Offering New Students E-Mail Accounts
RefSeek
Reference Extract
Google SearchWiki
Processing 1.0
Place-based Computing
FortyChapters
QuillPill

Running time: 44:27
Download the .mp3

Episode 33 – Classroom Action Settlement

admin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:15:18 +0000

The big news this week was the announcement that a settlement had been reached between Google and authors and publishers over Google’s controversial Book Search program, which has scanned over seven million volumes, including many books that are still copyrighted. The Digital Campus team takes a first pass at the agreement and tries to understand how it might affect higher ed. Other news from a busy week include the release of the first phone based on Google’s Android operating system, and Microsoft’s conversion to “cloud” computing. Picks for this podcast include a new report on teenagers and videogames, a new version of Linux for the masses, and a program to help you focus on the Mac.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Google Book Search Settlement Agreement
Open Library
Ubuntu
Think for the Mac
Android
Microsoft Azure
Pew report on teens and videogames

Running time: 49:29
Download the .mp3

Episode 32 – Going Native

Tom Scheinfeldt — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:52:20 +0000

This time on Digital Campus the regulars tackle the notion of “digital natives,” the conventional wisdom that says children born during the Internet era (say, since the late 1980s) understand digital technology intuitively. Are today’s students naturally fluent in the language and customs of digital technology, or are they more like the rest of us, who have to work hard to make computers work for us? We take a look at both sides of the debate. In the news roundup we discuss Google’s latest digitization project (newspapers this time), the publishing lobby’s attempt to close NIH’s open access research portal, and two new foundations to support good things on the web.

Links mentioned on the podcast:

Google to Digitize Newspaper Archives, New York Times
Backlash Against Open Access, Ars Technica
Digital Promise
World Wide Web Foundation
The Generational Myth, Chronicle of Higher Education
Harvard Professor Sees Answers to Nagging Web-Youth Issues, Cnet
A Companion to Digital Literary Studies
What to Look for in Tech Staff, Tech Therapy
Many Eyes

Running time: 48:49
Download the .mp3

Episode 31 – Back to School

admin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:30:55 +0000

The Digital Campus crew was lucky to be joined by Bryan Alexander, the Director of Research of NITLE, on this episode. Bryan tracks emerging trends in technology and higher ed, and gives us the inside scoop on what’s up and coming for the 2008-2009 school year. Our wide-ranging discussion in that feature segment and the news roundup covers the latest in mobile technology, ebooks, digital scholarship, course-management-systesm, virtual worlds, gaming, and audio, video, and image-sharing, among other topics. We also obsess a bit about the significance of Google’s new web browser, Chrome. Join us for another year of Digital Campus!

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Making the History of 1989
Synthasite
Jason Calacanis on demoing digital products, part 1, part 2
NITLE Prediction Markets
The Shadow IT Department
Google Chrome

Running time: 1:05:53
Download the .mp3

Episode 30 – Live From Egypt!

admin — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:53:19 +0000

On this episode we were lucky to have a live link to Alexandria, Egypt, for Wikimania 2008, the international meeting of those who work on Wikipedia and related open collaborative projects. In the feature segment we talk with Liam Wyatt of Wikipedia Weekly, who gives an insider’s scoop of the issues, debates, and future of Wikipedia. In the news roundup we discuss Yahoo’s new open search service, BOSS, and Google’s new virtual world, Lively, among other things. Picks of the week include some advice from Google’s blogs, some rich web-based applications, and Gmail power user tweaks.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Wikimania 2008
Wikipedia Weekly
Yahoo BOSS
Google Lively
Aviary
Google Labs Gmail tweaks
Requesting reconsideration using Google Webmaster Tools
Technologies Behind Google Ranking

Running time: 48:03
Download the .mp3

Episode 29 – Making It Count

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:04:22 +0000

As forms of scholarship move from the analog world of paper to the digital realm of the web, a debate has begun about how to give credit—if at all—to these new forms for the purposes of promotion and tenure. What will happen to peer review? What kinds of digital work should “count,” and how? That’s the featured discussion on this episode. We also cover the launch of Firefox 3, university presses putting their books on Amazon’s Kindle device, and the release of better copyright records.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Google publishes copyright status of books from 1923-1963
U.S. Copyright Office Record Search
Mills on “Making Digital Scholarship Count”
Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage
Creative Commons Case Studies
MozillaZine on “about:config”

