Prayer as a management tool
Posted: February 28, 2015 Filed under: miscellaneous, Universities | Tags: byu, idealism, invocation, politics, prayer, universities Leave a comment »On my way home now from a fascinating and fun two day visit with Kay Walters to Brigham Young University. I’m going to write more in a little about some of the great ideas I saw there having to do with research and the Digital Humanities. But I also want to comment on something more systemic that I saw there.
BYU, for those who don’t know, is a Mormon University (in Southern Alberta, which also has a lot of Mormons, we tend to prefer saying LDS over “Mormon”; in Utah, “Mormon” was by far the preferred term, as far as I could see). It is a church-owned, private university with a religious as well as an academic mission (this is, of course, not unusual: Western Universities largely began in the same way, except as Catholic universities, and there are still many universities around the world that have strong ties to various religions).
The connection to the church is visible every where on campus. There is a strong dress and conduct code and one oc Read the rest of this entry »
The Ruthwell Cross Runes like you’ve never seen them before
Posted: February 20, 2015 Filed under: News Leave a comment » Some screenshots from the highest resolution scans of the cross, showing the runes and the Archer panel…A “Thought Piece” on Digital Space as Simulation and the Loss of the Original
Posted: February 11, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »< !DOCTYPE html>
In beginning to think about how I could integrate theory into my final project, I recalled Kim Brown, the DH Maker-Bus, and how she spoke about how her workshops with children have prompted kids to ask “big questions”. It occurred to me that the way in which humanists approach their own work is often very dependent on the ways humanity and culture are defined. It also occurred to me that now, more than ever, humanity and technology are converging. In this paper I want to explore the ways technology and the digital are seen as “copies” of an “original”. Drawing on theories post-humanism and post-modernism I will discuss technology and the internet as simulation. This paper will examine technophobia in the humanities and look to Jean Baudrillard’s theories of simulacra, si Read the rest of this entry »
Straw bibliography: A common error in student writing
Posted: February 8, 2015 Filed under: Methodology, miscellaneous | Tags: citation, Methodology, plagiarism, referencing, research techniques, straw bibliography Leave a comment »This post describes a particular rhetorical technique that students often use in their essays that professional scholars never do: something I call the “straw bibliography.” If you learn to recognise these in your writing (and more importantly, learn how to handle them more professionally), the quality of your research will improve immensely.
What is a “straw bibliography”
“Straw bibliography” is the term I give to statements like the following, when they are unsupported by citations:
The question of the definition of medieval literature has long been a source of debate
Critics argue constantly about the role of women in literature
Read the rest of this entry »
Faculty members’ webpresence at the University of Lethbridge
Posted: February 6, 2015 Filed under: Computers, miscellaneous Leave a comment »Here’s a list of all the different web properties that might mention a faculty member along with information on how to edit these spaces (when I know them).
Homepages
Faculty can have home pages in two different locations on campus: people.uleth.ca and scholar.ulethbridge.ca. Read the rest of this entry »
The People’s Field: The Ethos of a Humanities-Centred Social Network
Posted: February 5, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Hello readers of Daniel Paul O’Donnell’s blog. My name is Megan and I am a former student of his, having completed (among others) his 2014 seminar on the Digital Humanities. The following is a paper I wrote for that class, which Dan has kindly offered to feature on his blog.
The inspiration for this essay comes from my experience as a musician, specifically a guitarist. It has always been possible to — indeed, far more common anyway, I would think — to learn to play outside of a classroom setting. But the Web has given us something spectacular: huge social networking websites aiming to encompass all aspects of playing guitar, whether learning, teaching, critiquing, or making music with others. The education is there, and the community too, similar to the post-secondary experience. If non-academic music education can thrive online, why not the humanities? Read the rest of this entry »
Some quick notes on citation practice for undergraduates
Posted: February 4, 2015 Filed under: Methodology, Teaching | Tags: citation, citation practice, Methodology, plagiarism, quotation, Tutorials Leave a comment »Students seem always to get very nervous about citation… and, interestingly, perhaps through that nervousness, end up doing it in ways that professional scholars don’t.
Contents
Here are some tips that pros use for citation that undergraduates tend not to know:
Plagiarism is not a property crime.
