Calculating in the “Cloud”

One of the most amazing (and often neglected) features of modern search engines is their ability to calculate formulas, solve math problems, and covert a broad range of units, currencies, and measurements.  Here are some examples:

Here are some useful examples provided by Google:

WolframAlpha, a self-described “computational knowledge engine,” returns some truly amazing results when you enter a chemical formula (ex. “H2SO4″) , speed (ex. “45 mph”), temperature, or even musical notes (ex. “C Eb G C”).

Check it out!

Psst…Use Bing for Bronte!

Researching major literary figures using a typical search engine like Google or Yahoo has always been a challenge. Many students quickly discover that the results are invariably a jumbled mix of encyclopedia entries (often of questionable authority), author interviews, random images, book and author pages, and fan Web sites.  Unless you actively refine your search terms, the hits are rarely grouped into meaningful categories that can provide a coherent “portrait of the artist” and their works.  Suddenly, with Bing, there is a glimmer or hope!

The Bing results page groups results nicely into categories such as Images, Quotes, Books, Blog, Interviews, Videos.

You can browse the top results in any one of these categories by scrolling down the page or focus on all of the results in a specific category by simply clicking on the left hand menu.

Clearly, we are still many years away from Web search engines being able to present students with a coherent and deep set of primary and secondary materials for researching a literary figure, period or genre.  Bing is a surprisingly thoughtful step in the right direction.

ELI 2009 in Orlando

Last week, I attended the 2009 Educause Learning Initiative Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL. Some of the major themes this year included: the role of play (and gaming) in teaching an learning, social media in the classroom, instruction using tablet PCs and mobile devices, and innovative learning spaces.

Highlights included Michael Wesch discussing his classroom experiments in new media literacy, mobile learning initiatives at Smith College, Amherst College, and Cornell, and a discussion on developing “21st Century literacies” by Susan Metros, Deputy CIO and Associate Provost at USC.

Videos for the general and featured sessions are available here:
http://hosted.mediasite.com/hosted5/Catalog/pages/catalog.aspx?catalogId=116d33f7-5fd2-420a-a843-b4aadbd3cedd

Enjoy!

On Learning Assessment

Our latest Plug & Play Meeting in the Harvard College Library (yesterday) featured Cassandra Volpe Horii (Bok Center for Teaching and Learning) and Katie Vale (Academic Technology Group) discussing “Learning Assessment Tools & Techniques. ” Susan Gilroy (Lamont Library, HCL) discussed some early findings from focus groups with Harvard undergraduates as part of the Project Information Literacy study. Fantastic presentations all around!

Agenda:

Learning Assessment Tools & Techniques
“With all the buzz about (and demand for) assessment these days, it’s easy to rush headlong into data collection without first defining our purposes. To address this problem, we’ll develop a framework of inquiry as the guiding force behind intelligent assessment and use it to generate sound assessment questions. We’ll also demonstrate how to relate questions to specific and measurable learning outcomes, and give examples. Finally, we’ll discuss how to select appropriate assessment tools and techniques that are aligned with one’s questions and objectives, and showcase examples that range from low-tech and in-the-moment, to quantitative survey methods, to qualitative analysis techniques assisted by technology.”

Project Information Literacy
Project Information Literacy is a two year, multi-phase national study based at the University of Washington’s Information School. Its goal is to investigate the ways undergraduates on different college campuses conduct research for course work but also how they seek answers to the “everyday research” questions that arise in their daily lives. Harvard was selected to participate in the first phase and on October 28. Lamont Library will host two focus groups, led by PIL’s principal investigator, Dr. Alison J. Head. In this short presentation, we’ll review what the researchers asked and what the students revealed. We’ll also tell you what we learned by watching how pros get focus groups done.

