Jean Burgess on the AoIR Listserv has put together a quick summary of people doing research on YouTube:
http://creativitymachine.net/2007/06/15/youtube-research-gazette/
Another good discussion on the "Layers of the Net" is also taking place. Here are some of the sources for the "original" discussion of the layers of the net (this list is pasted here more so I don't forget too):
1) Abbate's Inventing the Internet
2) M. A. Padlipsky's The Elements of Networking Style:
http://www.lafn.org/~ba213/mapstuff.html
3) Yochai Benkler talks about a Physical, Logical and Content layer:
http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.php?title=11._The_Battle_Over_the_Institutional_Ecology_of_the_Digital_Environment
4) The 5 layer TCP/IP model is defined in the early 1970's at ARPA (Vint Cerf):
Cerf, V., and R. Kahn, "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication", IEEE Transactions on Communications, Vol. COM-22, No. 5, pp 637-648, May 1974.
5) The 7 layer OSI model: http://www.comsoc.org/livepubs/50_journals/pdf/RightsManagement_eid=136833.pdf
Here's another book I should read too (from the AoIR list):
Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines, by Steve Talbott http://www.knowprose.com/node/17646
Friday, 15 June 2007
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
Congress of the Humanities 2007: Society for Digital Humanities Sessions
At the Congress of the Humanities in Saskatchewan, I attended several sessions at the Society for Digital Humanities (SDH) conference: http://www.sdh-semi.org/conference2007.php. I was actually in Saskatoon to present at Canadian Communication Association sessions, but that didn't stop me from hitting the Digital Humanities and the Canadian Political Science Association conference before I presented later in the week at the CCA. I like to keep up on what is happening in those areas during my spare time, because my MA was in Humanities Computing and I'm now teaching in a Politics Department.
The SDH conference started earlier than the CCA conference, so I was able to see most of its presenters on the last day. The fact that there were no concurrent panels also helped.
Geoffrey Rockwell and Sean Gouglas (who was channeling Stéfan Sinclair because he was unable to attend) described some threats that are facing the Digital Humanities as a developing research field. Google was one of the more pressing threats that were mentioned on a few occasions. Google's ability to create textual tools and their massive server farm are making digitization projects question how to proceed into the future when GoogleBooks is pretty much taking on the project of digitizing everything; however, Google's commercialization imperative limits the tools they are developing, and how public's access to the digitized works are being filtered.
I'm more inclined to believe that this "crisis" narrative is the same one that is facing the Arts, Computer Sciences, and Information Studies, as well as many other newer disciplines and fields as a general malaise of the interdisciplinary shift in the university. The new media shift is placing all fields into technology's house, so to speak. I'm inclined to think what is unique about the Digital Humanities is the community of scholars and their tool platforms. The group of people are the discipline, and the social network is reflected in the tools they create and share -- perhaps the Digital Humanities is one of the first "new" disciplines that reflects the digital social network paradigm shift (like the Association of Internet Researchers), rather than the traditional physical space of a department in a university.
Also, for the moment, Google will most likely keep developing and mostly digitizing the commercial books as their focus, before targeting the Humanities in my opinion. They may have the storage capacity to digitize and save texts, but the process of digitizing books will slow them down for some time, despite their nifty digitizaing machines. Google Analytics may also be offering some textual analysis tools, but I believe the Digital Humanities will always need to develop their own set of tools and be critical of the commercial tools that exist.
Something else that differed in the Digital Humanities Conference from the CCA and CPSA was the fact that I did not hear any talk of supporting Net Neutrality here; however, the support for Open Source code and Open documents was apparent. Geoffrey Rockwell, indeed, ended his talk by emphasizing the opportunity to work with Google so that some the Digital Humanities might be able to coordinate tools that would help in the analysis of literary and artistic texts. This is something the other conferences would never consider.
Again, in contrast, the CPSA is still very traditional in its political science focus, and I saw no informational politics covered at the conference. There were scholars interested in IP Law and Net Neutrality, but this was more attached to SSHRC issues of developing research, not technologically themed papers. This looks like an opportunity for the CPSA to open up their doors to a new generation of research.
