Overview of content related to 'safari'

Image 'Quotation' Using the C.I.T.E. Architecture

editor — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Christopher Blackwell and Amy Hackney Blackwell describe with examples a digital library infrastructure that affords canonical citation for 'quoting' images, useful for creating commentaries, arguments, and teaching tools.

Quotation is the heart of scholarly argument and teaching, the activity of bringing insight to something complex by focused discussion of its parts. Philosophers who have reflected on the question of quotation have identified two necessary components: a name, pointer, or citation on the one hand and a reproduction or repetition on the other. Robert Sokolowski calls quotation a 'curious conjunction of being able to name and to contain' [1]; V.A. Howard is more succinct: quotation is 'replication-plus-reference' [2]. We are less interested in the metaphysical aspects of quotation than in the practical ones.

The tools and techniques described here were supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 0916148 & No. 0916421. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Quotation

Quotation, when accompanied by citation, allows us to bring the reader's attention to bear on a particular part of a larger whole efficiently and without losing the surrounding context. A work of Biblical exegesis, for example, can quote or merely cite 'Genesis 1:29' without having to reproduce the entire Hebrew Bible, or even the Book of Genesis; a reader can resolve that citation to a particular passage about the creation of plants, and can see that passage as a discrete node at the bottom of a narrowing hierarchy: Hebrew Bible, Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 29. We take this for granted.

Quoting a text is easy. But how can we quote an image? This remains difficult even in the 21st century where it is easy to reproduce digital images, pass them around through networks, and manipulate them on our desks.

A scholar wishing to refer to a particular part of an image will generally do something like this: She will open one version of an image in some editing software, select and 'cut' a section from it, and 'paste' that section into a document containing the text of her commentary or argument. She might add to the text of her argument a reference to the source of the image. The language that describes this process is that of mechanical work – cutting and pasting – rather than the language of quotation and citation. The process yields a fragment of an image with only a tenuous connection to the ontological hierarchy of the object of study. The same scholar who would never give a citation to 'The Bible, page 12' rather than to 'Genesis 1:29' will, of necessity, cite an image-fragment in a way similarly unlikely to help readers find the source and locate the fragment in its natural context.

Piloting Web Conferencing Software: Experiences and Challenges

editor — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Julian Prior and Marie Salter report on their experiences piloting Elluminate Live! at the University of Bath.

In the current fiscal climate faced by educational institutions in the UK, elearning tools and technologies that promise efficiency savings as well as enhancing the quality and quantity of course offerings are gaining popularity. One such technology is Web conferencing where lectures, seminars, meetings or presentations take place online and allow for remote participation and collaboration via audio, video, instant chat and a virtual 'whiteboard.'[1].

Reading Van Gogh Online?

editor — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Peter Boot shows how log analysis can be employed to assess a site's usability, usage, and users, using the Van Gogh letter edition as an example.

Large amounts of money are spent building scholarly resources on the web. Unlike online retailers, large publishers and banks, scholarly institutions tend not to monitor very closely the way visitors use their web sites. In this article I would like to show that a look at the traces users leave behind in the Web servers' log files can teach us much about our sites' usability and about the way visitors use them.

In 2009 the Huygens Institute [1], together with the Van Gogh Museum [2], published a new edition of the letters of Vincent van Gogh. The complete edition was published online [3], and is accessible for free; there is also a six-volume book edition [4]. The online edition was reviewed in a number of publications [5][6][7]. I will use the server logs of the Van Gogh edition as an example of what we can learn about our visitors. I will focus not on the simple quantities, but try to assess the visitors' access patterns. When we created the edition, our assumption was that researchers would use the web site, while people who wanted to read the letters would favour the book. The desire to test that assumption was one of the reasons for embarking on this investigation.

When users view, or read, editions online, busy traffic is going on between their browser (e.g. Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari), and the web server where the edition is located. Web servers keep logs of this traffic, and inspecting the logs gives us an opportunity to see how people are actually using the editions that we create. When people buy a book, this shows their intention to use it, in some sense. When people go to a web site, the server registers their visit, including, depending on the design of the site, every page they read and every search they do.

Most of the work on log analysis in scholarly environments has been done in the context of libraries researching use of electronic journals [8]. The financial interest in accurate knowledge about usage patterns in that context is obviously important. The LAIRAH (Log Analysis of Digital Resources in the Arts and Humanities) study [9] used log analysis on portal sites in order to assess usage of digital resources in the arts and humanities. I believe the present article is the first reported study on actual usage data of a scholarly digital edition.

First I will discuss why these log data deserve investigation. I then will show what the data that we collect looks like and discuss both their potential and their limitations. I will give a brief overview of the edition site, as the log data can only be understood in the context of the site's structure and navigational facilities. Then I'll show a number of the things that can be done on the basis of the log files.

Locating Image Presentation Technology Within Pedagogic Practice

editor — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Marie-Therese Gramstadt contextualises image presentation technology and methods within a pedagogic framework for the visual arts.