About PnP
Plug and Play, hosted by the Harvard College Library, is a monthly gathering of Harvard librarians, campus technologists, faculty, students and invited guests interested in discussing current/emerging teaching, learning, and research technologies in libraries. Visit PnP online (Harvard access only): http://hcl.harvard.edu/plugplay

Open Educational Resources: WGBH Videos

Yesterday, WGBH representatives visited Harvard’s Lamont Library to present some recent video-based projects their teams are developing. The session was sponsored by the ABCD Technology in Education Working Group and focused on some of the opportunities and challenges of using video resources for teaching and learning, including search-ability, contextualization, rights clearances, and open content production. Most examples derived from their Teachers’ Domain initiative.

Featuring an online library with over 1,000 free media resources from public television programs like NOVA, Frontline, and American Experience, Teacher’s Domain offers instructors and students a superb collection of multimedia assets, Flash interactives, images, documents and lesson plans for the classroom. The three “flavors” of Teachers’ Domain are: K-12 Edition, College Edition, and VITAL on Teachers’ Domain (for New York State educators).

Teachers’ Domain allows anyone who registers with the site to “Download,” “Download and Share” or “Download, Share and Remix” the Open Educational Resources (OER) on the site. Rights restrictions determine the level of use or repurposing of the content. The “Download, Share and Remix” option is particularly exciting, allowing teachers and students to create their own educational media mash-ups. “Download and Share” enables integration of the media assets into any kind of free, education presentation. “Download” allows users to view the video clips on their own computer or handheld device.

Teachers looking to engage their “visual learners” will be delighted by this extraordinary resource!

Inventoriana: Digital Manuscripts & Beyond

An innovative, Web-based tool called Inventoriana is enabling scholars to collaborate on indexing and annotating digital library materials, such as liturgical manuscripts, with exciting results. Harvard medievalists have embraced the software, and it was recently used in a seminar on Ambrosian chant taught by Professor Tom Kelly.

Browsing a manuscript record in Inventoriana

Created by Drew Massey, a Harvard graduate student in musicology, Inventoriana allows researchers to:

• View “public” manuscripts in the Inventoriana database.
• Create private “buckets” of digitized materials for personal or group collaboration.
• Add tags to precise locations on the manuscript image.
• View a “revision history” for a particular item.
• Search and export to an Excel Spreadsheet.
• and more…

Multiple tags can be added to a manuscript image in Inventoriana

Inventoriana is a wonderful complement to the digitization initiatives currently underway in academic research libraries, museums, and archives. It adds a new dimension to online research and pedagogy by promoting transdiciplinary collaboration and transcending institutional boundaries, creating new pathways to philological and iconographical analysis and discovery. The extensibility of the software makes it appealing not only for medievalists studying manuscripts, but also art historians, cultural studies researchers, and virtually any scholar working with electronic texts and images.

Inventoriana is currently implemented in PHP, with data stored in a MySQL database. Direct specific questions about Inventoriana to Drew Massey.

How Big Think Can Think Bigger

 

As a repository of videos clips from a broad array of “public intellectuals,” there is much to be admired about Big Think. In particular, its unique social networking tools really add depth to its video content–users can respond to, create, and classify Ideas on the site, participate in the Big Think collaborative blog, and bookmark/post videos of special interest to Digg, Del.ici.ous, and Facebook. Big Think makes each of its videos sharable by providing embedding codes, direct urls, and “Email to a Friend” forms. All of these features are nicely integrated into a very appealing and intuitive design.

 

What is distinctly missing from Big Think, however, are research tools that would allow thoughtful readers to explore the video commentaries and Ideas in greater depth. Bibliographies, research guides, electronic databases, Online reference sources, speaker publications, links to digital collections, etc., are nowhere to be found. At least some of these are essential if the site is to truly fulfill its pitch as being a “You Tube of Ideas.”

As academic institutions continue to add video content (faculty lectures, TV/films clips, student presentations, etc.) to course Web pages and to create video archives, a great deal can be learned by analyzing the innovative design and interactive elements of projects like Big Think…as long we don’t neglect to include key elements for further research.

Dekstrus DNE: Knowledge Mapping

Innovative software called Dekstrus DNE allows researchers to visualize research data through object-oriented mapping. The software allows users to attach results, documents, files, web pages and meta-data directly to the “knowledge elements” on a map. By clicking on any individual object, the map is redrawn around that element and its attributes (meta-data fields) are revealed. This video illustrates the process.

