MVRDV just completed the Tianjin Binhai Public Library, a spectacular cultural center that’s unlike any library we’ve ever seen. Created in collaboration with local architects TUPDI, the 33,800-square-meter library features floor-to-ceiling bookcases that cascade in curves around a luminous spherical auditorium.
Chun, L. (2017). Discipline and power: knowledge of China in political science. Critical Asian Studies, 49(4), 501-522. doi:10.1080/14672715.2017.1362321
p. 501 – is political science “softer” than the other soft social sciences?
thus… political science “may never live up to its lofty ambition of scientific explanation and prediction. Indeed, like other social sciences, it can be no more than a ‘ science in formation’ permanently seeking to surmount obstacles to objectivity.”
p. 502 disciplinary parochialism
the fetishes of pure observation, raw experience, unambiguous rationality, and one-way causality were formative influences in the genesis of the social sciences. the ‘unfortunate positivism” of such impulses, along with the illusion of a value-free science, converged to produce a behavioral revolution in the interwar period Behaviorism was then followed through an epistemological twist, by boldly optimistic leaps to an “end of ideology” and ultimately to a claimed “end of history” itself.
p. 503
early positivism was openly underpinned by an European condescension toward Asians’ “ignorance and prejudice.” Behind similar depictions lay a comprehensive Eurocentric social and political philosophy.
this is illustrated its view of China through the grand narrative of modernization.
p. 504
Robert McNamara famously reiterated that if World War I was a chemist’s war and Word War II a physicist’s, Vietnam “might well have to be considered the social scientists’ war.”
Although China nominally remains a communist state, it has doubtlessly changed color without a color revolution.
p. 505
In the fixed disciplinary eye, “China” is to specific to produce anything generalizable beyond descriptive and self-containing narratives. The area studies approach, in contrast to disciplinary approaches, is all about cultural, historical, and ethnographic specificities.
If first-hand information contradicts theoretical conclusions, redress is sought only at the former end (my note – ha ha ha, such an elegant but scathing criticism of [Western] academia).
The catch [is] that Chinese otherness is in essence not a matter of cultural difference (hence limitations of criticizing Eurocentrism and Orientalism) and does not merely reproduce itself by inertia.
Given a long omitted self-critical rethinking of the discipline’s parochial base, calling for cross-fertilizing alone would be fruitless or even lead only to a one-way colonization of seemingly particularistic histories by an illusive universal science.
p. 506
political culture, once a key concept of political science’s hope for unified theorization, has turned out to be no answer
Long after its heyday, modernization theory – now with its new face of globalization – remains a primary signifier and legitimating benchmark. To those, who use it to gauge developments since 1945, private property and liberal democracy are permanent, unquestioned norms that are to be globally homogenized.
Moreover, since modernity is assumed to be a liberal capitalists condition, the revolutionary nationalism of an oppressed people remaking itself into a new historical subject noncompliant with capitalism cannot be modernizational.
p. 507
Political scientists and historical sociologists… saw the communist in power as formidable modernizers, but distinguished the Maoist model from the Stalinist in economic management and campaign politics.
Their analyses showed how organic connections between top-down mobilization and bottom-up participation cultivated in an active citizenry and high intensity politics. My note: I disagree here with the author, since such statement can be arbitrary from a historical point of view; indeed, for a short period of time, such “organic connection” can produce positive results, but once calcitrated (as it is in China for the past 6-7 decades), it turns stagnant.
p. 510
the state’s altered support base is essentially a matter of class power, involving both adaptive cultivation of new economic elites and iron-fist approaches to protest and dissent. By the same weight of historical logic, the party’s internal decay, loss of its founding ideological vision and commitment, and collusion with capital will do more than any outside force ever could do to destroy the regime.
That the Party stays in power is not primarily because the country’s economy continues to grow, but is more attributable to a residual social reliance on its credentials and organizational capacities accumulated in earlier revolutionary and socialist struggles. This historical promise has so far worked to the extent that cracks within the leadership are more or less held in check, resentment against local wrongs are insulated from central intentions, and social policies in one way or another respond to common outcries, consultative deliberations, and pressure groups.
p. 511
The word “madness” has indeed been freely employed to describe nations and societies judged inept at modern reason, as found in contemporary academic publications on epi- sodes of the PRC history. My note: I agree with this – the deconstructionalists: (Jaques Derrida, Tzvetan Todorov) linguistically prove the inability of Western cultures to understand and explain other cultures. In this case, Lin Chun is right; just because western political scientist cannot comprehend foreign complex societal problems and/or juxtaposing them to their own “schemes,” prompts the same western researchers to announce them as “mad.”
p. 513aa
This is the best and worst of times for the globalization of knowledge. In one scenario, an eventual completion of the political science parameters can now seal both knowledge, sophisticatedly canalized, and ideology, universally uncontested – even if the two are never separable in the foundation of political science. In another scenario, causes and effects no longer rule out atypical polities, but the differences are presented as culturally incompatible. In either case, the trick remains to let anormalies make the norms validate preexist- ing disciplinary sanctions.
p. 514
Overcoming outmoded rigidities will nurture a robust scholarship committed to universally resonant theories.
a study, the “Why We Post” project, has just been published by nine anthropologists, led by Daniel Miller of University College, London. worked independently for 15 months at locations in Brazil, Britain, Chile, China (one rural and one industrial site), India, Italy, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turkey.
In rural China and Turkey social media were viewed as a distraction from education. But in industrial China and Brazil they were seen to be an educational resource. Such a divide was evident in India, too. There, high-income families regarded them with suspicion but low-income families advocated them as a supplementary source of schooling. In Britain, meanwhile, they were valued not directly as a means of education, but as a way for pupils, parents and teachers to communicate.
How would you answer if addressed by this study? How do you see social media? Do you see it differently then before?
On a recent visit in 2015, I found the social media landscape dramatically changed, again. Facebook began actively steering reading practices through changes in 2013 to the News Feed algorithm, which determines content in the site’s central feature. That year, Facebook announced an effort to prioritize “high quality content,” defined as timely, relevant, and trustworthy—and not clickbait, memes, or other viral links. This policy, along with changing practices in sharing news content generally, meant that current events can unfold on and through social media.
how much of your news do you acquire through social media? do you trust the information you acquire through social media? #FakeNews – have explored this hashtag? What is your take on fake news?
meaning management :
Anthropologists and the culturally sensitive analysts take complex bits of data and develop a higher-order sense of them. Information and meaning work at cross purposes. In managing meaning, context is everything while in managing information context is error and noise. When we give our social listening projects to information specialists, we lose an appreciation of context and with it the ability to extract the meanings that provide insight for our companies and brands.