Running time: 44:02
Download the .mp3

Episode 28 – Raising the BarCamp

admin — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:40:13 +0000

Might there be an alternative to the conventional meetings and conferences academics, librarians, and museum professionals go to every year, where papers and panels—and often bored or distracted attendees—are the norm? This episode’s feature story tackles that question by looking back at the experience of THATCamp: The Humanities and Technology Camp, a less structured “unconference” or “barcamp” that turned everyone into active participants. The roundtable discussion of the news includes a discussion of what the iPhone 3G and iPhone apps mean for educational and cultural institutions. Picks of the week include a new site on the Soviet Gulag, a way to avoid distractions on the Mac, and an open source mapping site.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
THATCamp
GreenNote
OS X Spaces
Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives
Open Street Map

Running time: 45:19
Download the .mp3

Episode 27 – All Atwitter

admin — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:04:59 +0000

As Dan finally buckles under and joins in the most hyped Web 2.0 site of the moment, Twitter, Tom and Mills join him to debate the merits—and demerits—of the “microblogging” craze. Do services like Twitter merely increase the distractions and noise from the web, or might they be helpful for communication and community building in academia? In the news roundup, we cover Microsoft’s exit from book digitization and the significance of the tech layoffs at the University of Washington. Picks of the week include a podcast series from Harvard, a blog post explaining the semantic web, and a wiki for digital research tools.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Mills on Twitter
Media Berkman
Semantic Web Patterns
Digital Research Tools (DiRT) wiki

Running time: 47:21
Download the .mp3

Episode 26 – Free for All

admin — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:17:13 +0000

At a time when everything seems to be trending toward being freely available online, how can education and digital resources and tools for academia, libraries, and museums sustain themselves? Tom, Dan, and Mills discuss models for sustainability in the age of the free in the feature segment of this week’s podcast. In the news roundup, we cover the RIAA’s newfound love of the lawsuit and the University of Chicago Law School’s newfound hate of the laptop. Picks of the week include a proportional mapping tool, a thesis repository, and a site that helps non-techies understand and use RSS.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Mills on free education
Laura Dewis, “Money makes the world go… open?”
RSS Day
Harvard Thesis Repository
World Mapper

Running time: 43:07
Download the .mp3

Episode 25 – Get With the Program

admin — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:00:22 +0000

Tom and Dan are joined this week by Bill Turkel and Steve Ramsey, who provide fascinating insights into the nature of computer programming and how those in the humanities, museums, and libraries can get started with this foreign language. Bill and Steve were also kind enough to add their comments to our news roundup discussion of the launch of Google App Engine, which raises questions about outsourcing, and myLOC.gov, which raises questions about whether digital collections should have their own personalization tools. Picks for the week include two books on programming, an organizational tool for Thunderbird, and a map for browsing American history.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
The Programming Historian
Google App Engine
myLOC.gov
Network in Canadian History & Environment
Social Explorer
MIT Simile’s Seek
Beautiful Code
The Mythical Man-Month

Run time: 48:17
Download the .mp3

Episode 24 – Running from the Law

Tom Scheinfeldt — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:00:27 +0000

In the feature story of this episode, Tom, Mills, and Dan finally get to vent about the increasing annoyances of legal restrictions and threats that face those trying to do digital work in academia, libraries, and museums. Copyright—both in its traditional form and in modern incarnations like the DMCA—has made it more difficult than ever to figure out how and when to post something online, and for those creating digital tools, the further threat of patent lawsuits awaits. In the news roundup we talk about another threat—that of online predators and a new Virginia law intended to thwart them—and note the launch of offline Google Docs, which now provides a more compelling alternative to Microsoft Office. Links for the week include a museum podcast that’s good for the classroom, a tech blog for students, and a declaration for open access to educational materials and technology.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Virginia Schools Start To Teach Internet Safety
DMCA
Fair Use
Open Access News
NIH’s Public Access Requirement
Restriction: No Text Mining of PubMed
Professor Sues Student Over Lecture Notes
Elsevier Lets MIT Use Copyrighted Materials
Patent Office Rejects Blackboard’s E-Learning Patent in Preliminary Ruling
Google Docs Launches Offline Support
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum @ iTunesU
Hack College blog
Cape Town Open Education Declaration

