March 2019 archive

Elsevier privacy break

Due a to a misconfigured server, a researcher found a constant stream of Elsevier users’ passwords.

By Joseph Cox | Mar 18 2019, 1:09pm

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vbw8b9/elsevier-user-passwords-exposed-online

Elsevier is controversial, after acquiring a number of platforms that distributed academic material for free. Profit-driven Elsevier’s legal threats against other sites that openly host millions of scientific papers have forced them to go into the digital underground, and distribute their material with the protection of the Tor anonymity network. Some universities have boycotted Elsevier.

Micromanagement

Great Leadership isn’t about control. It’s about Empowering people.

Brigette Hyacinth

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/great-leadership-isnt-control-empowering-people-brigette-hyacinth/

5 Damaging Effects of Micromanagement

1.Decreased Productivity

2. Reduced Innovation

3. Lower Morale

4. High Staff Turnover

5. Loss of Trust

++++++++++++++
more about leadership in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=leadership

Library Technology Conference 2019

#LTC2019

Intro to XR in Libraries from Plamen Miltenoff

keynote: equitable access to information

keynote spaker

https://sched.co/JAqk
the type of data: wikipedia. the dangers of learning from wikipedia. how individuals can organize mitigate some of these dangers. wikidata, algorithms.
IBM Watson is using wikipedia by algorythms making sense, AI system
youtube videos debunked of conspiracy theories by using wikipedia.

semantic relatedness, Word2Vec
how does algorithms work: large body of unstructured text. picks specific words

lots of AI learns about the world from wikipedia. the neutral point of view policy. WIkipedia asks editors present as proportionally as possible. Wikipedia biases: 1. gender bias (only 20-30 % are women).

conceptnet. debias along different demographic dimensions.

citations analysis gives also an idea about biases. localness of sources cited in spatial articles. structural biases.

geolocation on Twitter by County. predicting the people living in urban areas. FB wants to push more local news.

danger (biases) #3. wikipedia search results vs wkipedia knowledge panel.

collective action against tech: Reddit, boycott for FB and Instagram.

Mechanical Turk https://www.mturk.com/  algorithmic / human intersection

data labor: what the primary resources this companies have. posts, images, reviews etc.

boycott, data strike (data not being available for algorithms in the future). GDPR in EU – all historical data is like the CA Consumer Privacy Act. One can do data strike without data boycott. general vs homogeneous (group with shared identity) boycott.

the wikipedia SPAM policy is obstructing new editors and that hit communities such as women.

++++++++++++++++++

Twitter and Other Social Media: Supporting New Types of Research Materials

https://sched.co/JAWp

Nancy Herther Cody Hennesy

http://z.umn.edu/

twitter librarieshow to access at different levels. methods and methodological concerns. ethical concerns, legal concerns,

tweetdeck for advanced Twitter searches. quoting, likes is relevant, but not enough, sometimes screenshot

engagement option

social listening platforms: crimson hexagon, parsely, sysomos – not yet academic platforms, tools to setup queries and visualization, but difficult to algorythm, the data samples etc. open sources tools (Urbana, Social Media microscope: SMILE (social media intelligence and learning environment) to collect data from twitter, reddit and within the platform they can query Twitter. create trend analysis, sentiment analysis, Voxgov (subscription service: analyzing political social media)

graduate level and faculty research: accessing SM large scale data web scraping & APIs Twitter APIs. Jason script, Python etc. Gnip Firehose API ($) ; Web SCraper Chrome plugin (easy tool, Pyhon and R created); Twint (Twitter scraper)

Facepager (open source) if not Python or R coder. structure and download the data sets.

TAGS archiving google sheets, uses twitter API. anything older 7 days not avaialble, so harvest every week.

social feed manager (GWUniversity) – Justin Litman with Stanford. Install on server but allows much more.

legal concerns: copyright (public info, but not beyond copyrighted). fair use argument is strong, but cannot publish the data. can analyize under fair use. contracts supercede copyright (terms of service/use) licensed data through library.

methods: sampling concerns tufekci, 2014 questions for sm. SM data is a good set for SM, but other fields? not according to her. hashtag studies: self selection bias. twitter as a model organism: over-represnted data in academic studies.

methodological concerns: scope of access – lack of historical data. mechanics of platform and contenxt: retweets are not necessarily endorsements.

ethical concerns. public info – IRB no informed consent. the right to be forgotten. anonymized data is often still traceable.

table discussion: digital humanities, journalism interested, but too narrow. tools are still difficult to find an operate. context of the visuals. how to spread around variety of majors and classes. controversial events more likely to be deleted.

takedowns, lies and corrosion: what is a librarian to do: trolls, takedown,

++++++++++++++vr in library

Crague Cook, Jay Ray

the pilot process. 2017. 3D printing, approaching and assessing success or failure.  https://collegepilot.wiscweb.wisc.edu/

development kit circulation. familiarity with the Oculus Rift resulted in lesser reservation. Downturn also.

An experience station. clean up free apps.

question: spherical video, video 360.

safety issues: policies? instructional perspective: curating,WI people: user testing. touch controllers more intuitive then xbox controller. Retail Oculus Rift

app Scatchfab. 3modelviewer. obj or sdl file. Medium, Tiltbrush.

