In the 2015 installment of the Digital Campus Year in Review podcast, regulars Dan Cohen, Amanda French, Tom Scheinfeldt, and Stephen Robertson look back at 2015 and predict the big news of 2016. Cheers went out to the NEH/Mellon Humanities Open Book Program, Congress (c.1965), the retirement of James Billington as Librarian of Congress, and the US Court of Appeals decision in favor of Google Books. Eliciting jeers were the Ad-blocker controversy, the behavior of Proquest (with Amanda dissenting), and the news that Jennifer Howard has left the higher education beat.

Much of what the group predicted for 2015 came to pass, to some extent: universities were hacked; SHARE developed; the push to learn to code continued; and Proquest and Gale moved to provide data mining access to their collections (at considerable additional cost to libraries). And, with the FAA moving to require that drones be registered, Mills’s prediction from 2013 that an Amazon drone will be shot down over Texas looks ever more likely. If you are impressed by those predictions, then in 2016 you should expect the Wu Tang Clan album to leak, Virtual Reality MOOCs to be launched, a digital humanist to win a Macarthur Fellowship, hypothes.is not to take off (or to enjoy the same success as DPLA), and emojis to replace text as our primary form of communication.

Related Links:

• NEH/Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program Grants: http://www.neh.gov/news/press-release/2015-12-17
• The work of the 1965 Congress:
  • The National Historic Preservation Act: http://preservation50.org/about/nhpa-history/
  • The National Endowment for the Arts: https://www.arts.gov/50th
  • The National Endowment for the Humanities: http://50.neh.gov
• The ad blocking controversy explained: http://www.vox.com/2015/9/18/9351759/ad-blocking-controversy
• In defense of Proquest: http://src-online.ca/index.php/src/article/view/226/448
• Why Are Universities Hacked? https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-are-universities-hacked
• SHARE: http://www.share-research.org
• Register Your Drone: https://www.faa.gov/uas/registration/
• Annotating All Knowledge [hypothes.is]: https://hypothes.is/annotating-all-knowledge/

Running time: 59:23

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The regulars (Stephen, Tom, Amanda, and Dan) are back for a new semester and a new season of Digital Campus in which we wave to Mills as he jaunts about Europe. We also talk about some of the summer and early autumn’s big news, including the NEH ODH’s project directors meeting, the 50th anniversary of the NEH, Librarian of Congress James Billington’s retirement, and the George Mason University History Department’s new digital dissertation guidelines. Other mentions include:

– UConn historical musical instruments project
– John Donne’s 1622 sermon for Gunpowder Day: Virtual Paul’s Cross Project
– NEH Anniversary Message from President Obama
– NEH Funding Levels, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Check back in two weeks for more from the world of digital humanities, libraries, and museums and to see where Mills lands on another episode of Digital Campus.

Running time: 47:32

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On this episode — #114, not #115 as Stephen mistakenly claims in the introduction — the full crew of regulars, Dan Cohen, Amanda French, Stephen Robertson and Tom Scheinfeldt discuss the MLA’s new repository, the AHA’s draft guidelines for assessing digital scholarship, and the tenth anniversary of YouTube. But first Dan talked about his visit to the White House, and Amanda described her new job as Director of Research and Informatics for the Virginia Tech Libraries. And Mills needed to know, did Dan wear an Apple watch to meet the President?

Related Links:

Open e-books initiative (or Dan goes to the White House) 

White House Fact Sheet

DPLA Blog Post

MLA CORE

MLA Commons Open Repository Exchange

Humanities CORE NEH-ODH Start-up Grant

AHA Guides on Assessing Digital Scholarship

AHA Blog Post

Guidelines for the Professional Evaluation of Digital Scholarship in History (PDF)

YouTube’s Tenth Anniversary

The very first YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw

Matt Schiavenza, “How YouTube Changed Journalism,” The Atlantic (February 14, 2015)