Running time: 47:24
Download the .mp3

Episode 23 – Happy Birthday

admin — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:37:48 +0000

On the first birthday of the podcast, Tom, Mills, and Dan discuss how they produce the podcast and reflect on what they’re doing right, what needs improvement, and what they might do in the coming year—and ask the audience to write in with their own criticisms and suggestions. The news roundup looks at a new campus gossip website, the expulsion of a student for using a Facebook study group, and the significance of iPhones coming to campuses in the fall along with the new iPhone SDK (software development kit). Links for the week include an easy way to collaboratively markup and critique websites, a detailed description of a good web design and development setup, and one journal’s take on Web 2.0.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Audacity
Call Recorder
Twiddla
Jeremy Boggs’s Design and Development Setup
First Monday issue on Web 2.0

Runtime: 44:38
Download the .mp3

Episode 22 – Demanding Print on Demand?

admin — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:22:15 +0000

Can print on demand shake up academic publishing, book buying, and reading habits? Another terrific guest joins us on the podcast for a feature segment on the promise and perils of print on demand: Yakov Shafranovich, a software developer who specializes in print on demand services including PublicDomainReprints.org, covered in several prior Digital Campus episodes. We spend most of the news roundup debating the impact of the Harvard faculty vote in favor of open access scholarship, while also covering Blackboard’s victory in a flimsy patent case. Picks of the week include a good new podcast, a flashy historical website, and an easy way to add images to your blog posts.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Harvard Open Access Policy
PublicDomainReprints.org
New Academia Press
European Navigator
First Monday Podcast
PhotoDropper

Run time: 58:32
Download the .mp3

Episode 21 – To Read or Not To Read

admin — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:44:20 +0000

Is reading declining in the digital age, or is it simply changing? The Digital Campus team is joined by two guests in our feature segment, Sunil Iyengar of the National Endowment for the Arts and Matt Kirschenbaum of the University of Maryland, to debate the future of reading—and its past. The news roundup covers Microsoft’s courtship of Yahoo and what it means (if anything) for campuses, provides an update on a problematic U.S. House of Representatives bill, and covers the new Horizon Report on digital technologies that will affect universities in the coming five years.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
2008 Horizon Report
College Opportunity and Affordability Act
Aluka
Today’s Front Pages at the Newseum
Amistad Digital Resource

Running time: 50:49
Download the .mp3

Episode 20 – Open to Change

admin — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:43:06 +0000

Are open educational resources such as iTunes U and thought-provoking dot-coms such as BigThink.com a distraction from the mission of professors and universities, or the wave of the future? Tom, Mills, and Dan debate the merits of “open access” intellectual content in the feature story. We also follow up on Dan’s experience with buying a book from PublicDomainReprints.org, compare the MacBook Air with the small, cheap laptops discussed on the last episode of Digital Campus, and discuss the launch of Flickr Commons. Our picks of the week point to three great ways to use RSS feeds more effectively.

Links mentioned on podcast:
PublicDomainReprints.org
Flickr Commons
MacBook Air
iTunes U
BigThink.com
Berkeley’s YouTube Channel
Google Reader Sharing
ReadBurner
Yahoo Pipes
FeedJournal

Runtime: 51:15
Download the .mp3

Episode 19 – Big Things in Small Packages

admin — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:05:16 +0000

On our first podcast of the new year, we look at the rise of the small, cheap laptop and its significance for education and cultural sites. In addition to a full rundown of the latest news about the One Laptop Per Child project and its $188 XO laptop, we cover the wildly popular Asus Eee PC and the forthcoming Everex CloudBook, both costing under $400. In the news roundup we note the end of the line for Netscape, mention the darker alleyways of social networking, and congratulate ourselves for predicting the decline of Second Life. And at the end of the podcast we highlight a great new word processor for the Mac, a service to print out-of-print books, and the digitization of a gigantic medieval bible.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
One Laptop Per Child
Pixel Qi
Asus Eee PC
Everex CloudBook
Scrivener
Codex Gigas
Public Domain Books Reprints Service
THATPodcast
THATCamp

Running time: 45:48
Download the .mp3

Episode 18 – Top Ten of 2007

Tom Scheinfeldt — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:50:41 +0000

The regulars close out the first calendar year of Digital Campus with a countdown of the top stories of 2007. In a year when lines formed for the iPhone, social networking went mainstream, Vista battled with Leopard (and XP), and virtual worlds beckoned, find out which stories made Mills, Tom, and Dan’s top ten list. What flew, what fizzled, and what will 2008 hold for technology at universities, libraries, and museums? We reveal the answers on our year end special.