College of Liberal Arts at the U has their VR, 3D print set up.
Penn State (Paul, librarian, kiniseology, anatomy programs), Information Science and Technology. immersive experiences lab for video 360.

CALIPHA part of it is xrlibraries. libraries equal education. content provider LifeLiqe STEM library of AR and VR objects. https://www.lifeliqe.com/

+++++++++++++++++

Access for All:

https://sched.co/JAXn

accessibilityLeah Root

bloat code (e.g. cleaning up MS Word code)

ILLiad Doctype and Language declaration helps people with disabilities.

https://24ways.org/

 

+++++++++++++++++++

A Seat at the Table: Embedding the Library in Curriculum Development

https://sched.co/JAY5

embedded librarianembed library resources.

libraians, IT staff, IDs. help faculty with course design, primarily online, master courses. Concordia is GROWING, mostly because of online students.

solve issues (putting down fires, such as “gradebook” on BB). Librarians : research and resources experts. Librarians helping with LMS. Broadening definition of Library as support hub.

Video Game Design And Storytelling

The Future Of Mobile Web Design: Video Game Design And Storytelling

As attention spans shorten and visitors just want to get to the good stuff on a website, designers have to get more creative in how they communicate their website’s “story.”

By Suzanne Scacca  June 25, 2018

https://medium.com/@smashingmag/the-future-of-mobile-web-design-video-game-design-and-storytelling-11f5add41d25

What is truly impressive, however, is how we are now able to use design to tell a story. In other words, we no longer need to use long scrolls to set up plots or describe what a company does. This is especially great when designing for the mobile experience, which already sets pretty strict limits on how much we can “tell” versus “show.”

Three Video Game Storytelling Techniques We Need More Of In Web Design

1. Make Your Visitor the Hero

Create User Personas

Develop user personas before you do anything else when strategizing and planning for a website. Your personas should have a key “problem” they face.

Enable Avatar Setup

Use Relatable Content

In video game design, there is something known as “ludonarrative dissonance.”
the unpleasant situation where we’re asking players to do something they don’t want to do… or prevent them from doing what they want.

Spin a Fantasy

Here’s an interesting fact: people are 22 times more likely to remember data when it’s presented in a narrative form.

The brain digests visual content 60% more quickly than written content, so your web designs and other visuals (like video, animation, and so on) are the keys to doing this.

The Airbnb blog always does a great job of this type of visual storytelling.

2. Minimize Distractions by Using Symbols

As of August 2017, 52.64% of all visits to websites were done via a smartphone. And, starting in 2017, the most popular size for a smartphonewas between five and six inches and will only continue to grow in popularity as the years go on.

That’s not a lot of space to fill with content for the majority of site visitors, is it?

Functional minimalism is already something you’re doing in your own web design efforts, but have you thought about how it can tie into the storytelling aspect as well?

Here are some ways in which you might use symbols to declutter your site:

  • Hamburger icon (for the navigation)
  • Profile photo icon (for account details)
  • Pencil icon (for an editing interface)
  • Gear icon (for settings)
  • Shopping cart icon (to checkout)
  • Magnifying glass (to expand the search bar)
  • Connector icon (to open social sharing and RSS feed options)
  • Question mark (to expand live chat, search, or help options)
  • And so on.

3. Be Smart About How You Use Space

Use a Spotlight

In video games, you can use light and darkness to draw attention to important pathways. On websites, it’s not always easy to employ the use of lightness or darkness as too-dark of a design or too-light of text could lead to a bad user experience. What you want to do instead is create a “spotlight” of sorts. You can do this by infusing a key area of your design with a dramatic color or a boldly stylized font.

Add Clues

If you’ve ever played a horror video game before, you know how critical the element of sound can be for it.

That said, while you might not be able to direct visitors down the page with the sound of something playing down below, you can use other elements to lead them. For one, you can use interactive elements like animation to draw their attention to where it needs to go.

Employ a Mascot

For some brands, it might make sense to employ the use of an actual mascot to guide visitors through the story.

Summary

As attention spans shorten and visitors just want to get to the good stuff on a website, designers have to get more creative in how they communicate their website’s “story.” Ideally, your web design will do more showing of that story instead of telling, which is how video game design tends to succeed in this matter.

Remember: Storytelling isn’t just relegated to big brands that can weave bright and shiny tales about how consumers’ lives were changed with their products. Nor is it just for video game designers that have hours of gameplay to develop for their audiences. A story simply needs to convey to the end-user how their problem can be fixed by your site’s solution. Through subtle design strategies inspired by video game storytelling techniques, you can effectively share and shape your own story.

 

SCSU CAVE

Recording of the presentations at the workshop available here:

https://zoom.us/recording/share/YtDl7AA3Te_whtCnZZdv93EiNZbljU7yyzl7ibOEam-wIumekTziMw

Educause Nercomp 2019 conference workshop registration here: https://events.educause.edu/special-topic-events/nercomp-annual-conference/2019/agenda/xr-mission-possible-separate-registration-is-required

1 2 3 4