Meaning management also involves a deeper appreciation of social listening as a component of a broader meaning-making system, rather than as, simply, a data source to be exploited.
How do you perceive meaning management? Do you see yourself being a professional with the ability to collect, analyze and interpret such data for your company?
Sugimoto, C. R., Work, S., Larivière, V., & Haustein, S. (2016). Scholarly use of social media and altmetrics: a review of the literature. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.08112
One of the central issues associated with altmetrics (short for alternative metrics) is the identification of communities engaging with scholarly content on social media (Haustein, Bowman, & Costas, 2015; Neylon, 2014; Tsou, Bowman, Ghazinejad, & Sugimoto, 2015) . It is thus of central importance to understand the uses and users of social media in the context of scholarly communication.
most identify the following major categori es: social networking, social bookmarking, blogging, microblogging, wikis , and media and data sharing (Gu & Widén -Wulff, 2011; Rowlands, Nicholas, Russell, Canty, & Watkinson, 2011; Tenopir et al., 2013) . Some also conside r conferencing, collaborative authoring, scheduling and meeting tools (Rowlands et al., 2011) or RSS and online documents (Gu & Widén -Wulff, 2011; Tenopir et al., 2013) as social media. The landscape of social media, as well as that of altmetrics, is constantly changing and boundaries with othe r online platforms and traditional metrics are fuzzy. Many online platforms cannot be easily classified and more traditional metrics , such as downloads and mentions in policy documents , have been referred to as altmetrics due to data pr ovider policies.
the Use of social media platforms for by researchers is high — ranging from 75 to 80% in large -scale surveys (Rowlands et al., 2011; Tenopir et al., 2013; Van Eperen & Marincola, 2011) .
but
less than 10% of scholars reported using Twitter (Rowlands et al., 2011) , while 46% used ResearchGate (Van Noorden, 2014) , and more than 55% use d YouTube (Tenopir et al., 2013) —it is necessary to discuss the use of various types of social media separately . Furthermore, there i s a distinction among types of us e, with studies showing higher uses of social media for dissemination, consumption, communication , and promotion (e.g., Arcila -Calderón, Piñuel -Raigada, & Calderín -Cruz, 2013; Van Noorden, 2014) , and fewer instances of use for creation (i.e., using social media to construct scholarship) (British Library et al., 2012; Carpenter, Wetheridge, Tanner, & Smith, 2012; Procter et al., 2010b; Tenopir et al., 2013) .
Frequently mentioned social platforms in scholarly communication research include research -specific tools such as Mendeley, Zotero, CiteULike, BibSonomy, and Connotea (now defunct) as well as general tools such as Delicious and Digg (Hammond, Hannay, Lund, & Scott, 2005; Hull, Pettifer, & Kell, 2008; Priem & Hemminger, 2010; Reher & Haustein, 2010) .
Social data sharing platforms provide an infrastructure to share various types of scholarly objects —including datasets, software code, figures, presentation slides and videos —and for users to interact with these objects (e.g., comment on, favorite, like , and reuse ). Platforms such as Figshare and SlideShare disseminate scholars’ various types of research outputs such as datasets, figures, infographics, documents, videos, posters , or presentation slides (Enis, 2013) and displays views, likes, and shares by other users (Mas -Bleda et al., 2014) . GitHub provides for uploading and stor ing of software code, which allows users to modify and expand existing code (Dabbish, Stuart, Tsay, & Herbsleb, 2012) , which has been shown to lead to enhanced collaboratio n among developers (Thung, Bissyande, Lo, & Jiang, 2013) . As w ith other social data sharing platforms, usage statistics on the number of view and contributions to a project are provided (Kubilius, 2014) . The registry of research data repositories, re3data.org, ha s indexed more than 1,200 as of May 2015 2 . However, only a few of these repositories (i.e. , Figshare, SlideShare and Github) include social functionalities and have reached a certain level of participation from scholars (e.g., Begel, Bosch, & Storey, 2013; Kubilius, 2014) .
Video provide s yet another genre for social interaction and scholarly communication (Kousha, Thelwall, & Abdoli, 2012; Sugimoto & Thelwall, 2013) . Of the various video sharing platforms, YouTube, launched in 2005, is by far the most popular
A study of UK scholars reports that the majority o f respondents engaged with video for scholarly communication purposes (Tenopir et al., 2013) , yet only 20% have ever created in that genre. Among British PhD students, 17% had used videos and podcasts passively for research, while 8% had actively contributed (British Library et al., 2012) .
Blogs began in the mid -1990s and were considered ubiquitous by the mid- 200 0s (Gillmor, 2006; Hank, 2011; Lenhart & Fox, 2006; Rainie, 2005) . Scholarly blogs emerged during this time with their own neologisms (e.g., blogademia , blawgosphere , bloggership) and body of research (Hank, 2011) and were considered to change the exclusive structure of scholarly communication
Technorati, considered t o be on e of the largest ind ex of blogs, deleted their entire blog directory in 2014 3 . Individual blogs are also subject to abrupt cancellations and deletions, making questionable the degree to which blogging meets the permanence criteria of scholarly commu nication (Hank, 2011) .
ResearchBlogging.org (RB) — “an aggregator of blog posts referencing peer -reviewed research in a structured manner” (Shema, Bar -Ilan, & Thelwall, 2015, p. 3) — was launched in 2007 and has been a fairly stable structure in the scholarly blogging environment. RB both aggregates and —through the use of the RB icon — credentials scholarly blogs (Shema et al., 2015) . The informality of the genre (Mewburn & Thomson, 2013) and the ability to circumve nt traditional publishing barr iers has led advocates to claim that blogging can invert traditional academic power hierarchies (Walker, 2006) , allow ing people to construct scholarly identities outside of formal institutionalization (Ewins, 2005; Luzón, 2011; Potter, 2012) and democratize the scientific system (Gijón, 2013) . Another positive characteristic of blogs is their “inherently social” nature (Walker, 2006, p. 132) (see also Kjellberg, 2010; Luzón, 2011 ). Scholars have noted the potential for “communal scholarship” (Hendrick, 2012) made by linking and commenting, calling the platform “a new ‘third place’ for academic discourse” (Halavais, 2006, p. 117) . Commenting functionalities were seen as making possible the “shift from public understanding to public engagement with science” (Kouper, 2010, p. 1) .