Running time: 53:32
Download the .mp3

Episode 17 – Can You Hear Me Now?

admin — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:25:09 +0000

On this podcast we finally put to rest the Great Facebook Controversy of 2007. We tell listeners how to turn off Facebook’s intrusive Beacon advertising system, and note LinkedIn’s attempt to capitalize on Facebook’s stumble. We also assess the importance of privacy for search engines given Ask.com’s move to make it easier to search anonymously, and revisit the rise of the podcasting of lectures now that commercial companies are entering the market. Our featured story examines the potential educational uses of cell phones on campus and in museums and libraries, looking ahead to Google’s Android cell phone operating system and other application platforms. Our links for the week include exhibition software for museums, a great new academic blog from Stan Katz, and a simple way for libraries and museums to turn cell phones into audio tour handsets.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Omeka
Podlinez
Brainstorm: Stan Katz

Running time: 52:00
Download the .mp3

Episode 16 – Steal This E-Book

admin — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:01:04 +0000

Amazon.com’s release of its new e-book reader the Kindle has set off a frenzy of speculation about the future of books, reading, and publishing. The Digital Campus team debates the promise and problems of the Kindle and e-book readers in general. In the news roundup we express outrage at a possible new U.S. bill that would remove funds from universities that fail to stop online piracy and at Facebook’s new feature that allows everyone to see what you’re buying. A cranky holiday-season podcast for listeners new and old!

Other links mentioned on the podcast:
Marvel Comics Archive
Vixy
phillyhistory.org
OpenCast

Running time: 44:02
Download the .mp3

Episode 15 – Exposing Yourself

admin — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:18:23 +0000

Think Google is scary with all of the information it gathers about you through your web searches? Wait until Facebook starts its advertising platform based on all of the likes and dislikes you’ve given it, and combines that with the power of Microsoft, which just bought a stake in the biggest social network on campus. We tackle privacy, anonymity, and giving away personal information in this week’s podcast. In the news roundup we celebrate the release of Apple’s new operating system upgrade, Leopard, and whether it and Ubuntu can begin to steal market share from a faltering Windows Vista.

Other links mentioned on the podcast:
New York Public Library Labs
Anthony Grafton on “Future Reading”
Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy

Running time: 51:11
Download the .mp3

Episode 14 – Where is the Art?

admin — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:24:34 +0000

The second most frequently asked question at museums after “Where are the restrooms?” is “Where is the art?” In this episode we ask whether those artifacts belong on a museum’s website, and if so, how, as we debate the proper relationship between a museum’s virtual and physical manifestations. Our news roundup covers the opening up of Harvard’s scholarship, Berkeley’s YouTube channel, iTunesU, and two software projects that aim to improve the library catalog and the museum exhibit. We also highlight Errol Morris’s blog posts on truth in photography, a great museum blog, and a tool for converting one type of digital file to another.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Omeka
Scriblio
Harvard Crimson editorial on open access
Berkeley’s YouTube channel
National Museum of African American History and Culture
Errol Morris on two Crimean War photographs (part 1; part 2)
Nina Simon’s Museum 2.0 blog
YouConvertIt

Running time:51:35
Download the .mp3

Episode 13 – Everything in Moderation?

admin — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 18:33:03 +0000

Is the moderated environment of email discussion lists still the best way for scholars to communicate with others in their field? Or is the time ripe to move those conversations onto blogs and less mediated and more open formats? That’s this week’s debate in the feature segment. In the roundup we cover news about greater competition for Microsoft Office and the significance of the New York Times dumping its pay-for-certain-content model. Picks of the week include a great podcast from the BBC, a blog for bizarre and interesting maps, and a way to overlay historical (and other) maps onto current ones.

Links mentioned:
The End of H-Net
In Our Time
Strange Maps
MapMixer

Running time: 51:59
Download the .mp3.

Episode 12 – Productivity and Connectivity

admin — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:51:24 +0000

We begin the news roundup this week with a bit of embarrassing news from Dan, then dig into several stories about big media companies entering the online learning market and Google Books becoming more useful for scholarship. In our feature segment, Tom and Mills explain how they try to stay productive in a world of constant digital distractions like email and blog feeds. Helpful links this week include a terrific site for teaching through famous trials, a way to customize Google, and a dead simple online to-do list. And we remember 9/11 through our own site, the September 11 Digital Archive.

Running time: 48:34
Download the .mp3.

Episode 11 – Risky Business? Blogs on Campus, Part II (fixed)

Ken Albers — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 00:09:47 +0000

We continue our discussion of blogging, this time with a closer look at the challenges and difficulties of starting and maintaining a blog, attracting and keeping an audience, and making sure it doesn’t get in the way of other academic pursuits. In the news roundup, we compare the iPhone and Facebook platforms, examine two software projects that mine Wikipedia for trustworthiness, and wonder once again if anyone is home in Second Life.

Case Western Finds Few Takers in Second Life
Hackers Make the iPhone Better
WikiScanner
Wikipedia Trust Tool
Firefox Campus Edition
Museum Blogs directory
The Hawaii Nisei Story

Running time: 49:04

[Apologies for the audio quality this week. We were affected by the problems Skype has been having.]

[Update: Further technical difficulties led to a gap in the audio. Apologies again. Please update your versions.]

Download the .mp3.

Episode 10 – Risky Business? Blogs on Campus, Part I

Tom Scheinfeldt — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:54:17 +0000

Dan, Mills, and Tom celebrate the tenth edition of Digital Campus with part one in a new series on blogs and blogging. In this episode, we take a look back at how we became bloggers, examine questions of subject matter, voice, and style, and debate the risks and rewards of blogging in a scholarly context. We also report on problems posed by the iPhone for wireless network administrators, the subversive role of SMS in China, and ups and downs for humanists in Second Life. Picks of the week include Flock, a “social” web browser, the David Rumsey collection of nearly 16,000 historic maps, and the launch of plain text Google Books.

Episode 09 – Too Much Information

admin — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 20:58:43 +0000

What are students, researchers, and librarians supposed to do with the tremendous volume of digitized scholarly materials now available to them? We discuss the problem of information overload in this week’s feature segment. The news roundup turns into an iPhone-fest–or is it an iPhone-bashing? Dan tries not to go near an iPhone for fear of an impulse buy, while Tom and Mills debate the true value of Apple’s new gadget. Helpful tips for the week include a site for getting to know “learning 2.0,” a great new blog on museums and technology, and a digital Time Magazine archive.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Learning 2.0
Electronic Museum
Time Magazine, 1923-2007
Enable dictionary and thesaurus on Google Docs

Running time: 51:07

Download the .mp3.

Episode 08 – Basic Training

admin — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:48:34 +0000

How can you learn technical skills such as web design, programming, and related methods and technologies for work in the digital humanities? We tackle that difficult question on this week’s show, while also covering the top IT issues that universities face (according to CIOs), transcribing books the new fashioned way, and analog and digital news about Abraham Lincoln.

Links mentioned on the podcast:

Your Archives
The Museum of Underwater Archaeology
Google PageRank: What do we really know about it
Is Computer Science an Outdated Term? from Wired Campus
reCAPTCHA
Lincoln to Halleck from Footnote.com
What Al Wishes Abe Said
Top Ten IT Issues from Educause Review

Running time: 55:09

Download the .mp3.

Episode 07 – History Appliances

admin — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:36:42 +0000

Bill Turkel joins us on the podcast to discuss his fascinating work on “history appliances,” or the possibility of making history more real by creating physical environments and interfaces that truly immerse us in the past. In the news roundup we ponder whether the opening of Facebook to outside developers means possibly better integration with academic services or merely the end of its pretty interface, applaud Google’s new “universal search” for returning video and other media in addition to text, express skepticism that Google has crushed the market for online term papers, and wonder if a university might soon suffer the same fate as Estonia, which saw its computer networks swamped by “hactivists”–or the Russian government.

Sites mentioned on the podcast:
Digital History Hacks
Dave Lester’s Blog
Seashore
Phixr
Scratch
Place-based Computing

Running time: 45:26

Download the .mp3.

Episode 06 – Designed to Make You Think

admin — Wed, 16 May 2007 14:03:07 +0000

Web design guru Jeremy Boggs joins Dan, Tom, and Mills to discuss the past, present, and future of designing websites for academia, museums, and libraries. In the news roundup, we cover a number of situations where information and images have shown up at inopportune times and in inopportune places, including the case of the MySpace photo that got a student in hot water, a chart on a blog that caused a copyright furor, and the “liberation” of class-related documents that got some Harvard students in trouble.

Sites mentioned in the podcast:
Molly.com
SimpleBits
mezzoblue
meyerweb
Color Blindness Simulator

20 Usability Tips for Your Blog
Google Earth Overlays of Greensburg, Kansas
Directory of Open Access Journals

Running Time: 50:24

Download the .mp3

Episode 05 – Tragedy and Technology

admin — Wed, 02 May 2007 20:54:05 +0000

We take a break from our normal format to spend the entirety of this episode thinking about the role of technology—its great power to forge social bonds and enable a new kind of memorialization, as well as its unfortunate ability to underscore the separation of those who remain outside social circles—in the terrible tragedy at Virginia Tech. We discuss the April 16 Archive website and Omeka, the software that runs it, as well as issues related to social networking sites, online gaming, and text messaging.

Running time: 29:28.

Download the .mp3.

Episode 04 – Welcome to the Social

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 19:16:34 +0000

Can social networking sites like Facebook play a productive role in the humanities? In this episode Dan plays the old fogey, while Tom and Mills talk about how to use these sites in an advantageous way. We also report on recent meetings on the digital humanities and digital museums, and discuss Google’s My Maps and Creative Common’s Learn initiative. And Mills and Dan plot an intervention to get Tom off of Twitter.

Also discussed were iGTD, Scenemaker, and the new digital humanities PBWiki.

Featuring: Dan Cohen, Mills Kelly, Tom Scheinfeldt.

Running time: 47:57.

Download the mp3.

[Editor's note: This podcast was recorded before the terrible tragedy at Virginia Tech--thus our normal, jovial tone and failure to mention that horrible day. Our hearts go out to the entire Virginia Tech community, some of whom are now or have been our colleagues at the Center for History and New Media.]

Episode 03 – CI: Cyberinfrastructure

Ken Albers — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 19:38:40 +0000

Our third podcast begins with some discussion of April Fools’ pranks, including a great one about Google acquiring the OCLC, and how blogs and the internet can foster hoaxes. This week’s feature takes a look at the hot topic of cyberinfrastructure. We also take a look at Turnitin, and the larger issue of plagiarism. Links for the week include Librivox, Swivel, and the Center’s own research tool Zotero.

Featuring: Dan Cohen, Mills Kelly, Tom Scheinfeldt

Running time: 55:16

Download the .mp3

Episode 02 – The Old and the YouTube

admin — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:22:03 +0000

In our second podcast, we revisit the debate over Wikipedia, including hearing from Mills about how Cambodians are using it (and whether you can find a WiFi signal in the jungle of Cambodia). Our feature story explores whether and how YouTube is useful in the classroom. Links for this week include a podcast on Byzantine rulers, the Documentation Center of Cambodia, and a tool for making timelines. And we make a solemn pledge not to discuss Vista for a long time.

Featuring: Dan Cohen, Mills Kelly, Tom Scheinfeldt

Running time: 43:52

Download the .mp3

Episode 01 – Wikipedia: Friend or Foe?

admin — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 21:36:44 +0000

In our inaugural podcast our feature story covers the controversy over whether Wikipedia is a useful or problematic resource for students. In the news roundup, we wonder if the launch of Windows Vista has any significance, ponder the rise of Google Docs as an alternative to Word, and cover recent stories about Blackboard’s patents and their social bookmarking site, Scholar.com. And at the end of the podcast, we share links to the best wiki software and sites on digital maps and books.

Featuring: Dan Cohen, Mills Kelly, Tom Scheinfeldt

Running time: 40:25

Download the .mp3