Carleton College Digital Scholarship Team Reading time ~1 minute

#SourcesProcessingPresenting

Carleton College Digital Scholarship Team Reading time ~9 minutes

“About Katherine A. Rowe | William & Mary.” Accessed May 23, 2018. https://www.wm.edu/about/administration/presidentelect/about/index.php.

Not exactly an article, but I noticed that the new William and Mary president is not only a Carleton grad and the founder of Syzygy (!) but also the founder of a company that makes apps for the study of Shakespearean texts and a huge example of success in the Digital Humanities. Rowe appears to be the perfect example of the academic combination of technology and humanities.

Angwin, Julia, and Hannes Grassegger. “Facebook’s Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men from Hate Speech But Not Black Children.” ProPublica (blog), June 28, 2017. https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hate-speech-censorship-internal-documents-algorithms.

Julia Angwin and Hannes Grassenger outline the electronic bias between white men and people of color, regardless of validity of argument in extremely clear terms. Though there obviously should clearly be a difference between a person of color calling for change in institutionalized racism and a white person calling for the systematic death of all people of a religion, recent news makes it seem as if this is a change that we still must wait for (i.e. transgender model Munroe Bergdorf being removed from a makeup campaigns for her comments in response to the Charlottesville riots).

Buolamwini, Joy. The Coded Gaze: Unmasking Algorithmic Bias, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=162VzSzzoPs.

This piece actually reminds me of this mini documentary from the Digital Ethics folder in Zotero. It's kind of a dramatic retelling of this exact problem (how AI can include some but exclude others) by Joy Buolamwini, who calls herself the Poet of Code. At the same time, it's a call to coders and inventors to "incode" or create technology more inclusively.

Cottom, Tressie McMillan. Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy. New York: The New Press, 2017.

This book, unfortunately, is checked out of the Carleton library. However, I'm looking forward to reading it when it's returned, as it seems like a very important issue, especially considering most for-profit colleges operate online. What is the line here— should internet providers monitor these for-profit colleges knowing that some operate largely on a system of fraud?

Editor-at-large, Analysis By Chris Cillizza, CNN. “How the Senate’s Tech Illiteracy Saved Mark Zuckerberg.” CNN. Accessed April 11, 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/10/politics/mark-zuckerberg-senate-hearing-tech-illiteracy-analysis/index.html.

Disclaimer: not from a tech insider, but worth reading about: Zuckerberg defends Facebook's data compromising while many senators seem to find it hard to nail down exactly the issues with Facebook's slippery ethical standpoint. Though senators were not truly as terrible as Twitter may be making the situation seem (some senators, at least, had valid and relevant questions for Zuckerberg), the overall point made clear to the world today is that the government seems to lack the skills it needs to regulate these confusing and choppy waters.

Eskénazi, Maxine. “Crowdsourcing for Speech Processing: Applications to Data Collection, Transcription and Assessment.” In Crowdsourcing for Speech Processing, edited by xine Eskénazi, Gina-Anne Levow, Helen Meng, Gabriel Parent, and David Suendermann, 1–7. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2013. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118541241.ch1/summary.

Eskenazi explores the realities of crowdsourcing when the crowd seeks compensation. For my own research purposes, this article provides some good quotes on how crowdsource transcription should effectively work, and in terms of my future work could help explain crowdsource transcription, not in my own words.

Estes, Adam Clark. “The Guy Who Invented Those Annoying Password Rules Now Regrets Wasting Your Time.” Gizmodo. Accessed September 7, 2017. http://gizmodo.com/the-guy-who-invented-those-annoying-password-rules-now-1797643987.

This article is a long-form critique on the technological trends that can actually make things harder, unlike most technological trends. By proving the entanglement of the larger technological world in the process of creating longer, yet easier to crack passwords, it encourages readers to stay critical.

Fort, Kären, Gilles Adda, and K. Breonnel Cohen. “Amazon Mechanical Turk: Gold Mine or Coal Mine?” Last Words, 2011. http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/COLI_a_00057.

Researchers explore the ethical implications of using a website like Amazon Mechanical Turk in academic settings; for example, the researchers explore the type of people that use MTurk, but also the ramifications of such a website both on users’ lives, and also the current gig economy, by looking at user and requester experience.

Hill, Kashmir. “How Facebook Figures Out Everyone You’ve Ever Met.” Gizmodo. Accessed April 18, 2018. https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-figures-out-everyone-youve-ever-met-1819822691.

This article explores the strange reality of the "Do You Know....?"function on Facebook, which suggests users to befriend, users who are sometimes eerily too close to home. It also explores the fact that there some people who are not on Facebook are given "Ghost Profiles" as placeholders to connect more Facebook account-holding users.