Studies have also provided evidence of high rate s of blogging among certain subpopulations: for example, approximately one -third of German university staff (Pscheida et al., 2013) and one fifth of UK doctoral students use blogs (Carpenter et al., 2012) .
Academics are not only producers, but also consumers of blogs: a 2007 survey of medical bloggers foundthat the large majority (86%) read blogs to find medical news (Kovic et al., 2008)
Mahrt and Puschmann (2014) , who defined science blogging as “the use of blogs for science communication” (p. 1). It has been similarly likened to a sp ace for public intellectualism (Kirkup, 2010; Walker, 2006) and as a form of activism to combat perceived biased or pseudoscience (Riesch & Mendel, 2014. Yet, there remains a tension between science bloggers and science journalists, with many science journals dismissing the value of science blogs (Colson, 2011)
.
while there has been anecdotal evidence of the use of blogs in promotion and tenure (e.g., (Podgor, 2006) the consensus seem s to suggest that most institutions do not value blogging as highly as publishing in traditional outlets, or consider blogging as a measure of service rather than research activity (Hendricks, 2010, para. 30) .
Microblogging developed out of a particular blogging practice, wherein bloggers would post small messages or single files on a blog post. Blogs that focused on such “microposts” were then termed “tumblelogs” and were described as “a quick and dirty stream of consciousness” kind of blogging (Kottke, 2005, para. 2)
most popular microblogs are Twitter (launched in 2006), tumblr (launched in 2007), FriendFeed (launched in 2007 and available in several languages), Plurk (launched in 2008 and popular in Taiwan), and Sina Weibo (launched in 2009 and popular in China).
users to follow other users, search tweets by keywords or hashtags, and link to other media or other tweets
.
Conference chatter (backchanneling) is another widely studied area in the realm of scholarly microblogging. Twitter use at conferences is generally carried out by a minority of participants
Wikis are collaborative content management platforms enabled by web browsers and embedded markup languages.
Wikipedia has been advocated as a replacement for traditional publishing and peer review models (Xia o & Askin, 2012) and pleas have been made to encourage experts to contribute (Rush & Tracy, 2010) . Despite this, contribution rates remain low — likely hindered by the lack of explicit authorship in Wikipedia, a cornerstone of the traditional academic reward system (Black, 2008; Butler, 2008; Callaway, 2010; Whitworth & Friedman, 2009) . Citations to scholarly documents —another critical component in the reward system —are increasingly being found i n Wikiped ia entries (Bould et al., 2014; Park, 2011; Rousidis et al., 2013) , but are no t yet seen as valid impact indicators (Haustein, Peters, Bar -Ilan, et al., 2014) .
The altmetrics manifesto (Priem et al., 2010, para. 1) , altmetrics can serve as filters , which “reflect the broad, rapid impact of scholarship in this burgeoning ecosystem”.
There are also a host of platforms which are being used informally to discuss and rate scholarly material. Reddit, for example, is a general topic platform where users can submit, discuss and rate online content. Historically, mentions of scientific journals on Reddit have been rare (Thelwall, Haustein, et al., 2013) . However, several new subreddits —e.g., science subreddit 4 , Ask Me Anything sessions 5 –have recently been launched, focusing on the discussion of scientific information. Sites like Amazon (Kousha & Thelwall, 2015) and Goodreads (Zuccala, Verleysen, Cornacchia, & Engels, 2015) , which allow users to comment on and rate books, has also been mined as potential source for the compilation of impact indicators
libraries provide services to support researchers’ use of social media tools and metrics (Lapinski, Piwowar, & Priem, 2013; Rodgers & Barbrow, 2013; Roemer & Borchardt, 2013). One example is Mendeley Institutional Edition, https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/mendeley/Mendeley-Institutional-Edition, which mines Mendeley documents, annotations, and behavior and provides these data to libraries (Galligan & Dyas -Correia, 2013) . Libraries can use them for collection management, in a manner similar to other usage data, such as COUNTER statistics (Galligan & Dyas -Correia, 2013) .
Factors affecting social media use; age, academic rank and status, gender, discipline, country and language,
Our first Library 2.022 mini-conference: “Virtual Reality and Learning: Leading the Way,” will be held online (and for free) on Tuesday, March 29th, 2022.
Virtual Reality was identified by the American Library Association as one of the 10 top library technology trends for the future. The use of this technology is equally trending in the education, museum, and professional learning spheres. Virtual Reality is a social and digital technology that uniquely promises to transform learning, build empathy, and make personal and professional training more effective and economical.
Through the leadership of the state libraries in California, Nevada, and Washington, Virtual Reality projects have been deployed in over 120 libraries in the three states in both economically and geographically diverse service areas. This example, as well as other effective approaches, can help us to begin a national conversation about the use of XR/immersive learning technology in libraries, schools, and museums; and about making content available to all users, creating spaces where digital inclusion and digital literacy serves those who need it the most
This is a free event, being held live online and also recorded. REGISTER HERE
to attend live and/or to receive the recording links afterward.
Please also join this Library 2.0 network to be kept updated on this and future events.
Everyone is invited to participate in our Library 2.0 conference events, which are designed to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing among information professionals worldwide. Each three-hour event consists of a keynote panel, 10-15 crowd-sourced thirty-minute presentations, and a closing keynote.
CALL FOR PROPOSALS:The call for proposals is now open. We encourage proposals that showcase effective uses of Virtual Reality in libraries, schools, and museums. We encourage proposals that also address visions or examples of Virtual Reality impacting adult education, STEM learning, the acquisition of marketable skills, workforce development, and unique learning environments.. Proposals can be submitted HERE.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS, SPECIAL GUESTS, AND ORGANIZERS:
Sara Jones
State Librarian, Washington State Library
Sara Jones previously served as the director of the Marin County Free Library since July 2013. Prior to her time in California, Jones held positions in Nevada libraries for 25 years, including serving as the Carson City Library Director, the Elko-LanderEureka County Library System Director and Youth Services Coordinator, and Nevada State Librarian and Administrator of the State Library and Archives from 2000-2007. Jones was named the Nevada Library Association’s Librarian of the Year in 2012; served as Nevada’s American Library Association (ALA) Council Delegate for four years; coordinated ALA National Library Legislative Day for Nevada for 12 years; served as the Nevada Library Association president; was an active member of the Western Council of State Libraries serving as both vice president and president; and served on the University of North Texas Department of Library and Information Sciences Board of Advisors for over 10 years. She was awarded the ALA Sullivan award for services to children in 2018. She is a member and past-president of CALIFA, a nonprofit library membership consortium.
