1 June 21, 2015 Shall We Dance? Issues & Opportunities in collaboratively- developed networked information Michael Roy, Director of Academic Computing Services & Digital Library Projects Wesleyan University

2 June 21, 2015 "It took only twenty five years for the overhead projector to make it from the bowling alley to the classroom. I'm optimistic about academic computing; I've begun to see computers in bowling alleys." --George Landow Hypertext: The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology, 1991

3 June 21, 2015

4 Overview › Framework for thinking about collaboration › 4 collaborative projects (3 of them from NITLE schools) ArtSTOR REALIA IDEAS LoLa Exchange › Issues, opportunities, and challenging alternative models for strategizing about networked information

5 June 21, 2015 Who are we in this room? supporters of supporters supporters casual users power users contributors organizers

6 June 21, 2015 Framework for thinking about collaborative ventures Is it relevant to my campus? Where did the idea come from? Who is using it? How are they using it? How are they assessing it? How big is it? How big will it be? What is the (business) model for sustainability? Is it of high quality? How does one get rewarded for contributing? How much does it cost? (Money, Support time, Development Time, Faculty time) Do the tools for manipulating the content work in a variety of educational settings? How does it integrate into the general computing environment?

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8 ArtSTOR › Who: Mellon/Ithaka › What: Hundreds of thousands of high- quality digital images, and software to work with those images (pan, zoom, compare, work-offline) › Where: › Why: To provide a means for colleges and universities to deliver high-quality images to their students in a cost-effective manner

9 June 21, 2015 ArtSTOR & NITLE › Seminars › Use-cases › Visual literacy › Digital Asset Management Strategies › Faculty reception of tools and content

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11 June 21, 2015 Introduction to Realia › Who: ACS, ACM, GLCA › What: REALIA: Rich Electronic Archive for Language Instruction Anywhere, Database developed through a collaboration of faculty, librarians and technologists from Global Partners institutions. (+/- 1,000 images) › Where:

12 June 21, 2015 Rationale for Realia Why: Strong mandate from language faculty Generation of visually-oriented students Authentic materials best promote cultural literacy Serves a multiplicity of student learners: images can serve at all levels of language instruction, in culture courses, in preparation for study abroad programs

13 June 21, 2015 Realia Philosophy › Archive significant images with cultural information and pedagogical suggestions › Ensure quality through peer-review and editorial assistance › Capture the present while preserving the past › Free for educational use

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15 June 21, 2015 IDEAS Who: Colorado College, Earlham College, Lake Forest College, St. Olaf College What: IDEAS Project: Image Database to Enhance Asian Studies (1,300 images) Where: How: ContentDM, MITC-support

16 June 21, 2015 What can I do with IDEAS? › Search by keyword: e.g., buddha, rice, "Great Wall"buddharice"Great Wall" › Use a clickable map to find all the images for a particular countryclickable map › Limit your search to a particular IDEAS collection (i.e., CC's Japanese Religions collection, Lake Forest's Indian Religions collection, etc.)IDEAS collection › Do an advanced search to find words in particular metadata fields, or to do more complex combined searchesadvanced search › Eventually the IDEAS Topic search will help people find images around a small "controlled vocabulary" of subject headings.IDEAS Topic › In the classroom: choose a group of images ahead of time and save to "My Favorites"; use these images to illustrate a lecture.My Favorites › As an assignment: have students choose images around a topic and write or present on those images.

17 June 21, 2015 How does IDEAS work? › ContentDM: IDEAS uses the digital collection management software CONTENTdm to store all the images and data, and to create the web interface for the database. CONTENTdm › Metadata document: It is impossible to find images in a database unless they have good "metadata," or descriptive information. The more uniform and accurate that metadata, the easier it should be for people to find things in the database. › MITC support: MITC, the Midwest Instructional Technology Center, has supported the project all along, funding the meetings, licensing CONTENTdm, hosting the web site, paying for student assistants, etc. They have also supplied expertise through their personnel, particularly Manuel Rendon and Alex Wirth-Cauchon.MITC

18 June 21, 2015 What are the future plans for IDEAS? › Refine the search and display of the website. › Refine the metadata standard to ensure accurate, consistent descriptions of images. › Add more images. › Work with faculty to understand how to make this a better tool for classroom use.

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20 June 21, 2015 LoLa Exchange › Who: Wesleyan, Connecticut College, Trinity College, and other NE schools › What: learning object referatory (40 items) › Where: › Why: Make Learning Objects and their uses more widely known

21 June 21, 2015 About… Learning Object Framework

22 June 21, 2015

23 June 21, 2015 LoLa Editorial Process Paid Cataloger Interested Unpaid User General editor Music Editors InfoLit Editors Music.lolaexchange.org Infolit.lolaexchange.org General Editors

24 June 21, 2015 lola dspace oai merlot worldcat metalib blackboard Google scholar LoLa Architecture

25 June 21, 2015 cms Fed search (metalib) merlot worldcat lola Google scholar artstor realia ideas Federated Search Architecture

26 June 21, 2015 Challenge: Discovery

27 June 21, 2015 Challenge: Metadata › Semantic search › Folksonomies (e.g flickr) › Google › Google images › Trove.net (RLG) › Lionshare (p2p) Is metadata worth all the trouble? What value does it really add? Who has time to create it?

28 June 21, 2015 Get current design

29 June 21, 2015 Over the last decade, American higher education has created a doughnut IT infrastructure: all periphery and no center. We have invested in the machinery but not in the teachers and the scholars to make that machinery worthwhile in the classroom and in scholarship. The massive investment in networks and computers will not pay off until we fill in the hole, until we work together to create content. From “Why IT Has Not Paid Off As We Hoped (Yet)” By Edward L. Ayers and Charles M. Grisham EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 38, no. 6 (November/December 2003): 40–51.

30 June 21, 2015 Thanks! › Slides (including references) at › Reach me: › Michael Roy