Running time: 52:24

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In this episode, regulars Mills Kelly, Dan Cohen, and Stephen Robertson were joined by special guest Sharon Leon, the Director of Public Projects at RRCHNM, along with the digital history fellows, Amanda Reagan and Stephanie Seal.  We picked up where we left off last week with a discussion about Twitter and academic freedom after the dismissal of tenured professor Steven Salaita from the University of Illinois. Then we moved to a discussion on the future of Learning Management Systems and their role in academic institutions, as well as praise for the new online journal JSTOR Daily. Our last topic of discussion surrounded the ever ongoing question of whether or not those in the digital humanities should to learn how to code.  This conversation was spurred by the new platform Exercism that teaches users to code by encouraging more experienced programmers to provide feedback on a user’s code.   We wrapped up the discussion with news from Sharon Leon about upcoming Omeka enhancements, upgrades, and features.

Links:

Academic Freedom and Twitter

• Denial of Job to Harsh Critic of Israel Divides Advocates of Academic Freedom — Chronicle of Higher Education

Educause Learning Management Systems Report

• LMSs by the Numbers – Spring 2014 Updates
• The Current Ecosystem of Learning Management Systems in Higher Education: Student, Faculty, and IT Perspectives
• Where Does the LMS Go From Here?

JSTOR Daily 

• JSTOR Daily
• New Online Journal Offers Daily Dips Into JSTOR’s Deep Archive

Exercism.io

• Out in the Open: The Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job

Omeka Enhancements, Upgrades, and New Features

• IMLS Funds Opening Omeka for Close and Distant Reading
• IMLS Funds Omeka Everywhere

Running time: 55:25
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In the absence of Amanda French, Dan, Tom, Mills and Stephen were assisted by only two Amandas.  Tom and Stephen kicked off this podcast with a discussion of new rules for the electronic management of government records and the implications of these new rules for transparency and historical access.  We then heard Dan’s thoughts on the Open Syllabus Project, which resulted in a discussion about how educators share or borrow from each others syllabi.  One of the questions raised was whether or not syllabus writers can claim copyright over their content, which segued nicely into a discussion of Blackboard’s new open source policies.  Our group noted open sourced does not necessarily mean open access.  Finally, the group celebrated the first birthday of the Digital Public Library of America and congratulated Dan on its success.

Big Changes in Store for the Future Management of Government Records

• http://blog.historians.org/2014/04/big-changes-store-future-management-government-records/#sthash.iaTcUFTk.dpuf

Blackboard’s acquisition of open source software

• http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases/Strategy-Update/Open-Letter.aspx
• http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/03/27/blackboard-buys-moodlerooms-creates-open-source-division#ixzz1qccBFsqC
• http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/digital-tweed/long-and-open-view-blackboard#sthash.ioEFvof6.dpbs

Open Syllabus Project

• http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/new-syllabus-archive-opens-the-curricular-black-box/51285
• http://opensyllabusproject.org/

Udacity charges for certificates

• http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/udacity-will-no-longer-offer-free-certificates/51757

DPLA’s 1st Birthday 

• http://dp.la/info/2014/04/17/dpla-1st-birthday-announcement/

Running time: 41:38
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• http://arthistory2014.doingdh.org/
• http://history2014.doingdh.org/

In this year-end roundup/predictions episode of our Digital Campus podcast, Stephen and special guest Sharon Leon jumped in on this year’s cheers and jeers, listing the best and worst stories and events of 2013, including praise for expansion of DH centers and digital collections, as well as critiques of Elsevier‘s recent actions and the impact of the government shutdown on educational institutions. Tom, Mills, Amanda, and Dan then reviewed the successes (there were a few!) and failures (oh, MOOCs…) of their respective predictions for 2013.

Once they’d finished assigning grades and debating near-misses, the group invited Sharon and Digital History Fellow Amanda Regan to join in on putting together a set of alternately optimistic and depressing predictions for 2014. Judging from these predictions, this coming year looks good for grad students working on digital dissertations and for those interested in expanding open access, but Amazon’s drones might want to look into bulletproof casings.

Special thanks to multimedia whiz Chris Preperato for the plethora of pertinent sound effects in this episode, as well as for ongoing work on the podcast.

Links:

Cheers:

• Google Books decision: https://chronicle.com/article/Judge-Hands-Google-a-Big/143059/
• JSTOR Swartz documents: http://docs.jstor.org
• Smithsonian 3D: http://3d.si.edu/

Jeers:

• Shutdown affects research: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/03/government-shutdown-curbs-academic-research-many-levels
• Elsevier takedowns: http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/posting-your-latest-article-you-might-have-to-take-it-down/48865
• Udacity moves to executive education: http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/academics-to-udacity-founder-told-ya

Predictions for 2013:

• EBook Sales in 2013: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/retailing/article/59194-signs-of-stability.html

Predictions for 2014:

• Affordable College Textbook Act: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s1704

Running time: 50:48
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For our hundredth anniversary episode, the digital history fellows divided up the 2007 episodes of Digital Campus and picked their favorite bits — listen to the result if you dare, and be transported back to the days when the iPhone was brand new, when Second Life was the Next Big Thing, and when you had to have an email address with a .edu TLD in order to use Facebook. Good times.

Many thanks to digital history fellows Ben Hurwitz, Jannelle Legg, Anne McDivitt, Amanda Morgan, Amanda Regan, and Spencer Roberts for choosing the clips, and many many thanks to audiovisual guru Chris Preperato for stitching them together.

Running time: 58:13
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Digital Campus is back! In the inaugural episode of the 2013-2014 school year, Tom, Dan, Mills, and Amanda welcomed RRCHNM’s new director Stephen Robertson and two of the Digital History Fellows, Amanda Morton and Amanda Regan. We began with the union between Google and edX, and the potential for change in the way that MOOC platforms are chosen, a discussion that included brief thoughts on Google Apps for Education and the collection of data on education. Moving on, we looked at the launch of a new platform for iPhone called Oyster, which offers a Netflix-like service for ebooks. The discussion revolved around what this new service might mean for the current state of textbook rental, deals with publishers, and efforts to combat the rising costs of textbooks. Mills suggested the possibility of a flat fee for a subscription to a semester worth of textbooks instead of students paying individually for ebooks.  We dug deeper into this topic with a discussion of the current state of ebook purchase and rental, citing the Kindle borrowing program as well as libraries’ offering ebooks through the Overdrive platform, and we wondered whether ebook subscriptions could be compared to movie and television streaming through services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video.

Finally, we took a quick look at Topsy, an analytical service that allows users to search tweets from the earliest days of Twitter, an option that brings up interesting questions about how historians (and educators!) can use Twitter as a historical source. There was some suggestion that the release of this tool might be connected to Twitter’s IPO offering.

This episode concluded with a briefing on the state of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media by the new director Stephen Robertson, which marks the introduction of a new segment narcissistically titled “Reports from the Center.” Tune in two weeks from now (we promise) for more.
Links:

• Google and EdX Press Release
• Inside Higher Ed, “EdX and Google Develop Open Source MOOC Platform”
• Chronicle of Higher Education, “Google and EdX Create a MOOC Site for the Rest of Us”
• InfoDocket, “Oyster, a Netflix-Like Service for Ebooks, Launches
• ZDNet, “Oyster Review”
• The Verge, “Topsy Lets You Search Every Tweet Sent”
• Google Apps for Education
• Oyster
• Topsy
• Twitter’s IPO offering

Related links:

• Inside Higher Ed, “After Weeks of Delays, San Jose State U Releases Research Report”
• “Power Searching with Google”
• Inside Higher Ed, “Feminist Professors Create Alternative MOOCs”

Running time: 45:49
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In another single-topic Digital Campus, we react to the news that Dan is headed to the Digital Public Library of America as its Executive Director (no tears, no tears) by forcing him to tell us all about it. Special guests on the podcast include Berkman Center and DPLA Technical Workstream member David Weinberger, author of Too Big to Know and Everything is Miscellaneous as well as Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows and The Big Switch. Issues raised include Internet centralization, the future of public libraries, and Mr. Potato Head.

Links
Nicholas Carr, “The Library of Utopia,” MIT Technology Review, April 25, 2012. Available at http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/427628/the-library-of-utopia/

Running time: 49:45
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