Other sessions at the SDH focused on new techniques of annotating texts using database techniques and how to prepare books for digitization. Geoffrey Rockwell's blog covers these sessions well. I found the Gouglas and Rockwell talk to be the most engaging in terms of my own research on narrative networks though.
The SDH conference started earlier than the CCA conference, so I was able to see most of its presenters on the last day. The fact that there were no concurrent panels also helped.
Geoffrey Rockwell and Sean Gouglas (who was channeling Stéfan Sinclair because he was unable to attend) described some threats that are facing the Digital Humanities as a developing research field. Google was one of the more pressing threats that were mentioned on a few occasions. Google's ability to create textual tools and their massive server farm are making digitization projects question how to proceed into the future when GoogleBooks is pretty much taking on the project of digitizing everything; however, Google's commercialization imperative limits the tools they are developing, and how public's access to the digitized works are being filtered.
I'm more inclined to believe that this "crisis" narrative is the same one that is facing the Arts, Computer Sciences, and Information Studies, as well as many other newer disciplines and fields as a general malaise of the interdisciplinary shift in the university. The new media shift is placing all fields into technology's house, so to speak. I'm inclined to think what is unique about the Digital Humanities is the community of scholars and their tool platforms. The group of people are the discipline, and the social network is reflected in the tools they create and share -- perhaps the Digital Humanities is one of the first "new" disciplines that reflects the digital social network paradigm shift (like the Association of Internet Researchers), rather than the traditional physical space of a department in a university.
Also, for the moment, Google will most likely keep developing and mostly digitizing the commercial books as their focus, before targeting the Humanities in my opinion. They may have the storage capacity to digitize and save texts, but the process of digitizing books will slow them down for some time, despite their nifty digitizaing machines. Google Analytics may also be offering some textual analysis tools, but I believe the Digital Humanities will always need to develop their own set of tools and be critical of the commercial tools that exist.
Something else that differed in the Digital Humanities Conference from the CCA and CPSA was the fact that I did not hear any talk of supporting Net Neutrality here; however, the support for Open Source code and Open documents was apparent. Geoffrey Rockwell, indeed, ended his talk by emphasizing the opportunity to work with Google so that some the Digital Humanities might be able to coordinate tools that would help in the analysis of literary and artistic texts. This is something the other conferences would never consider.
Again, in contrast, the CPSA is still very traditional in its political science focus, and I saw no informational politics covered at the conference. There were scholars interested in IP Law and Net Neutrality, but this was more attached to SSHRC issues of developing research, not technologically themed papers. This looks like an opportunity for the CPSA to open up their doors to a new generation of research.
Other sessions at the SDH focused on new techniques of annotating texts using database techniques and how to prepare books for digitization. Geoffrey Rockwell's blog covers these sessions well. I found the Gouglas and Rockwell talk to be the most engaging in terms of my own research on narrative networks though.
Sunday, 3 June 2007
Infoscape Lab Media Coverage
The Toronto Star's Susan Delacourt included a nice section in the Saturday paper on the Infoscape Lab's findings from last week: http://www.thestar.com/News/article/220723
Wednesday, 9 May 2007
Suspending Students: Supplement
I guess I could supplement my previous comment with an actual case of student free speech:
York settles with student who was banned over protest
By ELIZABETH CHURCH [Education Reporter]
The Globe and Mail [Toronto]
Tue 8 May 2007, Page A10
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070508.SETTLEMENT08/TPStory/
National
York settles with student who was banned over protest
By ELIZABETH CHURCH [Education Reporter]
The Globe and Mail [Toronto]
Tue 8 May 2007, Page A10
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070508.SETTLEMENT08/TPStory/
National
YouTube Revenue Sharing
YouTube has started to offer revenue sharing with its prolific original content creators -- see the story here:
http://www.youtube.com/blog
Does this mean that Political Parties and Bloggers will now begin to make some money for their actions (or were they already a part of "YouTube's professional content partners")?
http://www.youtube.com/blog
Does this mean that Political Parties and Bloggers will now begin to make some money for their actions (or were they already a part of "YouTube's professional content partners")?
