For this episode, Tom Scheinfeld led our podcast regulars, Dan Cohen, Stephen Robertson, Amanda French, and Mills Kelly, in a Halloween episode produced by Jordan Bratt and Jannelle Legg. After a brief discussion of Halloween plans, the group delved into the subject of copyright and creative commons as Dan described the DPLA’s involvement in an international rights meeting in Amsterdam. The discussion then led to the recent Harvard decision and the complexity of digital surrogates, creative commons, and institutional holdings. Next, Mills directed the group to the ongoing Georgia State E-reserves court case and the challenges facing public universities in the handling of copyright materials. From one scary topic to the next, Amanda introduced the subject of job interviews conducted at annual conferences and a recent publication by the MLA Executive Director, Rosemary Feal. Skype and other technologies were also addressed as the group reminisced about their experiences on both sides of the interview process. The podcast wrapped up with a shout out to a podcast listener, Allen Riddell and his Novels Project. Links: Harvard Library Lifts Restrictions on Digital Reproductions of Works in the Public Domain:

• https://osc.hul.harvard.edu/oaweek2014#publicdomain

Georgia State E-reserve and fair use court cases:

• http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/10/legislation/court-reverses-ruling-on-publishers-vs-georgia-state-e-reserve-case/

MLA Skype interviews:

• http://execdirector.commons.mla.org/2014/10/27/the-conference-interview-do-or-dont/

Running time: 54:10 Download the .mp3

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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Stephen Robertson hosted this episode and was joined by the whole crew of Dan Cohen, Amanda French, Mills Kelly, and Tom Scheinfeldt, as well as the digital history fellows, Anne Ladyem McDivitt and Alyssa Toby Fahringer, as producers. Important upcoming trends in digital humanities and educational technology were discussed, as well as the ongoing struggles of utilizing technologies on campus and their value to academia. The conversation then moved to the changing nature of Twitter. The group debated the usefulness of Twitter and the purpose it fulfills in an academic environment. Dan also laments his struggles with being the go-to historian for Answers.com.

Changes in Twitter

Straumsheim, Carl. “Twitter Has the Chatter.” Inside Higher Ed. August 19, 2014.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/08/19/study-scholars-are-present-professional-networks-engage-twitter
Chimero, Frank. “From the Porch to the Street.” August 26, 2014. http://frankchimero.com/blog/from-the-porch-to-the-street/

Jacobs, Alan. “The End of Big Twitter.” The New Atlantis. August 31, 2014. http://text-patterns.thenewatlantis.com/2014/08/the-end-of-big-twitter.html

Priego, Ernesto. “On the Public Humanities and the Reign of Opinion.” August 26, 2014. http://epriego.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/on-the-public-humanities-and-the-reign-of-opinion/

Rybak, Chuck. “DH Toe Dip: The Serendip-o-matic” August 28, 2014. http://www.sadiron.com/dh-toe-dip-the-serendip-o-matic/

Bright, Peter. “Twitpic to Shut Down Picture Sharing Service After Trademark Dispute with Twitter.” September 4, 2014. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/twitpic-to-shut-down-picture-sharing-service-after-trademark-dispute-with-twitter/

Jim Groom of Reclaim Hosting responded via blogpost to Tom Scheinfeldt’s suggestion that digital media cannot be taught in an online capacity: “Catching Up with Reclaim Hosting”

Running time: 45:57
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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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In this episode, Amanda, Stephen, Mills, and guest Joan Troyano were joined by Digital History Fellows Spencer Roberts and Anne Ladyem McDivitt. The first topic of discussion was the announcement of the American Historical Association’s $1.6 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, through which four history departments will restructure their doctoral programs to promote diverse career options for history PhDs. The conversation then moved to the lawsuit between Duke University Press and the Social Science History Association regarding ownership of the Social Science History journal. Finally, on a completely different note, we discussed wearable computing and the implications for digital humanities, which raised lots of questions, excitement, and confusion amongst the participants.

To conclude the episode, Joan provided an update from the PressForward project at CHNM, including the upcoming release of their new WordPress plugin.

Related Links:

History PhD being Redesigned?