Tammy Westergard
Senior Workforce Development Leader, Project Coordinator – U.S. Department of Education Reimagine Workforce Preparation Grant Program – Supporting and Advancing Nevada’s Dislocated Individuals – Project SANDI
As Nevada State Librarian (2020 – 2021), Tammy Douglass Westergard was a leader in envisioning the dynamic roles of libraries in the future of learning and democracy in America. Tammy was also named the Nevada Library Association’s 2020 Librarian of the Year. She deployed the first certification program within any public library in America where individuals can earn a Manufacturing Technician 1 (MT1), a nationally recognized industry credential necessary to get many of the high paying careers in advanced manufacturing. In parallel with California public libraries, Westergard launched in Nevada the first State-wide learning program in American public libraries delivering augmented reality and virtual reality STEM content and equipment, resulting in immersive learning experiences for thousands of learners. Westergard imagined and then became the project design leader for the first-ever initiative deploying 3D learning tools for the College of Southern Nevada’s (CSN) allied health programs. As a result, CSN is the first dialysis technician training program in the world to use a virtual reality simulation for instruction and CSN was able to accept remote, online learners into its program for students who were previously unable to access the program.Tammy received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Nevada, Reno, a Master of Library Science from the University of North Texas and is a member of Beta Phi Mu, the international library and information studies honor society. She is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation. The Library Journal named Westergard an “Agent of Change Mover and Shaker.” Tammy’s great passion is advancing educational opportunities through the library. She believes there is dignity in work, which is why she is expanding first-in-the-country programs she created that help displaced workers reskill and upskill so they can step into living wage jobs.
Greg Lucas
California State Librarian
Greg Lucas was appointed California’s 25th State Librarian by Governor Jerry Brown on March 25, 2014. Prior to his appointment, Greg was the Capitol Bureau Chief for the San Francisco Chronicle where he covered politics and policy at the State Capitol for nearly 20 years. During Greg’s tenure as State Librarian, the State Library’s priorities have been to improve reading skills throughout the state, put library cards into the hands of every school kid and provide all Californians the information they need – no matter what community they live in. The State Library invests $10 million annually in local libraries to help them develop more innovative and efficient ways to serve their communities. Since 2015, the State Library has improved access for millions of Californians by helping connect more than half of the state’s 1,100 libraries to a high-speed Internet network that links universities, colleges, schools, and libraries around the world. Greg holds a Master’s in Library and Information Science from California State University San Jose, a Master’s in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California, and a degree in communications from Stanford University.
Milton Chen
Independent Speaker, Author, Board Member
Milton says that he has had a very fortunate and fulfilling career on both coasts, working with passionate innovators to transform education in creative ways. His first job out of college was at Sesame Workshop in New York, working with founder Joan Cooney and some amazingly talented colleagues in TV production and educational research. From 1976 to 1980, he worked in the research department, creating science curricula for Sesame Street and testing segments for The Electric Company, the reading series. He then served as director of research for the development of 3-2-1 Contact, a science series for 8- to 12-year-olds. Eventually, Sesame Street circled the globe, with broadcasts in more than 100 countries and versions in Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, and many other languages. He then came to the Bay Area to pursue doctoral studies in communication at Stanford. His dissertation looked at gender differences in high school computer use, including new desktop computers we called “microcomputers.” After two years as an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, he joined KQED-San Francisco (PBS) in 1987 as director of education. They worked with teachers to incorporate video into their lessons, using VCRs! He wrote my first book, The Smart Parent’s Guide to Kids’ TV (1994) and hosted a program on the topic with special guest, First Lady Hillary Clinton. In 1998, he joined The George Lucas Educational Foundation as executive director. During his 12 years there, thjey produced documentaries and other media on schools embracing innovations such as project-based learning, social/emotional learning, digital technologies, and community engagement. They created the Edutopia brand to represent more ideal environments for learning. Today, the Edutopia.org website attracts more than 5 million monthly users.
Karsten Heise
Director of Strategic Programs, Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) i
Karsten Heise joined the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) in April 2012 initially as Technology Commercialization Director and then continued as Director of Strategic Programs. He leads Innovation Based Economic Development (IBED) in Nevada. As part of IBED, he created and manages Nevada’s State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) Venture Capital Program. He also leads and overseas the ‘Nevada Knowledge Fund’ to spur commercialization at the state’s research institutions and to foster Research & Development engagements with the private sector as well as supporting local entrepreneurial ecosystems and individual startups. In addition, Karsten is deeply familiar with the European vocational training system having completed his banking-apprenticeship in Germany. This experience inspired the development of the ‘Learn and Earn Advanced career Pathway’ (LEAP) framework in Nevada, which progressed to becoming the standard template for developing career pathway models in the state. He is deeply passionate about continuously developing new workforce development approaches dealing with the consequences of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Prior to joining the GOED, Karsten spent five years in China working as an external consultant to Baron Group Beijing and as member of the senior management team at Asia Assets Limited, Beijing. Before relocating to Beijing, Karsten worked for 10 years in the international equity divisions of London-based leading Wall Street investment banks Morgan Stanley, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ), and most recently Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB). As Vice President at CSFB, he specialized in alternative investments, structured products, and international equities. His clients were entrepreneurs, ultra-high net worth individuals and family offices as well as insurance companies, pension funds, asset managers and banks. Karsten speaks German and Mandarin Chinese. Karsten completed his university education in the United Kingdom with a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours in Economics from the University of Buckingham, a Master of Science with Distinction in International Business & Finance from the University of Reading, and a Master of Philosophy with Merit in Modern Chinese Studies, Chinese Economy from the University of Cambridge – Wolfson College. He is also an alumnus of the Investment Management Evening Program at London Business School and completed graduate research studies at Peking University, China.
Dana Ryan, PhD
Special Assistant to the President, Truckee Meadows Community College
With a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Nevada, Reno, Dana has decades advancing education and training solutions to meaningfully link, scale, enhance and further develop digital components in healthcare, advanced manufacturing, logistics, IT and construction trades. She understands the WIOA one-stop-operating-system programs and processes and can communicate how delivery of services to clients through local offices, regional centers and libraries is achieved. Skill with analysis of a variety of labor market and other demographic information creates excellence in explaining the relevance of labor market data and local, state, and national labor market trends. Dana interfaces with labor and management groups/leaders, and others.
This is a free event, being held live online and also recorded. REGISTER HERE
to attend live and/or to receive the recording links afterward.
Please also join this Library 2.0 network to be kept updated on this and future events.
Acquisitions and partnerships are a cornerstone of Byju’s early learning programs: It bought Palo Alto-based Osmo in 2019, which combines digital learning with manipulatives, an approach the companies call “phygital.” For instance: Using a tablet’s camera and Osmo’s artificial intelligence software, the system tracks what a child is doing on a (physical) worksheet and responds accordingly to right and wrong answers. “It’s almost like having a teacher looking over you, My note: this can be come disastrous when combined with the China’s “social credit” system.
By contrast, Byju’s FutureSchool (launched in the U.S. this past spring) aims to offer one-to-one tutoring sessions starting with coding (based in part on WhiteHat Jr., which it acquired in August 2020) and eventually including music, fine arts and English to students in the U.S., Brazil, the U.K., Indonesia and others. The company has recruited 11,000 teachers in India to staff the sessions
In mid-July, Byju’s bought California-based reading platform Epic for $500 million. That product opens up a path for Byju’s to schools. Epic offers a digital library of more than 40,000 books for students ages 12 and under. Consumers pay about $80 a year for the library. It’s free to schools. Epic says that more than 1 million teachers in 90 percent of U.S. elementary schools have signed up for accounts.
That raises provocative questions for U.S. educators. Among them:
How will products originally developed for the consumer market fit the needs of schools, particularly those that serve disadvantaged students?
Will there be more development dollars poured into products that appeal to consumers—and less into products that consumers typically skip (say, middle school civics or history curriculum?)
How much of an investment will giants such as Byju’s put into researching the effectiveness of its products? In the past most consumers have been less concerned than professional educators about the “research” behind the learning products they buy. Currently Gokulnath says the company most closely tracks metrics such as “engagement” (how much time students spend on the product) and “renewals” (how many customers reup after a year’s use of the product.)
How will products designed for home users influence parents considering whether to continue to school at home in the wake of viral pandemics?
Information Media and Digital Literacy for GLST 195:Global Society & Citizenship
Instructor: Prof. Chuks Ugochukwu Per Syllabus:
COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES: The course meets Liberal Education Program (LEP), Goal Area 8: Global Perspective; and Goal Area 9: Ethical and Civic Responsibility objectives Goal Area 8: Global Perspective. Objective: Develop a comparative perspective and understanding of one’s place in a global context.
Students will be able to:
Describe and analyze political, economic, and cultural elements which influence relations of states and societies in their historical and contemporary dimensions.
Demonstrate knowledge of cultural, social, religious and linguistic differences.
Analyze specific international problems, illustrating the cultural,economic, and political differences that affect their solution.
Understand the role of a world citizen and the responsibility world citizens share for their common global future.
Goal Area 9: Ethical and Civic Responsibility Objective: Understand and evaluate ethical or civic issues and theories and participate in active citizenship or ethical judgment
OUR HUSKY COMPACT
Our Husky Compact is a bond shared by St. Cloud State University and its students that a SCSU education will prepare students for a life of growth and fulfillment – intellectually, professionally, and personally. When students graduate with an SCSU education, they will:
Think Creatively and Critically
Seek and Apply Knowledge
Communicate Effectively
Integrate Existing and Evolving Technologies
Engage as a Member of a Diverse and Multicultural World
Act with Personal Integrity and Civic Responsibility
+++++++++++++++++++++
Week ???: Information – Media and Digital Literacy
Mini-Assignment: After reading the information from the links above, take a minute to write out your own definition of 1. Fake News 2. Alternative Facts
Mini-Assignment: After reading the information from the links above, take a minute to write out your own definition of 1. Misinformation 2. Disinformation. What are their main characteristics? How do they differ?
Propaganda
Mini-Assignment: What is Propaganda? How do misinformation, disinformation, fake news and alternative facts fit into the process of propaganda?
Mini-Assignment: Using the information from the links above, can you establish the connection between conspiracy theories, propaganda, mis- and disinformation, fake news, alternative news and social media?
Mini-Assignment: using the info from the links above and/or information you have collected, can you define the role of bots and trolls in social media in regard to propaganda and conspiracy theories?
Mini-Assignment:: based on your own information and experience, as well as the information offered in the links, can you define your own resistance to clickbaits?
In a short paragraph, identify the issues you see as important to address in order to improve your own news literacy. time to accomplish the assignment: ~45 min (including listening to the podcast).
Why is it important to understand these processes?
Assignment: why is it important:
In a short paragraph, share your initial feeling about Fake News / Misinformation / Disinformation. 1. Do you think, it is important at all? 2. If yes, why; if not, why. 3. If yes, what is the importance, the impact? time to accomplish the assignment: ~5-10 min
How to deal with these processes
how do we apply hands-on critical thinking to withstand these processes?
Similarly to the assessment of popular information sources, academia requires vigorous vetting if the sources you will be using for your academic work. In the 21st century, your ability to find information in peer-reviewed journals might not be sufficient to assure accurate and reliable use of information from those resources for your research and writing. After your selection of peer-reviewed literature, you must be able to evaluate and determine the veracity and reliability of those sources. How do you evaluate a source of information to determine if it is appropriate for academic/scholarly use. There is no set “checklist” to complete but below are some criteria to consider when you are evaluating a source.
Here is a short (4 min) video introducing you to the well-known basics for evaluation of academic literature: https://youtu.be/qUd_gf2ypk4
ACCURACY
Does the author cite reliable sources?
How does the information compare with that in other works on the topic?
Can you determine if the information has gone through peer-review?
Are there factual, spelling, typographical, or grammatical errors?
AUDIENCE
Who do you think the authors are trying to reach?
Is the language, vocabulary, style and tone appropriate for intended audience?
What are the audience demographics? (age, educational level, etc.)
Are the authors targeting a particular group or segment of society?
AUTHORITY
Who wrote the information found in the article or on the site?
What are the author’s credentials/qualifications for this particular topic?
Is the author affiliated with a particular organization or institution?
What does that affiliation suggest about the author?
CURRENCY
Is the content current?
Does the date of the information directly affect the accuracy or usefulness of the information?
OBJECTIVITY/BIAS
What is the author’s or website’s point of view?
Is the point of view subtle or explicit?
Is the information presented as fact or opinion?
If opinion, is the opinion supported by credible data or informed argument?
Is the information one-sided?
Are alternate views represented?
Does the point of view affect how you view the information?
PURPOSE
What is the author’s purpose or objective, to explain, provide new information or news, entertain, persuade or sell?
Does the purpose affect how you view the information presented?
In 2021, however, all suggestions above may not be sufficient to distinguish a reliable source of information, even if the article made it through the peer-reviewed process. In time, you should learn to evaluate the research methods of the authors and decide if they are reliable. Same applies for the research findings and conclusions.
Assignment: seeking reliable information
From your syllabus weekly themes: 1. Food; 2. Health; 3. Energy; 4. Environment; 5. Security, chose a topic of your interest.
For example: Food: raising cattle for food contributes to climate changes, because of the methane gas, or Health: COVID is the same (or not the same) as the flu; or Energy: Fossil energy is bad (or good) for the environment; etc.
Please consult with me (email me for a zoom appointment: pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu), if you need to discuss the choice and narrowing down of the topic.
Once you decide on the topic, do the research by collecting four sources of information:
The first couple of sources will be from popular media, whereas each of the two articles will be having an opposite approach, arguments and understanding of the issue. For example, one article will claim fossil energy is bad for the environment and the other one will argue fossil fuel has insignificant impact on climate change. You must be able to evaluate the veracity and the leaning of each source. The source can be a newspaper or magazine article, video (TV or Social Media), audio (podcasts, TV, etc.), presentations (PowerPoint, SlideShare, etc.).
Having troubles finding opposing resources? Feel welcome to search for your topic among these news outlets on the conservative side: https://www.conservapedia.com/Top_Conservative_news_websites
and the https://aelieve.com/rankings/websites/category/news-media/top-liberal-websites/
In the same fashion, you will evaluate the second couple of sources from peer-reviewed journals. Each source will have different approach, argument and understanding of the issue and you must evaluate the robustness of the research method.
time to accomplish the assignment: ~30 min
Module 2 (video to introduce students to the readings and expected tasks)
Digital Citizenship, Global Citizenship and Multiculturalism
Assignment:
Global Citizenship and Multiculturalism and Information and Media Literacy
Study the following tweet feed https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2021/02/18/facebook-google-australia/
If the information from the tweet feed is insufficient, research the issue by seeking reliable sources. (In a short paragraph defend your choice of reliable sources).
What do you see as more important issue: the Facebook stance that it can be a subject of Australian law or the Australian government stance that Facebook is interfering in Australian life with its news delivery? Is Facebook a news outlet or a platform for news outlets? Does Facebook need to be regulated? By who; each country do have to regulate Facebook or Facebook needs to be regulated globally?
time to accomplish the assignment: ~30 min
Module 3 (video to introduce students to the readings and expected tasks)
Can We Develop Herd Immunity to Internet Propaganda?
Internet propaganda is becoming an industrialized commodity, warns Phil Howard, the director of the Oxford Internet Institute and author of many books on disinformation. In an interview, he calls for greater transparency and regulation of the industry.
Platforms like Parler, TheDonald, Breitbart and Anon are like petri dishes for testing out ideas, to see what sticks. If extremist influencers see that something gets traction, they ramp it up. In the language of disease, you would say these platforms act as a vector, like a germ that carries a disease into other, more public forums.
at some point a major influencer takes a new meme from one of these extremist forums and puts it out before a wider audience. It works like a vector-borne disease like malaria, where the mosquitoes do the transmission. So, maybe a Hollywood actor or an influencer who knows nothing about politics will take this idea and post it on the bigger, better known platform. From there, these memes escalate as they move from Parler to maybe Reddit and from there to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. We call this “cascades of misinformation.“
Sometimes the cascades of misinformation bounce from country to country between the U.S., Canada and the UK for example. So, it echoes back and forth.
Within Europe, two reservoirs for disinformation stick out: Poland and Hungary.
Our 2020 report shows that cyber troop activity continues to increase around the world. This year, we found evidence of 81 countries using social media to spread computational propaganda and disinformation about politics. This has increased from last years’ report, where we identified 70 countries with cyber troop activity.
identified 63 new instances of private firms working with governments or political parties to spread disinformation about elections or other important political issues. We identified 21 such cases in 2017-2018, yet only 15 in the period between 2009 and 2016.
Why would well-funded Russian agencies buy disinformation services from a newcomer like Nigeria?
(1) Russian actors have found a lab in Nigeria that can provide services at competitive prices. (2) But countries like China and Russia seem to be developing an interest in political influence in many African countries, so it is possible that there is a service industry for disinformation in Nigeria for that part of the world.
Each social media company should provide some kind of accounting statement about how it deals with misuse, with reporting hate speech, with fact checking and jury systems and so on. This system of transparency and accountability works for the stock markets, why shouldn’t it work in the social media realm?
We clearly need a digital civics curriculum. The 12 to 16 year olds are developing their media attitudes now, they will be voting soon. There is very good media education in Canada or the Netherlands for example, and that is an excellent long-term strategy.
p. 169 Marxism, humanism, and literature in the university
Marx was a student if economic and political forces who believed he was conducting scientific inquiries into social political and economic structures; yes his works, students complain, are not taught at all in the Brown economics and political science departments. Students committed to post modern ways of thinking discover conspiracy in this phenomenon, but it is more likely that the omission is owning to the fact that professional economists do not respect marks as an economist. Those who pursue the study of economics essay science do not consider Marxist economic theories sufficiently scientific, and on the basis of what Dusty a risk of done to the economics of the Soviet union in the peoples Republic of China, which claim to be Marxist states, who can blame the process for being skeptical?
A similar situation exists with regard to Freud. Just as marks is very little taught in political science or economic departments, sort throat is not crowded these days in Department of psychology or psychiatry, and for similar reasons. Though what Freud dead in his own time may have passed for science and though he may have considered himself a scientist, he is not a scientist at all by contemporary standards. If Marxist economics has not produced utopias in Marxist states, so, by the same token, Freudian techniques of analysis have not consistently demonstrated the power to cure the more serious ( or even the most trivial) psychological disorders.
p. 170 If Marxist economics is no longer perceived is a tool that can be used to help solve economic problems, and Freudian analytics techniques are no longer applicable in helping to cure patients with mental disorders, what residue of Marxism and Freudianism remains?
p. 171 though they find an inhospitable climate in the social sciences and in the heart sciences, Marks in Freud have been given a warm home in certain humanities departments committed to postmodern ways of perceiving the world. But they have not found a home there is scientists. They have found a home, rather, as profits, or perhaps more accurately, as gods. And those who espouse Marxian in Freudian views become the “true believers.”
what happens to Marxist and Freudian ideas when they lose their empirical grounding in their power to explain events in the physical world? Free-floating Marxist and Freudian ideas have been fused to established at least one of the foundations of post modernist literature theory and to promulgate an image of the human form it’s a robot controlled by “ideology.”
p. 172. Because ideology works most effectively through its unconscious hold on subjects, it resists being made conscious or explicit. And ideology structures ‘seeing’ in ‘feeling’ before it structures ‘thinking,’ and appears to have no historical or social specificity but to be simply the natural way of perceiving reality.
Other residues of do descientizied Marx and Freud are “the class struggle” in “sublimation.” But the class struggle is Marx conceived it never really took root in American culture.
Even know, empirical sociologists have difficulty in defining what constitutes “a class” in American culture, and in determining where one class ends and another begins.
It is well known that the vast majority of Americans define themselves as middle-class, which then makes it necessary for a sociologist interested in arriving it finally distinctions to divide the middle glass itself into upper, middle, and lower, and so on.
p. 173. Post modern Freudians are forced into similar absurdities. Freud based his theory of sublimation (neurosis-as-the-price-of-culture) on the very rigid Austro-German family, constituted by a strict, punishing, disciplinarian father, a submissive mother, and obedient son, and a subservient daughter. p. 174 Marks in Floyd analyzed Austro-German culture and thought they were analyzing the universe. For them Austro-German culture was universal culture, as it consequently becomes for believing Marxists and Freudians.
p. 179. And what are you, reader?
the humanities are in flux. Liberal democracy, on which the humanities real life for 16 ounce and which day in Torrance sustain, is under attack by ‘humanists”; literary criticism has nothing only become politicized, but politicized against the Vallas of liberal humanism.
p. 190. The Marxist-Gramscian thesis depends on a conspiracy theory according to which the “dominant classes” exert their influence over the “subordinate classes covered” the by means of educational, religious, and other institutions, and ‘ruling groups preempt the high ground of universal morality in truth.” Because the dominant classes dominate the oppressed classes in secrecy, by means of social institutions, de artist must respond to this dominance with symbolic representations.
Presentation 1: Inspiring Faculty (+ Students) with Tales of Immersive Tech (Practitioner Presentation #106)
Authors: Nicholas Smerker
Immersive technologies – 360º video, virtual and augmented realities – are being discussed in many corners of higher education. For an instructor who is familiar with the terms, at least in passing, learning more about why they and their students should care can be challenging, at best. In order to create a font of inspiration, the IMEX Lab team within Teaching and Learning with Technology at Penn State devised its Get Inspired web resource. Building on a similar repository for making technology stories at the sister Maker Commons website, the IMEX Lab Get Inspired landing page invites faculty to discover real world examples of how cutting edge XR tools are being used every day. In addition to very approachable video content and a short summary calling out why our team chose the story, there are also instructional designer-developed Assignment Ideas that allow for quick deployment of exercises related to – though not always relying upon – the technologies highlighted in a given Get Inspired story.
Presentation 2: Lessons Learned from Over A Decade of Designing and Teaching Immersive VR in Higher Education Online Courses (Practitioner Presentation #101)
Authors: Eileen Oconnor
This presentation overviews the design and instruction in immersive virtual reality environments created by the author beginning with Second Life and progressing to open source venues. It will highlight the diversity of VR environment developed, the challenges that were overcome, and the accomplishment of students who created their own VR environments for K12, college and corporate settings. The instruction and design materials created to enable this 100% online master’s program accomplishment will be shared; an institute launched in 2018 for emerging technology study will be noted.
Presentation 3: Virtual Reality Student Teaching Experience: A Live, Remote Option for Learning Teaching Skills During Campus Closure and Social Distancing (Practitioner Presentation #110)
Summary: During the Coronavirus pandemic, Ithaca College teacher education majors needed a classroom of students in order to practice teaching and receive feedback, but the campus was closed, and gatherings forbidden. Students were unable to participate in live practice teaching required for their program. We developed a virtual reality pilot project to allow students to experiment in two third-party social VR programs, AltSpaceVR and Rumii. Social VR platforms allow a live, embodied experience that mimics in-person events to give students a more realistic, robust and synchronous teaching practice opportunity. We documented the process and lessons learned to inform, develop and scale next generation efforts.
Sunday, June 21 • 8:00am – 9:00am Escape the (Class)room games in OpenSim or Second Life FULLhttps://ilrn2020.sched.com/event/ceKP/escape-the-classroom-games-in-opensim-or-second-lifePre-registration for this tour is required as places are limited. Joining instructions will be emailed to registrants ahead of the scheduled tour time.The Guided Virtual Adventure tour will take you to EduNation in Second Life to experience an Escape room game. For one hour, a group of participants engage in voice communication and try to solve puzzles, riddles or conundrums and follow clues to eventually escape the space. These scenarios are designed for problem solving and negotiating language and are ideal for language education. They are fun and exciting and the clock ticking adds to game play.Tour guide(s)/leader(s): Philp Heike, let’s talk online sprl, Belgium
Presentation 1: Evaluating the impact of multimodal Collaborative Virtual Environments on user’s spatial knowledge and experience of gamified educational tasks (Full Paper #91)
Authors: Ioannis Doumanis and Daphne Economou
>>Access Video Presentation<<
Several research projects in spatial cognition have suggested Virtual Environments (VEs) as an effective way of facilitating mental map development of a physical space. In the study reported in this paper, we evaluated the effectiveness of multimodal real-time interaction in distilling understanding of the VE after completing gamified educational tasks. We also measure the impact of these design elements on the user’s experience of educational tasks. The VE used reassembles an art gallery and it was built using REVERIE (Real and Virtual Engagement In Realistic Immersive Environment) a framework designed to enable multimodal communication on the Web. We compared the impact of REVERIE VG with an educational platform called Edu-Simulation for the same gamified educational tasks. We found that the multimodal VE had no impact on the ability of students to retain a mental model of the virtual space. However, we also found that students thought that it was easier to build a mental map of the virtual space in REVERIE VG. This means that using a multimodal CVE in a gamified educational experience does not benefit spatial performance, but also it does not cause distraction. The paper ends with future work and conclusions and suggestions for improving mental map construction and user experience in multimodal CVEs.