Hindman, Matthew. “How Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook Targeting Model Really Worked – According to the Person Who Built It.” The Conversation. Accessed April 3, 2018. http://theconversation.com/how-cambridge-analyticas-facebook-targeting-model-really-worked-according-to-the-person-who-built-it-94078.

Though this article is a little bit techy and mathy, it highlights some interesting points about the abillity of companies like Cambridge Analytica to continue to collect far more data than we may expect, from one of the creators of the infrastructure themselves. Full disclosure, the article is not written by someone within the tech industry BUT it does get a good narrative about the realities of this breach from someone who understands it really, really well and is able to relay it in terms that non-tech people can understand.

JD. “Keeping Your Files Safe in Google’s Cloud - The New York Times.” Accessed November 15, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/technology/personaltech/security-google-cloud.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FComputer%20Security%20(Cybersecurity)&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection&_r=0.

Kirk, Anne, Tara Carlisle, Quinn Dombrowski, Erin Glass, Tassie Gniady, Jason Jones, Joan Lippincott, et al. “Building Capacity for Digital Humanities: A Framework for Institutional Planning.” EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research (ECAR), May 30, 2017. https://library.educause.edu/resources/2017/5/building-capacity-for-digital-humanities-a-framework-for-institutional-planning.

Kirk, Carlisle, Dombrowski et. al. illustrate the structures that Digital Humanities can be found within on college campuses. In my opinion, digital humanities at Carleton operates either through a "mesh network" model or a "consortial" model. The mesh model reminded me of Carleton's program as digital scholarship at Carleton draws from many different pools of academia. However, I do see Carleton's program as similar to a consortial model, as well, as it seems to have developed organically and without a "game plan," so to speak-- it simply operates as it does.

Leroi, Armand Marie. “Opinion | One Republic of Learning.” The New York Times, February 13, 2015, sec. Opinion. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/14/opinion/digitizing-the-humanities.html.

I'm including this article to send to anyone who asks me in the future what “digital humanities” actually means. It defines the field both succinctly and beautifully (one excellent quotation: digital humanities "transforms texts from caterpillars into butterflies") and also outlines the potential that the field offers, although I'm not completely sold on the author's point that perhaps digital humanities will be the end of the division of academia; rather, I see digital humanities as more of a bridge between the two, STEM and Humanities.

Owens, Trevor. “Digital Cultural Heritage and the Crowd.” Curator: The Museum Journal 56, no. 1 (January 1, 2013): 121–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12012.

Owens explores the reality of cultural heritage and the reliance they place on the public sphere to do work, in museums in particular. This poses an interesting dilemma for those working in the humanities in museums, which offer ample opportunities for visitor participation: when is user participation more applicable as “work” rather than contribution?

Reyburn, Scott. “How Important Is Art History in Today’s Market?” The New York Times, October 29, 2016, sec. Arts. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/29/arts/design/how-important-is-art-history-in-todays-market.html.

The title might be misleading (and obviously, it is what caught my eye) but the interest here is Hans Obrist, the artistic director of Serpentine Galleries in London (and, by the way, the man known as the most powerful individual in the art world). Firstly, Obrist has recorded over 2,000 hours of interviews and posted them online for everyone to access on Tumblr (a fairly accessible platform). He also co-founded 89plus.com, a website that curates modern artists. His work, combining both art and technology, is what gives him an edge as a modern curator (along with his insatiable drive), and his work is, in a word, fascinating.

Riesenberger, Nicole. “Museums, Show Your Collection Some Love (Part 1).” Uxdesign.Cc (blog), August 28, 2017. https://medium.com/@NRiesenberger/museums-show-your-collection-some-love-part-1-74406bbc12ee.

Reading this, I think that the article does raise some interesting points about accessibility and usability. More importantly, I wonder how accessibility can be changed for a museum website-- for example, how can a blind person view a website that is centered around a visual experience? These challenges are nothing new, of course; museums have dealt with the dilemma of providing experiences for blind and deaf visitors for decades. However, in the digital world, how do we keep these gates open for everyone?

Singer, Natasha, and Danielle Ivory. “How Silicon Valley Plans to Conquer the Classroom.” The New York Times, November 3, 2017, sec. Technology. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/technology/silicon-valley-baltimore-schools.html.

"Tech firms are deploying sophisticated marketing techniques to try to sell their wares into America’s schools." The final frontier for tech companies seems to be outfitting schools, particularly charter schools and other low-income education centers, with the latest technology.

Valentino-DeVries, Jennifer. “Hundreds of Apps Can Empower Stalkers to Track Their Victims.” The New York Times, May 19, 2018, sec. Technology. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/technology/phone-apps-stalking.html.

The New Yor kTimes' Jennifer Valentino-DeVries explores the next step beyond data incriminated by Facebook-- an app that gives individuals the ability to track others, a power that goes as far as to reading the deleted texts on another's phone. In general, this article is about the huge technical understanding gap between lawmakers and the tech industry which poses a lot of problems for the modern user, as we still strive to find the line between legal and illega in the digital world.

Wong, Julia Carrie. “I Was One of the First People on Facebook. I Shouldn’t Have Trusted Mark Zuckerberg | Julie Carrie Wong.” the Guardian, April 17, 2018. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/17/facebook-people-first-ever-mark-zuckerberg-harvard.

Lately anything in the news related to anything digital has been overshadowed vastly by the Facebook dramatics, but this is an interesting article by a woman who attended Harvard at the same time that Mark Zuckerberg did, and witnessed the spread of whtat she calls "the virus" of Facebook. A technology reporter, her grasp of the situation is at once personal and situational, and she explains the circumstances both as they are relative to her and relative to us.

Zhitomirsky-Geffet, Maayan, Barbara H. Kwaśnik, Julia Bullard, Lala Hajibayova, Juho Hamari, and Timothy Bowman. “Crowdsourcing Approaches for Knowledge Organization Systems: Crowd Collaboration or Crowd Work?” Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology 53, no. 1 (January 1, 2016): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.2016.14505301013.

The panelists of this article raise ethical questions of finding good data in a world that can rely heavily on unqualified individuals. The crux of the issue lies in whether or not data that is sourced from a crowd can be considered contribution or should be considered work on behalf of the organizers. It is a question I considered frequently this year working with projects like the DIY history survey as well as the Canvas; do projects that need a crowd's help require authorship for the crowd? Or is a crowd's participation enough of a sign-off?

Carleton College Digital Scholarship Team Reading time ~3 minutes

“Authors’ Note: Deep Neural Networks Are More Accurate than Humans at Detecting Sexual Orientation from Facial Images.” Google Docs. Accessed September 12, 2017.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11oGZ1Ke3wK9E3BtOFfGfUQuuaSMR8AO2WfWH3aVke6U/preview?sle=true&usp=embed_facebook
The article raises raises the concerning issues about how use of technology such as the current facial recognition ones could increase discrimination and exploitation of certain minorities. It connects me to the debate in the tech industry (e.g. Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg) about whether AI can overpower humans. It is very important that while technology can make our lives simpler, it could also make it worse if not used in the right way.

Buolamwini, Joy. “Algorithms Aren’t Racist. Your Skin Is Just Too Dark.” Medium (blog), May 29, 2017.
https://medium.com/@Joy.Buolamwini/algorithms-arent-racist-your-skin-is-just-too-dark-4ed31a7304b8
I think this article does a really good job of promoting neutral and inclusive technology after all people design these technologies. As an aspiring software engineer, it is an important life lesson to think beyond just coding AIs and make technology serve everyone equally. The example of the camera setting being raised against dark skinned is very powerful as it is something that we can quickly familiarize to, but the bigger picture sends a very clear message about making technology accessible to all people without inherent bias. The two articles mentioned above motivated me to strive to design web pages that are accessible and non-discriminatory against minorities.

“Digital Globalization: The New Era of Global Flows,” n.d.
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/digital-globalization-the-new-era-of-global-flows
The article refutes the idea that globalization has stalled but rather states that it is entering a new era of increased digital flows of data and information that are increasing its shares dramatically in today’s global economy. Reading this article made me think about the issues such as fake news and its impact, not only domestically but also transnationally. As digital scholar intern, we strive to display content from reliable sources, and educate people about judging different contents.

Enten, Harry. “Fake Polls Are A Real Problem.” FiveThirtyEight (blog), August 22, 2017.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fake-polls-are-a-real-problem/
I chose this article because as a digital scholarship intern, we strive to display reliable contents with as much transparency about the details of the source. It is very important as readers to know where the sources of the contents are from and how reliable they are. Fake news such as the poll in the article can have serious consequences to the population and we should try to avoid such contents. This has further reminded me of the importance of accessibility features like Alt texts that will allow people with disabilities to know the source and its contents and judge the reliability of the information.
 