Geist on Facebook (in the Toronto Star)
I agree with most of Micheal Geist's Toronto Star article http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1925/135/; however, I have to quibble with the point concerning the students being suspended. I think the point of their suspension was that their "conversation" was not out of earshot, and what a better time to let them know in life that on-line documents can easily be made public, unlike conversations (unless they are recorded). Also, we do not know the full extent of these students' school files, so that leaves the reason for their suspensions open to some speculation. My point is that all K-12 schools and universities have Student Codes of Conduct, and one of the key components is that students can not make their school look bad.
When I was in high school, I certainly remember students being suspended for things they said in conversations, especially if the school administration was in earshot. I can't see how this is any different, or how it should be a protected part of free speech, especially when education, in many ways, aims to foster civilized and respectful cultural behaviour acceptable for life and success beyond the walls of the institution. In this instance, a warning and an apology might have sufficed, but really the suspension is not something out of line with previous practices given that the students were on a network with the schools name on it. In fact, I can’t think of a better way for students to learn this lesson en masse than a harsh penalty being made to ensure that they understand what the limits and boundaries are of privacy, and also how principles are used to ensure a safe, secure, open and inclusive learning environment.
A story on this issue can be found here: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=479f0b59-d37a-4797-9aff-b99bf3957fec&k=65802
When I was in high school, I certainly remember students being suspended for things they said in conversations, especially if the school administration was in earshot. I can't see how this is any different, or how it should be a protected part of free speech, especially when education, in many ways, aims to foster civilized and respectful cultural behaviour acceptable for life and success beyond the walls of the institution. In this instance, a warning and an apology might have sufficed, but really the suspension is not something out of line with previous practices given that the students were on a network with the schools name on it. In fact, I can’t think of a better way for students to learn this lesson en masse than a harsh penalty being made to ensure that they understand what the limits and boundaries are of privacy, and also how principles are used to ensure a safe, secure, open and inclusive learning environment.
A story on this issue can be found here: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=479f0b59-d37a-4797-9aff-b99bf3957fec&k=65802
Sunday, 6 May 2007
New Publications / Summer Plans 2007
I’ve had some great news in the past few weeks. First off, I’ve had a few articles published:
1) Elmer, Greg, Peter Malachy Ryan, Zachary Devereaux, Ganaele Langlois, Fenwick McKelvey, and Joanna Redden. “Election Bloggers: Methods for Determining Political Influence.” First Monday (April 2007): click here.
2) Ryan, Peter Malachy. “Computer Geek Erotica: We know about the Red Pill, but was the Blue Pill Viagra?” Graduate Student Article Competition. Ryerson University, 2007: click here.
Also, my summer is shaping up to be quite full. I’ve been accepted to the following two summer institutes:
1) Oxford Internet Institute at Harvard Berkman Law School:
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/teaching/sdp/
2) Digital Humanities Summer Institute in Victoria:
http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/institute/index.php
In other words, I’m going to be quite busy until the end of July. Of course, now that my Blog is back up and running, I'll write all about it.
1) Elmer, Greg, Peter Malachy Ryan, Zachary Devereaux, Ganaele Langlois, Fenwick McKelvey, and Joanna Redden. “Election Bloggers: Methods for Determining Political Influence.” First Monday (April 2007): click here.
2) Ryan, Peter Malachy. “Computer Geek Erotica: We know about the Red Pill, but was the Blue Pill Viagra?” Graduate Student Article Competition. Ryerson University, 2007: click here.
Also, my summer is shaping up to be quite full. I’ve been accepted to the following two summer institutes:
1) Oxford Internet Institute at Harvard Berkman Law School:
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/teaching/sdp/
2) Digital Humanities Summer Institute in Victoria:
http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/institute/index.php
In other words, I’m going to be quite busy until the end of July. Of course, now that my Blog is back up and running, I'll write all about it.
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