1. 02_Soldiers Write the War: World War II, Vietnam and the War on Terror (46:53)

Date:
2019-01-14
Main contributors:
Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities, John Bodnar
Summary:
This paper will explore the way American soldiers from three different wars wrote about their experiences. It will attempt to unravel the fragile relationship between patriotic accounts of war that tended to uphold noble ideals validating the nation's war effort and thepossibility that war could actually produce laudable traits andmore tragic stories that refused to efface the confusion and pain military conflict imposed upon individuals. As such, it will explore the problem of memory and trauma and the significant tension soldiers faced when they attempted to recreate their experience for a public audience that could not know what it had been like. The part of the paper devoted to World War II will focus on the fiction of Norman Maile and the autobiography of William Manchester--both combat vets. Mailer's renowned novel, The Naked and the Dead, recast the "Good War" in a highly critical light that exposed the deep strain of violence that he felt marked American society and explained why it spared no expense in bringing ruin to the Japanese. Manchester acknowledged the violence and carnage but sought to extract from it tales of heroic men and who cared deeply for each other. Such narratives contrast sharply with those coming from the experience of Vietnam. Vets like Ron Kovic, Tim O'Brien and others mounted withering attacks on any notion that patriotic service could result in anything positive or nurture admirable character traits. In some ways the World War II stories were actually more conflicted than those formed in Southeast Asia in the 1960s. The final part of this brief paper will explore the outpouring of literature produced by men who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Again, significant differences are evident among the fighters themselves. A greater effort is made in this most recent contest to restore some faith in traditional patriotic ideals. This effort has had some success but has been hotly contested by tales that absolutely reject any attempt to use patriotic honor to wipe out the memory of pain and loss.

2. 05_Rediscovering American War Experiences through Crowdsourcing and Computation (46:57)

Date:
2019-01-14
Main contributors:
Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities, Kurt Luther
Summary:
Stories of war are complex, varied, powerful, and fundamentally human. Thus, crowdsourcing can be a natural fit for deepening our understanding of war, both by scaling up research efforts and by providing compelling learning experiences. Yet, few crowdsourced history projects help the public to do more than read, collect, or transcribe primary sources. In this talk, I present three examples of augmenting crowdsourcing efforts with computational techniques to enable deeper public engagement and more advanced historical analysis around stories of war. In “Mapping the Fourth of July in the Civil War Era,” funded by the NHPRC, we explore how crowdsourcing and natural language processing  (NLP) tools help participants learn historical thinking skills while connecting American Civil War-era documents to scholarly topics of interest. In “Civil War Photo Sleuth,” funded by the NSF, we combine crowdsourcing with face recognition technology to help participants rediscover the lost identities of photographs of American Civil War soldiers and sailors. And in “The American Soldier in World War II,” funded by the NEH, we bring together crowdsourcing, NLP, and visualization to help participants explore the attitudes of American GIs in their own words. Across all three projects, I discuss broader principles for designing tools, interfaces, and online communities to support more meaningful and valuable crowdsourced contributions to scholarship about war and conflict.

3. 03_Empowering Citizen Scholars: Lessons Learned from the History Harvest (47:57)

Date:
2019-01-14
Main contributors:
Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities, Rebecca Wingo
Summary:
The History Harvest is a community-centered, student-driven archival project that empowers community voices through material-based oral histories. Over the course of a semester, History Harvest students partner with a community to run an event in which community members bring artifacts of significance. Students record community members as they tell stories about their objects and digitize the artifacts for a shared online archive. The community members then take their items back home; there is no acquisition. This one-day event is a bit like Antiques Roadshow, except everything is valuable. More than a singular event, however, the History Harvest can be a litmus test for the success of a community partnership.

4. 10_Telling War: An Exploration of Form (17:22)

Date:
2019-01-15
Main contributors:
Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities, Lisa Silvestri
Summary:
With support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Telling War, a veteran based initiative, explores manifestations of the veteran voice through a variety of story forms such as papermaking, six word war stories, podcasting, and documentary film. Telling War’s mission is to cultivate creative opportunities for veterans to tell their story. This presentation will review some of the project’s initial outcomes. For example, when participating veterans used the ancient art of papermaking to transform their uniforms into paper then bind into book form, they were able to access stories often untold in the public sphere. The books they created held personal imagery and artifacts from their time in the service. The papermaking process allowed them to metabolize and story their experiences. In other cases, veterans wrote six word war stories following in the legacy of Hemmingway’s famous six word short story, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Although brief, these first-person memoirs captured aspects of deployment–from the everyday to the extreme–that shifted the communicative priority from eloquence to essence. By sharing these examples and others, this presentation argues that in order to enrich collective knowledge and memory of war, the stories told and heard about war must be expanded and diversified.