A screenshot of DNE Maps. Each map is a collection of files arranged visually,
providing researchers with a contextual representation of their data.

Dekstrus DNE’s visual mapping allows researchers to simplify the complex relationships between concepts and/or knowledge elements, and to reexamine these “objects” from virtually any angle. The result: a deeper contextual understanding of a research plan, data set or topic. This next video demonstrates the advantages of contextual mapping vs. arranging the same information in list form.

Dekstrus DNE is being made available as a free download to interested researchers. In return, the company would like to be able to publish some maps (non-exclusively) that are built with the software. They also welcome user comments and suggestions!

Google’s Knol

Hoping to loosen Wikipedia’s tenacious grip on the Online reference market, Google is reportedly developing an experimental information service called Knol (short for “knowledge”). The site, not yet publicly available, would allow individuals to create Web pages on virtually any topic. Unlike Wikipedia, however, only a single author (who would be identified) would be able to author/edit a page, and competing entries would be allowed on the same topic. The service would also feature reader comments, ratings, and suggested changes by users. Knol would also feature Google Ads on topic pages (with the approval of the page authors who would share in the revenues). Wikipedia currently features no ads.

 

(A screenshot of a sample Knol entry. Click on image for full view.)

Before it is even released, however, Knol is raising concerns among Web publishers who see a fundamental conflict of interest between Google as a search engine and, increasingly, as a provider of Web content and advertising. Their chief concern is the potential for the search giant to privilege its own content and services over those of its competitors by ranking them higher in their search results. The concern of this post, however, is to examine the viability of Knol as a source of accurate information for researchers. In particular, it will examine the implications of highlighting individual authors/editors, having competing pages on the same topic, and sharing ad revenue with Knol authors.

Wikipedia’s crowdsourcing model has kept most authors honest and most entries fairly accurate. The wiki platform and general anonymity of its authorship have helped to make the entries themselves rather than their authors the primary focus of the site. The downside, of course, is that it is often difficult to know who has contributed to specific entries, their relative expertise in the field, their political agendas, special interests, etc. Instances of corporations editing out unflattering descriptions, contributions submitted by bogus “experts,” and inaccuracies of all shapes and sizes have been clearly documented. Still, despite its imperfections, million of avid Wikipedia users believe that its virtues outweigh its deficiencies.

Google’s Knol, on the other hand, takes a radically different, almost regressive approach to generating and organizing encyclopedic knowledge. It rejects the Web 2.0 mantra of open sharing and collaboration in favor of a more traditional model based on clearly identifiable subject specialists. This system of highlighting authors would enable readers to more easily quantify the accuracy of the information presented and the relative expertise of the “experts.” However, personal identification might also create a competitive atmosphere where authors on the same topic compete for “clicks,” not only to satisfy their egos, but for profitability as well. Given Google’s scheme to share ad revenues with authors who opt to have ads posted on their pages, it is not difficult to imagine some authors becoming more interested in generating revenue than providing accurate information in order to get more hits. Example: an author writing on kayaking lists the “best” kayak brands that you should consider buying–you know, the ones that have ads on the page that he/she profits from when you click on them.

Another potential side effect of allowing Knol authors to publish competing pages on the same topic is that it might confuse researchers who might not know which entry is more accurate. Some users may be drawn to pages that are longer or that provide more Web links or bibliography, but these may not necessarily indicate accuracy. Although ratings and comments will reportedly be built into the system, these can only provide a general indication of quality since they depend on the feedback of non-experts.

Google has thrived (and continues to thrive) on its reputation for providing great, objective search results. If Knol is deemed by users as primarily a scheme to grab market share from Wikipedia and to expand ad revenue, chances are that its appeal will not approach that of a non-commercial alternative based on the collective wisdom of the masses. That said, if Google is able to quickly recruit top experts in a wide variety of fields and generate a broad enough range of content where major gaps are not immediately apparent (no small feat!), then users might be willing to overlook things like ads (as they have done with Gmail) and Wikipedia may finally have a competitor in the area of Web reference.

Will Kindle Ignite Scholarship?

Despite its prohibitive cost structure, crippling DRM, and content limitations, e-book readers like Amazon’s new Kindle (pictured below) have great potential to capture the hearts and minds of tech-savvy educators and students. To accomplish this, however, a number of improvements are clearly needed.

 

Lower the Cost
Special pricing programs and incentives should be arranged for e-book readers intended for educational use. Currently, the Kindle sells for $399 plus: $9.99 for most books; 5.99-14.99/mo. for most newspapers; $1.25-3.49/mo. for most magazines; and a $0.10 fee when sending yourself documents. This cost structure is simply too high for most schools, teachers, and students. The $0.10 fee to upload documents that you already own to a device that you already paid for is absurd and should be eliminated outright.

Remove the DRM
The DRM on the Kindle is onerous by any measure. Even Apple, that provides iPod owners with DRM-encoded music through their iTunes store, still allows users to upload virtually any kind of audio file onto their iPods. The Kindle, on the other hand, supports a limited number of text formats, and its main source of content, the Amazon store, uses a proprietary format (AZW) that will only display on a Kindle and no other device. This prohibits content sharing among users for e-books that they purchased and supposedly “own.” It also means that students may not transfer content onto a laptop or PC with a word processor, making it impossible to cut/paste passages and citations from Kindle e-books directly into course papers.

Expand Support for Content
A “scholarly” Kindle would also need to broaden its compatibility with formats commonly used by researchers and instructors, especially PDFs, PowerPoint documents, and Excel files. Amazon’s device currently only supports Kindle (AZW), TXT, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), MP3, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion. The lack of PDF support is perhaps the most glaring omission. Yes, it is possible to use Mobi creator to convert PDF’s to MOBI format and then upload them to the Kindle via USB, but this is an inefficient, multi-step process that should be unnecessary. PDFs should run natively on these devices.

A blog post on Wesleying exclaims, “I hate dealing with all the pdfs I get assigned for reading and that I use for research, but if I could download them all onto something like this [the Kindle], it’d be pretty cool and over the course of 4 years of college would likely pay for itself in printing costs alone.”

Provide Cheap, Searchable Kindle-Formatted Textbooks
E-book developers like Amazon should aggressively negotiate with textbook publishers to make eductional materials available in e-book format at a substantial discount for students. Christopher Dawson, a high school teacher and IT administrator, writes in his Kindle blog post: “At anywhere from $50-$200 a pop, textbooks are a huge expense; if substantial discounts could accompany the downloadable content and the content could be easily moved among Kindles based on course offerings, I’d be pitching these things like crazy to the school committee.” Universities and colleges should also make it easy for students to download course packs or sourcebooks to handheld readers.

Kindle RSS & Document Delivery
Just as owners of the Kindle currently have the option of subscribing to daily editions of newspapers, simple tools should be developed that would allow anyone to “push” content to an e-book device by creating their own “subscription” service or RSS feed. Teachers would be able to automatically send their students (even those who are absent) readings, problem sets, homework assignments, and handouts. Libraries would be able to automatically lend users e-books based on particular subjects or keyword searches.

Compatibility with Licensed E-Resources & Bibliographic Managers
If researchers could configure their devices to automatically search for and download the full text of scholarly articles from licensed e-resources directly onto their e-book readers, as well as generate an Endnote/RefWorks-compatible bibliography of the books/articles on their handhelds, Kindle-like devices would take academia by storm. Much of this compatibility, of course, depends as much upon the publishers/developers of the databases as the e-book reader manufacturers themselves.

Conclusion
Despite these gripes, we must give the Kindle its due. The fact that it is generating so much discussion and excitement means that it did get a lot of things right, especially in terms of its form factor, readability, EVDO connectivity (although WiFi would also be nice!), and battery life. I, like many of my library and academic colleagues, are eagerly anticipating version 2.0, hoping that it might address some of the issues that would make it an indispensible tool for teachers, researchers, and students. Naturally, we’ll also be watching for Kindle-clones and competitors who might adopt a more open platform at a more reasonable price point.