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/03/20/historians-association-and-four-doctoral-programs-start-new-effort-broaden-phd

http://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/current-projects/career-diversity-for-historians/the-many-careers-of-history-phds

http://blog.historians.org/2014/03/aha-receives-grant-expand-career-tracks-history-phds/

Duke UP and Social Science History association lawsuit over ownership of journal

http://chronicle.com.mutex.gmu.edu/article/Dispute-Over-Who-Will-Publish/145307/

http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2014/03/18/more-than-meets-the-eye/

http://publichistorycommons.org/update-on-the-journal/

Advances in Wearable Computing

Google Smart Watch
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/google-introduces-a-smart-watch/?_php=true&_type=blogs&partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

Recently published book, Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History with Technology – http://www.press.umich.edu/6025015/pastplay

Bill Turkel’s Humanities Fabrication and Physical Computing: http://williamjturkel.net/

Thingiverse: http://thingiverse.com

Report from the Center

http://pressforward.org/the-pressforward-plugin/

Running time: 52:28
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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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In this, the first episode of the new Digital Campus century, Mills, Stephen, and Amanda were joined by two new Digital History Fellows, Spencer Roberts and Anne Ladyem McDivitt. Our first story is possibly the most important in Digital Campus history: the Google Books lawsuit has ended (until the appeals). At long last, the court decided that Google’s digitizing project was within fair use law and practice, clearing the way for the digitization work to continue. In addition to the legal significance, it means we can STOP TALKING ABOUT THE GOOGLE BOOKS LAWSUIT. It’s such a shame Dan wasn’t with us to chip in his four cents on the subject. Probably because we needed a new legal topic, we then discussed policies on digital first sale, which will determine how digital content is purchased, distributed, and shared, and speculated about how the first sale policy will affect the practice of buying and reselling textbooks, especially considering recent proposals for open, online textbooks. And in case no one noticed, we reminded listeners that the recent US government shut down did, in fact, make a number of government websites that scholars depend on go dark. One government agency doing some pretty cool stuff these days is the Smithsonian, which has launched a project to digitize and then facilitate the 3D printing of artifacts in their collections. And finally, we expressed our shock and outrage that 90% of students use their mobile devices in class for non-class activities. Can you imagine?

Related Links:

Google Books court decision

Digital first sale policy discussion

Open, online textbooks

Government websites shutdown

Smithsonian digitizing and printing 3D artifacts

Digitizing heritage sites

Newsflash: Students Use Mobiles in Class

Running time: 48:30
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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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Tom, Dan, Mills, Amanda, and Stephen returned for this week’s episode of Digital Campus, joined by Digital History Fellows Ben Hurwitz and Jannelle Legg. We began by discussing a JSTOR’s new individual subscription offering, JPASS, which allows individual users access to more than 1500 journals for a monthly fee of $19.50 or $199 annually. While our panel commended JSTOR’s efforts, Mills expressed concern that the cost of subscription will effectively prohibit JSTOR’s target audience (including adjunct faculty) from access. Amanda pointed out that while JSTOR access has been greatly expanded through library and other institutional subscriptions, many people are unaware of the ways they can currently receive free access. The discussion then moved to “Signals,” a performance monitoring software from Purdue University. Signals is a data-mining program which collects information about individual students such as time spent in online assignments, completion of homework, and performance on quizzes and tests. This information is used to alert students to areas of strength and weakness within their academic schedule. While the program is showing early signs of success, the panel was concerned that this type of program will not encourage students to develop independent study skills.

Next, the group examined the growing complexity of free speech on the internet with two recent news stories. In the first, Facebook ‘likes’ were found to be protected by a fourth circuit appeals court in a case involving a newly re-elected Sheriff and six fired deputies. The second story involved a tenured journalism professor at the University of Kansas that was put on leave as a result of a controversial a tweet. Our final news story concerned the digital footprint that shadows us on the web. In this story a law in California requires the creation of an “eraser button” for minors. The aim is to give users under 18 the ability to delete content from websites, apps and online services. While some contended that the erasure of some data, particularly on popular sites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, could be effective – our hosts expressed skepticism that these imprints can fully be erased from the internet. To conclude, Patrick Murray-John delivered a report from the Center about the release of the Omeka API, which will allow users to connect Omeka with other platforms.

NOTE: I mistakenly said that Patrick Murray-John is the Lead Developer for Omeka. Patrick Murray-John is the Omeka Dev Team Manager; John Flatness is the Lead Developer. See http://omeka.org/about/staff/. — Amanda

Links to Stories Discussed:

JSTOR individual passes – http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/09/digital-libraries/jstor-launches-jpass-access-accounts-for-individual-researchers/

Coursework nagging software “Signals” at Purdue apparently increases graduation rates – http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/purdue-u-software-prompt-students-to-study-and-graduate/46853

Court rules that Facebook “likes” are free speech –  http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/18/4744288/appeals-court-rules-that-facebook-likes-are-protected-as-free-speech

Kansas professor suspended after tweet – http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/23/u-kansas-professor-suspended-after-anti-nra-tweet

“Delete-button” for minors in California – http://gizmodo.com/why-californias-new-web-wide-delete-button-for-teens-w-1377730365

Related Links:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/27/fat-shaming-professor-geoffrey-miller_n_3509505.html

http://omeka.org/

Running time: 50:39
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