5. 08_Blood Sacrifice and Clashing American Narratives of the Vietnam War (18:31)

Date:
2019-01-14
Main contributors:
Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities, Edward Linenthal
Summary:
The mass slaughter of 1864-1865 in the American Civil War eroded traditional belief in martial sacrifice as redemptive, blood shed for the new birth of the nation. Narratives in tension continued through both World Wars and the Korean War and gained intensity with the erosion of popular support for the war in Vietnam. The “dope and dementia,” “quagmire,” and “atrocity producing context” narrative templates clashed with traditional patriotic narratives of America at war.

7. Why Use Digital Methods in Arts and Humanities? (55:36)

Date:
2019-09-12
Main contributors:
Kalani L. Craig, Michelle Dalmau, Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities
Summary:
Digital image manipulation, social network analysis and data mining can change our perceptions of the world around us, but they also require careful critical use. This presentation will take arts & humanities practitioners through mapping, data mining, network analysis, data visualization, 3D rendering, computationally aided vision and other digital methods in a variety of disciplines and tachle some of the critical issues for digital arts & humanities practitioners. We'll also provide a clear list of IU resources that can support these efforts. Finally, we'll all engage in a practical white-board-based activity that doesn't require digital tools to demonstrate how analog methods can enhance understanding of some of these digital-methods applications in a variety of environments (including the classroom).

8. 04_Remembering Vietnam: An Experiment in Civic Engagement (43:46)

Date:
2019-01-14
Main contributors:
Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities, David S. Ferriero
Summary:
Ferriero will discuss the planning process for a major exhibit on the Vietnam War within the context of the mission of the National Archives. Particular focus will be on how the principles of Open Government—transparency, collaboration, and participation—impacted that process. Building on the success of the National Archives Citizen Archivist Project, Ferriero will share how the lessons learned have influenced his agency’s approach to exhibit and education planning, with an emphasis on the exhibit commemorating the Vietnam War. Remembering Vietnam is a media-rich exploration the Vietnam War, featuring interviews with Americans and Vietnamese veterans and civilians with firsthand experience of the war’s events as well as historic analysis. It is a fascinating collection of newly discovered and iconic original documents, images, film footage, and artifacts that illuminate 12 critical episodes in the war that divided the peoples of both the United States and Vietnam, covering the period 1946 to 1975. The exhibit encourages visitors to answer these questions: Why did the United States become involved in Vietnam? Why was the war so long? Why was it so controversial? The sacrifices made by veterans and their families, the magnitude of death and destruction, and the war’s lasting effects require no less. Remembering Vietnam is a resource for refreshing our collective memory. National Archives records trace the policies and decisions made by the architects of the conflict. Its collection of evidence provides an opportunity for new insight and greater understanding of one of the most consequential wars in American history.

9. Introduction to Network Analysis Tools (1:00:40)

Date:
2019-01-28
Main contributors:
Institute for Digital Arts & Humanities, Mary Borgo Ton, Kalani Craig
Summary:
Interested in using network analysis in your research or teaching? Come to this hands-on session where we will deal with the basics of cleaning and formatting your data and loading it into the simple network visualization app Google Fusion Tables. We'll conclude by discussing (and demonstrating) how this as well as analog approaches to network analysis can work in the classroom. Participants will need a laptop.

10. Why Use Digital Methods in Arts and Humanities Classrooms? (58:16)

Date:
2019-09-25
Main contributors:
Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities, Kalani L. Craig, Michelle Dalmau
Summary:
We're all buried in the digital world when we work on our own arts & humanities projects - whether it's reading the digital copy of an article, snapping smartphone photos of related work, or collaborating with editors over email. When these digital environments are harnessed thoughtfully and critically, we can use digital methods to showcase the research and creative work we do every day in our classrooms. This workshop will explore classroom-based digital activities that provide students with hands-on experience using mapping, data mining, network analysis, data visualization, and 3D rendering to support arts & humanities questions. We'll also engage participants in several white-board and sticky-note versions of these activities that use analog methods to enhance understanding of the digital world in which our students move.