Presentation 2: A case study on student’s perception of the virtual game supported collaborative learning (Full Paper #42)
Authors: Xiuli Huang, Juhou He and Hongyan Wang
>>Access Video Presentation<<
The English education course in China aims to help students establish the English skills to enhance their international competitiveness. However, in traditional English classes, students often lack the linguistic environment to apply the English skills they learned in their textbook. Virtual reality (VR) technology can set up an immersive English language environment and then promote the learners to use English by presenting different collaborative communication tasks. In this paper, spherical video-based virtual reality technology was applied to build a linguistic environment and a collaborative learning strategy was adopted to promote their communication. Additionally, a mixed-methods research approach was used to analyze students’ achievement between a traditional classroom and a virtual reality supported collaborative classroom and their perception towards the two approaches. The experimental results revealed that the virtual reality supported collaborative classroom was able to enhance the students’ achievement. Moreover, by analyzing the interview, students’ attitudes towards the virtual reality supported collaborative class were reported and the use of language learning strategies in virtual reality supported collaborative class was represented. These findings could be valuable references for those who intend to create opportunities for students to collaborate and communicate in the target language in their classroom and then improve their language skills
Presentation 1: Reducing Cognitive Load through the Worked Example Effect within a Serious Game Environment (Full Paper #19)
Authors: Bernadette Spieler, Naomi Pfaff and Wolfgang Slany
>>Access Video Presentation<<
Novices often struggle to represent problems mentally; the unfamiliar process can exhaust their cognitive resources, creating frustration that deters them from learning. By improving novices’ mental representation of problems, worked examples improve both problem-solving skills and transfer performance. Programming requires both skills. In programming, it is not sufficient to simply understand how Stackoverflow examples work; programmers have to be able to adapt the principles and apply them to their own programs. This paper shows evidence in support of the theory that worked examples are the most efficient mode of instruction for novices. In the present study, 42 students were asked to solve the tutorial The Magic Word, a game especially for girls created with the Catrobat programming environment. While the experimental group was presented with a series of worked examples of code, the control groups were instructed through theoretical text examples. The final task was a transfer question. While the average score was not significantly better in the worked example condition, the fact that participants in this experimental group finished significantly faster than the control group suggests that their overall performance was better than that of their counterparts.
Presentation 2: A literature review of e-government services with gamification elements (Full Paper #56)
Authors: Ruth S. Contreras-Espinosa and Alejandro Blanco-M
>>Access Video Presentation<<
Nowadays several democracies are facing the growing problem of a breach in communication between its citizens and their political representatives, resulting in low citizen’s engagement in the participation of political decision making and on public consultations. Therefore, it is fundamental to generate a constructive relationship between both public administration and the citizens by solving its needs. This document contains a useful literature review of the gamification topic and e-government services. The documents contain a background of those concepts and conduct a selection and analysis of the different applications found. A set of three lines of research gaps are found with a potential impact on future studies.
Presentation 1: Connecting User Experience to Learning in an Evaluation of an Immersive, Interactive, Multimodal Augmented Reality Virtual Diorama in a Natural History Museum & the Importance of Story (Full Paper #51)
Authors: Maria Harrington
>>Access Video Presentation<<
Reported are the findings of user experience and learning outcomes from a July 2019 study of an immersive, interactive, multimodal augmented reality (AR) application, used in the context of a museum. The AR Perpetual Garden App is unique in creating an immersive multisensory experience of data. It allowed scientifically naïve visitors to walk into a virtual diorama constructed as a data visualization of a springtime woodland understory, and interact with multimodal information directly through their senses. The user interface comprised of two different AR data visualization scenarios reinforced with data based ambient bioacoustics, an audio story of the curator’s narrative, and interactive access to plant facts. While actual learning and dwell times were the same between the AR app and the control condition, the AR experience received higher ratings on perceived learning. The AR interface design features of “Story” and “Plant Info” showed significant correlations with actual learning outcomes, while “Ease of Use” and “3D Plants” showed significant correlations with perceived learning. As such, designers and developers of AR apps can generalize these findings to inform future designs.
Presentation 2: The Naturalist’s Workshop: Virtual Reality Interaction with a Natural Science Educational Collection (Short Paper #11)
Authors: Colin Patrick Keenan, Cynthia Lincoln, Adam Rogers, Victoria Gerson, Jack Wingo, Mikhael Vasquez-Kool and Richard L. Blanton
>>Access Video Presentation<<
For experiential educators who utilize or maintain physical collections, The Naturalist’s Workshop is an exemplar virtual reality platform to interact with digitized collections in an intuitive and playful way. The Naturalist’s Workshop is a purpose-developed application for the Oculus Quest standalone virtual reality headset for use by museum visitors on the floor of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences under the supervision of a volunteer attendant. Within the application, museum visitors are seated at a virtual desk. Using their hand controllers and head-mounted display, they explore drawers containing botanical specimens and tools-of-the-trade of a naturalist. While exploring, the participant can receive new information about any specimen by dropping it into a virtual examination tray. 360-degree photography and three-dimensionally scanned specimens are used to allow user-motivated, immersive experience of botanical meta-data such as specimen collection coordinates.
Presentation 3: 360˚ Videos: Entry level Immersive Media for Libraries and Education (Practitioner Presentation #132)
Authors: Diane Michaud
>>Access Video Presentation<<
Within the continuum of XR Technologies, 360˚ videos are relatively easy to produce and need only an inexpensive mobile VR viewer to provide a sense of immersion. 360˚ videos present an opportunity to reveal “behind the scenes” spaces that are normally inaccessible to users of academic libraries. This can promote engagement with unique special collections and specific library services. In December 2019, with little previous experience, I led the production of a short 360˚video tour, a walk-through of our institution’s archives. This was a first attempt; there are plans to transform it into a more interactive, user-driven exploration. The beta version successfully generated interest, but the enhanced version will also help prepare uninitiated users for the process of examining unique archival documents and artefacts. This presentation will cover the lessons learned, and what we would do differently for our next immersive video production. Additionally, I will propose that the medium of 360˚ video is ideal for many institutions’ current or recent predicament with campuses shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Online or immersive 360˚ video can be used for virtual tours of libraries and/or other campus spaces. Virtual tours would retain their value beyond current campus shutdowns as there will always be prospective students and families who cannot easily make a trip to campus. These virtual tours would provide a welcome alternative as they eliminate the financial burden of travel and can be taken at any time.
Click here to