“The Art of ALT: Toward a More Accessible Web.” Computers and Composition 18, no. 1 (January 1, 2001): 73–81.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S8755-4615(00)00049-9
The article talks about accessible web designs especially referencing to the 1999 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It says that a Web experience designed to be rich and meaningful for people with disabilities is likely to be rich and meaningful for those without disabilities as well; however, the reverse is not necessarily true. It also talks about the art of ALT and how it can facilitate good experience for people using screen readers and talking browsers. This has helped me know more about Alt text and the ways in which I can incorporate it in the themes that I am customizing.

“How to Give Kind Criticism, and Avoid Being Critical : Zen Habits.” Accessed August 25, 2017.
https://zenhabits.net/how-to-give-kind-criticism-and-avoid-being-critical/
This article talks about how to give criticism with kindness and have a decent chance of having the person take it constructively. This is crucial especially as web developers, working in teams to give constructive feedbacks to each other’s action, without directly attacking the person.

Jia, Grace. “10 Essential UI/UX Design Questions for Interview.” Grace Jia (blog), March 7, 2017.
https://medium.com/@gracejia/10-essential-ui-ux-design-questions-for-interview-53acf8b65a12
As a front-end developer, the essential skills are designing excellent UI design works. The article talks about communication as a very important skill, specifically, the ability to design good works and ask right questions as indispensable for UI/UX designers. Knowing your readers, improving upon the faults of the earlier design and using extensive feedback mechanisms are things that I use when working on Omeka themes.

Carleton College Digital Scholarship Team Reading time ~14 minutes

Blanding, Michael. “Plagiarism Software Unveils a New Source for 11 of Shakespeare’s Plays.” The New York Times, February 7, 2018, sec. Books. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/books/plagiarism-software-unveils-a-new-source-for-11-of-shakespeares-plays.html
This article demonstrates how technology allows scholars to come up with finds they never would have otherwise. Who would have thought that we could see what inspired Shakespeare to write the plays we did and that it was all from one source. I thought this was an amazing demonstration of the power of digital humanities and made me appreciate the field so much more.

Campbell-Dollaghan, Kelsey, Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan, and Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan. “Designers, It’s Time To Move Slowly And Fix Things.” Co.Design, November 27, 2017. https://www.fastcodesign.com/90152218/designers-its-time-to-move-slowly-and-fix-things
The engineers who work at Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites have a huge weight on their shoulders. Their little changes to designs can potentially affect the whole world since world leaders, powerful CEOs, bullies, and trolls are using these designs. This problem extends to the rest of the internet as well because many things are designed, built, and released regardless of the consequences. This doesn’t make for a very responsible culture for designers, something also pointed out by Jade E. Davis. While this rule-free net offers numerous creative opportunities, designers have the authority and responsibility to prevent products from being needlessly invasive, addictive, dishonest, or harmful. However, the article points out that in many, many cases they’re failing at that right now. Their main message that “if the past 20 years of tech represent the Move Fast and Break Things era, now it’s time to slow down and take stock of what’s broken," teaches me that people’s lives and minds are at stake when designing a product and that when I’m building software, I need to make sure it’s done responsibly.

 “The Rise Of Green UX.” Co.Design, April 12, 2018. https://www.fastcodesign.com/90167803/the-rise-of-green-ux
It is fascinating and disheartening to think that the internet of things’ consumes vast amounts of energy by design. Before this I’d never heard about Green UX. It is good to hear though that user-centric design is good for the planet because that’s what we should all be aiming for anyways: negligence always creates many costs. It also makes me wonder whether I should delete all the digital clutter that I keep on Google Drive. I like having my old essays and files from high school there for me to access when I need it, particularly after I lost much of my data that I had left local on my laptop, but apparently it’s bad for the environment to adhere to such practices.

Chen, Sui-Lee Wee and Elsie. “Personal Data of 346,000 People, Hung on a Museum Wall in China,” April 13, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/technology/china-personal-data-museum.html
This is a striking article because it shows the many ways individuals can address the complex problem of data privacy. It is shocking how Mr. Deng bought so much information for only $800, with each person’s data being worth a tenth of a penny. Having our data worth that little shows how much our privacy is valued. It is also disturbing to hear how much individuals in China suffer from targeted calls with their data used so freely and opens my eyes to the potential consequences of what could happen if data privacy grows worse in the U.S.A.

Cohen, Patricia. “Humanities Scholars Embrace Digital Technology.” The New York Times, November 16, 2010, sec. Arts. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/arts/17digital.html
This article defines “Digital humanities” as an umbrella term that covers activities, such as online preservation, digital mapping, data mining, and using geographic information systems. It shows the excitement and anxieties created by techies working with poets. Since the humanities studies the elusive topics of aesthetics, existence and meaning, many wonder whether one can measure qualities of language that moves us. Quantification has limits and may not be able to address the interpretation part of humanities. After all, digital media are a means and not an end. Lastly, the article brings up how this “methodological moment” we are experience is similar to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when scholars collated and cataloged the storm of information generated by revolutions in communication, transportation and science. The practical issues of standardising methodology and discipline and defining what generally it means to be a historian were the primary focus of a great number of scholars. This article taught more about the general ideas of what makes up the field of Digital Humanities and how this isn’t the first revolution where we’ve been overwhelmed by the job of processing the enormous amounts of information at our disposal.

“Five Years after Attack, Boston Marathon Digital Archivists Find Healing in Storytelling - News @ Northeastern.” Accessed May 30, 2018. https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/04/13/five-years-after-attack-boston-marathon-digital-archivists-find-healing-in-storytelling/
Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, an English professor at Northeastern, was part of a team of students and faculty who collected and preserved the stories of the day the Boston Marthon Bombing occured in a project called “Our Marathon: The Boston Bombing Digital Archive.” This archive was an important way to document the event and help the city work to recover from the trauma because sharing stories and memories is way to lighten of the individual burdan. This is important because it demonstrates the importance of recording a history in a way that accessible to an entire community in order for that community to remember and heal.

“‘Future Tripping.’” The UCSB Current. Accessed April 22, 2018. http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2018/018916/future-tripping
“Future Tripping” is a symposium to demonstrate the use of interdisiplinary work and empower faculty, students and the public to address anxieties they have about the future (usually over economic, political, and environmental futures) in creative ways so that they have control over their situation. It is described as an “unconference” in an effort to favor interactivity over papers, and demonstrates how digital humanities pushes for new ways of doing things.The description demonstrates the different ways, such as digital scholarship, one can interact with information.

“I’m Being Stalked by Web Designers.” Pasadena Star News (blog), April 6, 2018. https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2018/04/06/im-being-stalked-by-web-designers/
This article shows us the international role that web design companies and web designers play. It’s a marketable field and as we usually do in the U.S., when we find that other countries offer less expensive services than the ones in our own, we pay them instead. It is not surprising that the global economy affects the digital world. This teaches me that I should think about how the international community of web developments.

“Innovative Education: Language Learning and the Digital Humanities |.” Accessed March 25, 2018. http://www.thesandb.com/features/innovative-education-language-learning-and-the-digital-humanities.html
Associate Professor Felix Kronenberg defines maker spaces as “spaces in which humans can create things.” This spaces include designing videogames to writing an essay to constructing Ikea furniture. He emphasized the importance of using digital tools to merge that gap between the different maker spaces around us and different concentrations of study, primarily business, arts and science. Bridging this gap will allow scholars’ projects to become more accessible to people in different academic fields. This made me see design and creation in a more abstract way.

Jensen, Kara. “A Behind the Scenes Look at Web Design for B2B Companies.” Bop Design, February 14, 2018. https://www.bopdesign.com/bop-blog/2018/02/behind-scenes-b2b-web-design/
This article taught me the process which companies use for web development. First, just like writing an essay, when you design a website, you have an audience in mind that you’re appealing to. Thus, while the website’s functionality is important, the target market, business objectives, resources, and B2B website goals are all things that take high priority as well. In addition, to have your audience see your website, you must use Search Engine Optimization. This simple idea of including enough key words and phrases to make your website pop up in the search domain seems almost a little sneaky to me. Moreover, fast page speed is an important factor for a better ranking of your website on google in addition to a good user’s experience. I like the idea that “in order to be effective, a website design must be viewed holistically and to meet the end goal of the company and its clients.” Overall, this article gave me an idea of how to design a website, one must first step back and think about the approach before diving into the code, an important thing to keep in mind if I want to become a better web developer.

Long, Sarah E. Bond, Hoyt, and Ted Underwood. “‘Digital’ Is Not the Opposite of ‘Humanities.’” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 1, 2017. https://www.chronicle.com/article/Digital-Is-Not-the/241634
In this article, we learn about the statements critics are making about digital humanities and how many of them understand the purpose of digital humanities and what they can acheive. I found this to be interesting because counterarguments tell us a great deal about why people are skeptical in the first place and why that skepticism needs to be addressed. Furthermore, we see that a  program that simply detects for syllables in a haiku can be used to trace and movement and patterns. By reading this article, I have learned more abou the subtle power of Digital Humanities.

“National Forum on Ethics and Archiving the Web | March 22-24 2018.” Accessed March 25, 2018. http://eaw.rhizome.org
This post explains how useful web archives can be legally: they can serve document criminal activity, corruption, and abuse and act as  powerful advocacy tools for individuals. They can also support community memory and record societies responses to occurances of political change, cultural expression, and tragedy. To address the ethical risks and opportunities brought about by technologies such as Rhizome’s Webrecorder software, this article suggests that it will take a group of different individuals: activists, librarians, journalists, archivists, scholars, developers, and designers. This demonstrates how these issues are relevant to people of many different fields and showed me the importance of recording, collecting, and storing data in digital archives.

“Raising Good ‘digital Citizens’ - News - Milford Daily News - Milford, MA.” Accessed February 13, 2018. http://www.milforddailynews.com/news/20180211/raising-good-digital-citizens
It’s important to teach ethics in school. Even though children have familiarity on how to use the internet, they don’t necessarily know the best and safest way of using it. And since children can’t be monitored by their parents very well when online, it’s important that they can take care of themselves, staying free from negative influences and dangerous people. It’s also important that they’re taught the importance of copyrights  since piracy has become a norm nowadays, and checking whether a source is authentic in this world of fake news. I agree with the importance of this and as someone who wants to work in technology, learning how to teach others to be responsible digital citizens it a neccessity.

Schuessler, Jennifer. “Reading by the Numbers: When Big Data Meets Literature.” The New York Times, October 30, 2017, sec. Arts. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/arts/franco-moretti-stanford-literary-lab-big-data.html
This article showed me the tension between traditional scholars who prefer close readings of only exceptional works and digital humanities scholars include all the forgotten books. It’s interesting to see how what we consider the normal approach to a field may change over time and how individuals in the field react to that change. Some, like Mr. Moretti, are deeply taken by it. He makes statements such as “Reading is one of life’s greatest pleasures,” which we “would be insane” to give up, [Mr. Moretti] said. “But the question is whether reading and knowledge are continuous with each other.” I believe that generally in life, it is best to take a moderate approach, but I appreciate his belief that “I’d rather be a failed revolutionary,” [Mr. Moretti] said, “than someone who never tried to do a revolution in the first place.” Still, we are uncovering interesting discoveries, such as that “we tend to see literary history as a story of movements, periods, sudden revolutions,” Mr. Underwood said. “There are also these really broad, slow, massive changes that we haven’t described before.”

“The Computer Ate My Homework - DML Central.” Accessed May 30, 2018. https://dmlcentral.net/the-computer-ate-my-homework/
After seeing Jade E. Davis speak at MinneWebCon, I decided to read about some of her work on the dmlcentral.net blog In this post, she brings up the important point that we have to be careful as we integrate technology into the classroom because of the privacy, security, and then digital divide. Teachers may require children to use applications that track and record their information even if those children–or the parents of those children–do not want to. In addition, if a young child is at the reading level and their are not native English speakers, it may be difficult for the family to navigate teaching apps or websites. Finally, if a family cannot afford a computer or tablet for the child to complete the homework, the child will be at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the class: either they will have to complete it at their school or a public library, or if they complete it on paper, teaching algorithms won’t take them into account even if they start to struggle with the material. This post has generated much food for thought.

“Universities Rush to Roll Out Computer Science Ethics Courses - The New York Times.” Accessed February 13, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/business/computer-science-ethics-courses.html
As someone is working with technology and web design, this article made me think about various ethical questions and helped me understand big questions I need to consider. It is also inspiring to see that these large institutions are taking steps to help developers in the future focus on these questions so that they will build their projects in an ethical way. While the idea that “technology is not neutral…[that] the choices that get made in building technology then have social ramifications”, mainly points at the fact that moving fast and breaking things can harm people, it has a positive side to my work since positive social change can come out of enhancing the accessibility of technology.

University, Michigan State. “Digital Scholarship Lab First of Its Kind in U.S.” MSUToday, n.d. http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2018/digital-scholarship-lab-first-of-its-kind-in-us/
This seems like a useful tool and exemplifies the application of digital scholarship to different fields. I now understand how digital scholarship can be applied to game development, art and archeology classes, and humanities classes, as well as many more. It also seems to emphasize how much focus on VR and AR there is in the digital scholarship field.

Ward, Mark. “Bug Hunters: The Hackers Earning Big Bucks... Ethically.” BBC News, April 13, 2018, sec. Technology. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43581624
A fellow Carleton student talked to me about cybersecurity and how one becomes involved in the field. Often they are self-taught, such as James Kettle in this article. This fellow student also spent time during college analyzing code and learning how to hack. It’s good that individuals who enjoy finding weaknesses in software and websites can use their talent to help companies and protect people’s information and be payed well for it. Cybersecurity is something I definately want to explore. It’s relevant to the work I’m doing because I need to ensure that the plugins and programs I build do not have possible vunreabilities in them.

“What Is Sustainable Web Design?” Accessed April 14, 2018. https://sustainablewebdesign.org/
It’s nice how sustainable practices actually benefit your website because your making your website run faster, act smoother, and be easier for users. This reminds me of how jobs and environmental practices also go hand in hand despite the fact people often see them as opposing. Doing the right thing–being sustainable–doesn’t have to be a burdan: it can actually act as a guiding tool to improve your design. Knowing of these practices and understanding taking the time to build a better UX is worthwhile for both users and the environment is good to keep in mind as I continue web development.

“What Next-Gen Digital Humanities Looks Like - EdSurge News.” EdSurge, February 13, 2018. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-02-13-what-next-gen-digital-humanities-looks-like
This article gives me a glimpse into the community of digital humanities. Until now, I wasn’t even aware of an Office of Digital Humanities for that matter. It’s strange how unheard of digital humanities is and disappointing how little money is invested in it. However, it is gaining more support and funding with time and it only takes some small funding, innovation, and creativity for historians and scholars to uncover valuable discoveries. Overall, this article helps me understand the community of the field that I am currently working in.

“Why Does Great Web Design Take So Long?” Business 2 Community. Accessed April 15, 2018. https://www.business2community.com/web-design/great-web-design-take-long-02041850
This article helped me understand the difference in time needed to design an effective website from scratch that balances content, user experience, audience, and search priority versus quickly make a website using a template versus. The former has a slow development process that uses a deliberate thoughtful process that focuses on the end goals of the website. You cannot expect a rushed result to build a custom website since the more time and effort that goes into it, the better the finished product will look. This is a valuable take-away and teaches me to be careful, deliberate, and patient when doing web development work.

“Wond’ry Exhibit Takes Digital Humanities into Three Dimensions | Vanderbilt News | Vanderbilt University.” Accessed March 25, 2018. https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2018/03/23/jane-landers-3d-printing/
I find this exciting because it shows that we can transport a physical object into the digital realm and bring it back into the material world. Its smudging the boundaries between the real and virtual–an idea that is both scary and exciting because we’re pushing the bounds of human technology. Maybe one day, someone can send their friend an object by 3D scanning it and then their friend can print it out, the same way we do with text and books. This makes me further appreciate what we can do in the field of digital humanities.

Carleton College Digital Scholarship Team Reading time ~7 minutes

Last week on Monday April 23, 2018, I took a 5:30am bus from Carleton College in Northfield Minnesota to the University of Minnesota in Dinkytown, Minneapolis to attend MinneWebCon 2018. MinneWebCon is a conference that “encourages inclusive grassroots knowledge-sharing” (http://minnewebcon.org/) and lasted over the course of two days. The first day, which I attended, consisted of panels and the second had workshops. While I had never been to a full-day conference before and wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, I had an excellent time attending MinneWebCon 2018 and become exposed to innovative developments in technology and the ethical issues brought with them.

First Keynote Speaker: Molly Wright Steenson

The opening keynote speaker at MinneWebCon, Molly Wright Steenson gave a talk entitled Sometime to Return (Click here to watch her talk). The talk consisted of an overview of how we reached where we are today in AI and the relationship it has with user experience in technological design. It was interesting to learn how many principles in architectural design led to computer design. One of the most influential sources of these principles was A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. A great quote from this architect that demonstrates how architectural ideas can apply to computer science is “but in practice master plans fail - because they create totalitarian order not organic order. They are too rigid; they cannot easily adapt to the natural and unpredictable changes that inevitably arise in the life of a community.” This carries over to web design because as we build websites for online communities, we need our sites to be malleable, adaptive to the users. This belief in adaptivity was also held by architects such as Cedric Price, who design buildings that would constantly alter their structures to suit the users’ needs. Dr. Steenson shared a famous quote of his: “Technology Is the Answer, But What Was the Question?” The way I interpret this quote is what are we actually looking to solve with our new advancements in technology? At the moment, it seems that we are often making progress for the sake of progress or inventing things with solely money in mind. Moreover, I wonder whether many modern developments in technology are built to let us escape necessary the problems of life and that companies are encouraging this escapism so that they can sell their product. I was surprised when Molly told us that while Artificial Intelligence is sold as a recent development, with such articles claiming “AI is the New UI,” basic AI technology dates back to the post WWII period with such inventions as voice recognition technology. Finally, Molly’s proposal of how we might understand ourselves as humans better if we look at AI is deeply interesting to me: AI is the closest things to humanity and will one day force us to draw the line between a simulation and an individual when they become self aware. Furthermore, with the questions of ethics with AI makes me think of a video discussing the implications of rights for Artificial Intelligence.