Many students treat citations as, in essence, payment for ideas. Read the rest of this entry »
New edition of the Visionary Cross Presenter released for beta testing
Posted: February 3, 2015 Filed under: News Leave a comment » A new version of the Visionary Cross presenter is has just been released for beta testing. The presenter is an interface for navigating and presenting the Visionary Cross project’s scans of the Ruthwell Cross. It is particularly intended for use by students, in the classroom, and by the general public. The presenter has panes for […]Four National and International talks by University of Lethbridge Digital Humanities students
Posted: February 2, 2015 Filed under: Announcements, Research-and-comment | Tags: Conferences, digital humanities, Research, students Leave a comment »A quick catchup post: this semester is shaping up to be a blockbuster in terms of University of Lethbridge Digital Humanities students’ success in national and international refereed conferences.
The semester began strongly with Kayla Ueland’s presentation “Reconciling between novel and traditional ways to publish in the Social Sciences” at the Force 2015 conference in Oxford this past January. Ueland is a graduate student in Sociology and a Research Assistant in the Lethbridge Journal Incubator.
We have also just heard that four students and recent graduates of the University of Lethbridge’s Department of English have had papers accepted at the joint meeting of the Canadian Society for the Digital Humanities/Société canadienne des humanités numériques and the Association for Computers and the Humanities.
The students and their papers are:
- Titi Babalola Aiyegbusi, “Decolonizing Digital Humanities in Africa.” Read the rest of this entry »
Panel on Digital Cultural Heritage accepted at CSDH/SCHN – ACH Joint Conference
Posted: January 26, 2015 Filed under: conferences, News Leave a comment » Panel on Digital Cultural Heritage (DigiCulthH – a GRAND subgroup) has been accepted at CSDH/SCHN -ACH joint conference to be held in Ottawa, 1 -3 June, 2015. The panel members include: Prof. Daniel O’Donnell, University of Lethbridge Prof. Brent Nelson, University of Saskatchewan Dr. Craig Harkema, University of Saskatchewan Congratulations to all at VC and […]Two Student Papers Accepted at Joint CSDH/SCHN & ACH Conference 2015
Posted: January 26, 2015 Filed under: conferences, News Leave a comment » Visionary Cross has two paper acceptances at Joint CSDH/SCHN & ACH Conference 2015 to be held in Ottawa, 1-3 June 2015. These are: Disability: The Last Frontier for DH by Kendra Rawluk and Carissa Alexander Developing Text-to-Speech for Religious Scripture: Shiri Guru Granth Sahib by Gurpreet Singh, Sandeep Kaur and Daniel O’Donnell Congratulations to all!!A First Law of Humanities Computing?
Posted: January 25, 2015 Filed under: Computers, Research-and-comment | Tags: first law of humanities computing; scientific laws; digital humanities; methodology 7 Comments »The law
A little more than a decade ago, when I was working on my “electronic edition” of Cædmon’s Hymn, I developed a formulation that I have since come (only semi-jokingly) to consider something of a law about the use of computing in the Humanities:
The application of computation to humanities problems inevitably requires an examination of first principles.
What I mean by this is that you can never just copy a technique from the pre-digital humanities into the digital space. If you try, you will inevitably find yourself thinking before long about fundamental questions of why, what, and how: why you want to do whatever it is you are doing, what it actually is that you are trying to accomplish, and how the thing you are trying to accomplish actually does what it is you think it does.
Contents
Screenshots from Unreal reconstruction of the Ruthwell Kirk
Posted: January 14, 2015 Filed under: News Leave a comment » Project Co-Investigator James Graham and his research team have just released some demo screenshots from their Unreal-engine reconstruction of the Ruthwell Kirk Here are some highlights:Future Commons
Posted: January 13, 2015 Filed under: About, Computers Leave a comment »Organisers
- champieu@ohsu.edu
- daniel.odonnell@uleth.ca
Questions
- What do we know
- That we do better than other demographics?
- That other demographics do better than us?
Read the rest of this entry »
Four National and International talks by University of Lethbridge Digital Humanities students
Posted: February 2, 2015 | Author: dpod | Filed under: Announcements, Research-and-comment | Tags: Conferences, digital humanities, Research, students | Leave a comment »A quick catchup post: this semester is shaping up to be a blockbuster in terms of University of Lethbridge Digital Humanities students’ success in national and international refereed conferences.
The semester began strongly with Kayla Ueland’s presentation “Reconciling between novel and traditional ways to publish in the Social Sciences” at the Force 2015 conference in Oxford this past January. Ueland is a graduate student in Sociology and a Research Assistant in the Lethbridge Journal Incubator.
We have also just heard that four students and recent graduates of the University of Lethbridge’s Department of English have had papers accepted at the joint meeting of the Canadian Society for the Digital Humanities/Société canadienne des humanités numériques and the Association for Computers and the Humanities.
The students and their papers are: