Digital Campus

Episode 77 – #FERPANUTS

Nov 222011

In an age of course wikis and blogs, is a law written in 1974 up to the task of controlling where student information might go? Why does Google want us to register on their new citation service? And can the recorded lectures of Mills Kelly be remixed to make him look foolish (or is it already too late for that)? Find out on this episode of everyone’s favorite podcast featuring a trio of people named Tom, Mills, and Dan.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Georgia Tech Invokes FERPA, Cripples School’s Wikis
University of Missouri to limit lecture recording
Google Scholar Citations Open to All
JSTOR’s Data for Research

Running time: 39:02
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Siri? How Do I Fix Academic Publishing?

Apple, digital humanities, Google, iPhone, journals, Libraries, Microsoft, Mobile, Museums, open access Comments Off

Nov 092011

Is it just us, or does it seem kind of strange to see people walking around campus, the mall, or the local park talking to their phones as if those phones were actually sentient? Even if it is a little strange, Dan, Tom, Amanda, and Mills spent some time speculating about what such “talk to me” apps might mean for museums, historic sites, and other places digital humanists care about. We also had generally nice things to say about the developer build of Windows 8 and about the recent meeting about the Digital Public Library of America. Our discussion of free content then led to a conversation about how much money is being made publishing academic journals by just a few publishing houses and why open access scholarship is so necessary to the circulation of knowledge. Our outrage about journal publishing profits burned itself out when we turned to a brief look at the newly launched (and free) Digital Humanities Now, a CHNM project. We finished with perhaps the world’s shortest conversation about Google+. Why? Give a listen and find out.

Links mentioned in the podcast:

In Public It’s Rude, In Private It’s Creepy
Why Indoor Navigation is so Hard
Building Windows 8
Download Windows 8 Developer Preview
DPLA: First Things First
Copyright Office on Mass Digitization
Economics of Open Access Publishing

Running time: 58:45
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Episode 74 – Tin Badge for the Authors Guild

Books, Google, Libraries Comments Off

Sep 202011

The regulars are joined this week by the great Tom Merritt of Tech News Today and TWiT fame. We discuss in depth the surprising lawsuit by the Authors Guild against five universities and HathiTrust, related to the ongoing Google Book Search legal saga. We also look at whether a “Netflix for books” is possible or desirable. And Dan gets a little too badge-happy. You’ll get a badge for listening to this week’s freewheeling podcast.

Be sure to check out Tom Merritt’s new book, United Moon Colonies, available in multiple formats for your reading (and listening) pleasure.

CORRECTION FROM AMANDA: I mistakenly said on the podcast that public domain works in Hathi Trust are not publicly available: in fact, public domain works in Hathi Trust can be *read* by the public, although not *downloaded.* Moreover, works in Hathi Trust published between 1870 and 1923 that are in the public domain in the U.S. are not available to be read outside the U.S. See Hathi Trust’s copyright FAQ for more precise information. — Amanda

Other links mentioned on the podcast:
Digital Media and Learning Competition 4
Think You’re An Auditory Or Visual Learner? Scientists Say It’s Unlikely
Sigil, A WYSIWYG ebook editor

Running time: 1:02:50
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Episode 73 — Farewell Steve Jobs

Apple, Books, ebooks, intellectual property, open access, public domain, Publishing Comments Off

Sep 142011

A few days before we recorded the latest episode of Digital Campus, Apple visionary and guru of all things cool in digital technology Steve Jobs announced that he would step down as CEO in what we assume will be the end of his adept micromanaging of the business. Tom, Dan, Amanda, and Mills mused on what Jobs’ legacy will be and how the tech world may or may not be different without him. Will we feel like orphans now that the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Sphere can no longer descend upon us at times of severe tech ennui? And what about those other digital orphans — the “orphan books” we hear so much about? Amanda reviewed for us the latest on this subject coming out of the University of Michigan Library and some of us agreed that we will henceforth banish the term “orphan work” from our vocabulary. Why? Listen and learn. And from what we learned about student searching skills, someone should start teaching students more about online quests for information. That someone could be you.

Links to stories covered in the podcast:

Stanford Silicon Valley Archives
Orphan Books Online
Student Searching Skills

Running time: 37:56
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