Book Review: iPad - The Missing Manual

editor — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Brian Whalley reviews a manual to help support your use of an iPad - 'the book that should have been in the box'.

The Missing Manual Series, originally written and published by David Pogue has expanded and is now published by O'Reilly, who deal mainly with computer books. Like many other publishers, they have jumped on the 'ibandwagon'. A quick count on Amazon Books gave a dozen similar offerings (excluding developers' guides).

This is a review therefore of just one of these paperbacks, and is not a comparative review – with one exception which I shall come to below.

Comments

For writing this review I settled down with the IPad on my knee, Bluetooth keyboard below that and glass of chenin blanc at my right hand – but wondered where to place the volume under review. As yet, nobody has produced a 'skyhook' to hold one or the other. IPad: The Missing Manual (MM) is a little smaller than the iPad itself, about as thick and uses glossy paper with colour illustrations on most pages. In general, each page has a new topic and is organised by basic chapters. Get to know your iPad, Interact with your iPad, etc. They are logical and you can easily flick between them to find the section you need. Not that, with an iPad, you really need to find much. Just plug in applications (apps) and play to find your own way around. This, of course, is typical for Macs of whatever kind. With the iPad however, there is less freedom to find new ways of doing things than with the usual Linux-based Mac OS. The main difficulty is to link up with a computer; fire up iTunes and use this to get started. The basic leaflet that comes with the iPad will tell you all this. Even if you have not used a Mac before, it is fairly intuitive. If you are unsure about the basic operations and included apps, the Apple Web site [1] gives some short, but informative videos. The Missing Manual elaborates on them. If you have not used an iPhone, or perhaps an IPod before, then the MM helps a bit. If you want to do something, for example, move around the icons of apps on the screen and you don't know what to do, then a brief incursion to the MM is undoubtedly helpful. There is a substantial index to help matters but you may well have picked up the basics from Apple's video tours.

At this stage I wanted a 'top up' and went into the kitchen, but I also did an experiment. The weight of iPad on the kitchen scales was 856g; weight of the MM was 427g, ratio, almost exactly 2:1. By a volumetric comparison this is approximately 1: 0.8. The MM is by no means small, so what about information content per volume or mass? Here is another experiment if you have just bought an iPad. First, download the app iCabMobile [2], this is another browser that can be used instead of, and is rather better than, the bundled Safari. Now download the app GoodReader [3] and then into the browser type: manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPad_User_Guide.pdf [4]. Lo and behold you have the 'true' missing manual from Apple. Now, in the browser, insert the letter g before http:// of the target URL of the pdf and press 'return'. This downloads the iPad_User_Guide pdf into GoodReader. It is 19MB but should come down easily. You can then browse Apple's free manual in GoodReader as an e-book.

Steve Jobs boasts that there are 8,500 apps for the iPad [5] but which ones are necessary for your Personal Learning Environment? Well, this review (via MacUser [6], thank you) suggests two very good ones. GoodReader is excellent, you can leaf through the pdf as a book, search it, and so on, so put all your downloaded pdfs there. If you do not use Mobile Me [7] and if you want to get hold of a pdf (or other) file from your office machine, then use Dropbox [8] for your office machine and iPad. Upload it in the office and download it to your iPad at leisure. Some apps are mentioned at various places in the MM, but of course more are added all the time so a print-on-paper book is not a good venue for them.

Book Review: Blended Learning and Online Tutoring

editor — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0000

Lyn Parker considers that this book meets its aim of providing practical advice for tutors and staff developers engaged in online activities and blended learning.

Many universities have adopted a blended learning approach to learning and teaching rather than adopting totally online methods, as strategies for delivering campus-based and distance learning courses converge. Blended learning has been variously defined as 'a mix of e-learning with traditional learning and teaching methods' [1] or learning that is characterised by 'the interdependence of pedagogy, learning technologies and technology' [2].

Unicode and Historic Scripts

editor — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Deborah Anderson provides us an overview of the progress made in bringing historic scripts to the Unicode Standard.

Many digital versions of texts--whether they be the plays of Aeschylus, or stories from this week's Times--can now be accessed by a worldwide audience, thanks to the Internet and developments in international standards and the computer industry. But while modern newspapers in English and even the Greek plays of Aeschylus can be viewed on the Internet in their original script, reading articles that cite a line of original text in Egyptian hieroglyphs is more problematic, for this script has not yet been included in the international character encoding standard Unicode.

Ebooks in UK Libraries: Where Are We Now?

editor — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Penny Garrod brings us up to date on developments in ebooks.

"I suspect that more words are being published about the ebook phenomenon in print than have actually been placed into ebooks so far." [1]

Another Piece of Cake?

editor — Sun, 07 Jul 2002 23:00:00 +0000

Anders Ardö, Sigfrid Lundberg and Ann-Sofie Zettergren with an overview of the history of Netlab, now ten years old.

Actually, that was really the way it was: a cake for the consumption of a group of people interested in the development of digital libraries. It was in 1991, long before this concept had been implanted into the heart of the library community. Indeed long before most people knew about the Internet.