Second Keynote Speaker: Jade E. Davis

The second keynote speaker, Jade E. Davis, gave a talk called The Already Augmented and Virtually Real (Click here to watch her talk). In this talk, she raised the importance of being cautious as we make technological progress and made the audience question their purpose as developers. She explained that when using technology to design the future, we have to be careful because the biases in our imagination will impact the worlds we create. As Jade said, we might all think the sky is blue, but the sky can be gray, pink, white, green, and red. She also added that we can’t escape biases and trying to use technology to transcend the world is the wrong answer because you have to face the problems of reality, not run away from reality. Furthermore, what we build can get out of control, reminding me of an article explaining how twitter went from being a small silly viral app to being how world leaders talk to each other.

I don’t find Jade’s idea that progress might be bad surprising at all. I often think that progress can be dangerous: just look at what the inventions of fossil fuels and plastic have done to our planet, the constant looming threat of nuclear war from the atomic bomb or the danger of genetically engineered bioweapons. Science, technology, and design are tools whose creations reflect the inventor and their goals. Most inventors want creations that benefit humanity, which is why I support scientific progress, but I agree with Jade’s point that maybe we need to think a few steps back to think about what we’re doing and what future we’re creating, since those creations may be unintentionally biased, designed with profit in mind, or just recklessly thrown into the world with no thoughts of potential consequences. Technology can be fun and improve lives, but there’s also too much of a good thing and with developments occurring so quickly, maybe we’re not ready for all these new innovations. As Daniel H. Wilson, a convocation speaker at Carleton who writes about technology, said “this is the age of candy.” Inventions, whether good or bad for us, are available if you have the money to pay for them. There’s no rules or restrictions despite the potential negative effects on our brains and character. For instance, Wilson was concerned about how his son might be negatively impacted by Alexa since Alexa has a female voice and will do as he says no matter how rude or condescending he may be. Thus, Wilson has his son say “please” and “thank you” whenever his son asks Alexa to do something.

Takeaways From Other Panels

In addition to the keynote speakers, I enjoyed the other events that I attended. While it was interesting to learn about how to build third party apps for Alexa and Google Home (Practical Frameworks For A Voice-Enabled Future - James Squires), and how we can use the unity game engine to help design AR apps (Best Practices: Getting Up & Running In AR - Brandon Johnson, Max Thorson), those two talks were fairly technical, so the main idea I took from them was that adapting existing tools for your project is faster and easier than starting from scratch.

From the AI and Improving the Experience of Users Living With Disabilities talk with Sue Ann Rodriquez, I gained a greater understanding how users with disabilities interact with the web through tools such as braille displays, screen readers, and captions. While I didn’t learn that much about how AI assists users with disabilities, I learned that since the goal of AI is to be able to do what humans can, AI could help individuals with disabilities by making intelligent decisions about the best way to present information to the user. This is a great practical positive use of AI.

The Capturing Reality: An Introduction presentation by Colin McFadden and Samantha Porter showed a new way of how technology can be used. I hadn’t heard much about reality capture other than in a article about a professor who used reality-captured artifacts to document the atlantic slave trade and then printed the objects in 3D (https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2018/03/23/jane-landers-3d-printing/). The presenters showed how accessible reality-capture technology is and that while it takes time to develop skill using it, it has many applications including archaeology, creating realistic graphics in video-games, and artwork. One key idea from this is that new technology further blends the line between the real and the virtual. We can now transport items from one to the other and this will only become easier with time. AR and VR bring the digital world to us but reality-capture lets us bring real things into the digital world.

Conclusion:

I am incredibly glad I attended MinneWebCon. I feel very grateful for Carleton college by funding my attendance ticket and bus fare. I’ve seen how AI lets us do more with accessibility and personal assistants, and how technology, such as AR, VR, and Reality Capture has turned our window into the digital realm into a doorway. I am now more aware of the biases we need to address as we continue building virtual worlds and how media will try to sell technology in a way that doesn’t always reflect its true history. Attending a conference to learn about the latest innovations in technology has given me a better idea of how people stay on top of the latest work of the field and the ethical questions leaders in the field must keep in mind as they continue their research. In addition, this trip was a great way to bond with the other interns. I learned more about their interests, what they hope to do, and what things I can do for my own career.