11. Making Data with Markup: From the Classroom to Digital Scholarly Edition of Accounts (1:20:54)

Date:
2019-09-06
Main contributors:
Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities, Kathryn Tomasek
Summary:
When students transcribe and mark up primary sources, they learn the kind of close reading that is necessary for historical interpretation. When their professors teach transcription and markup, they can discover new research projects and make an impact on their fields. In 2004, Tomasek began to work with colleagues in the Wheaton College Archives and in Library and Information Services to build transcription and markup into an undergraduate course in nineteenth-century U.S. Women’s History. They used a scaffolded assignment that allowed students to build on skills developed throughout the semester, and students reported real investment in the life of the daughter of a Baptist minister whose journal they transcribed and marked up. Summer interns who did similar work with the pocket diaries and travel journal of Eliza Baylies Wheaton, a member of the institution’s founding family, did extra unassigned work tracking down the graves of people mentioned in the documents in town cemeteries. By 2009, the Wheaton team had developed a successful model for teaching students close reading, but they had run out of “easy” documents like journals and pocket diaries. So Tomasek and her colleagues turned to the daybook kept by a member of the institution’s founding family. A student research assistant who attended DHSI and took the Introduction to TEI course with Tomasek became the local expert and assisted in teaching a module focused on transcription and markup of the daybook. As is always the case, some students took to the assignment more readily than others. Pairing students to work on a page spread worked better than asking individual students to take on the work themselves. Successful students found stories in their page spreads and wrote real historical depictions of the facts and their significance. Tomasek, her library partners, and the student assistant taught the module for two years before receiving a Start-Up award for further investigation of markup for account books from the Office of Digital Humanities at the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2011. This award marked a transition in Tomasek’s research agenda to a focus on account books as humanities sources and the value of digital scholarly editions for reuse by other researchers. The small community of practice that began in summer 2011 expanded with the help of a Bilateral Digital Humanities award from the German Research Foundation and the NEH in 2015. Tomasek found the use of the classroom module to be slower than ideal for producing a full edition of the day book, and she transitioned to more intensive work with summer interns in 2015. A group of those interns completed a first-run transcription and markup of the daybook in 2016, and an alpha version is part of a data set that includes excerpts from the Financial Papers of George Washington, accounts from the Stagville plantation in North Carolina, Matthew Carey’s Printers File, and accounts of the Uihlein family, founders of the Schlitz brewing company.

12. An Overview of the NSSE Summary Tables (10:25)

Date:
2019-02-21
Main contributors:
Angie L. Miller
Summary:
This short webinar provides an overview of the Summary Tables page of the NSSE website. The various types of tables (frequencies, means, Engagement Indicator, and HIP) are explained, as well as the selected subgroups (sex, related-major category, and Carnegie classification). Additional information on Topical Modules, profiles, Canadian results, and archived information is also presented.

13. CSU and BCSSE: Introduction to administration, reports and data use (58:49)

Date:
2019-05-21
Main contributors:
James Cole
Summary:
This interactive webinar will provide an introduction to the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE). The webinar will describe options for survey administration, data use, and reporting. Participants will also have the opportunity to ask questions, as well hear how their colleagues at other CSU campuses plan on using BCSSE.

15. The NSSE update: Analysis and design of ten new Engagement Indicators (45:23)

Date:
2019-04-29
Main contributors:
Robert M. Gonyea, Allison BrckaLorenz
Summary:
With the update to the NSSE instrument, ten new Engagement Indicators were rigorously tested to replace the original Benchmarks of Effective Educational Practice. NSSE research analysts have conducted several tests to evaluate the quality of the indicators, including descriptive analysis and studies of validity, reliability, and survey construction. This session will provide useful information for both NSSE 2013 and 2014 participants regarding the development of the indicators, and insights from the analyses. In this live, interactive webinar, participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and interact with other viewers, and the presenters.

16. This or That? Getting to Know Your Faculty (21:12)

Date:
2019-02-07
Main contributors:
Kyle Fasset, Allison BrckaLorenz
Summary:
The library is open—in this webinar, we’ll learn to better read our faculty using data from the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE). We’ll share results from some of FSSE research’s greatest hits discussing what we’ve found when asking questions such as ‘teachers or researchers?’ ‘STEM or non-STEM?’ ‘general education or non-general education?’ and ‘equitable or inequitable?’ We’ll also provide tips for people interested in their own FSSE analyses responding to questions such as ‘disaggregate or aggregate?’ ‘scales or items?’ and ‘modules or core?’ Join us in discussing these questions and more as we better get to know our faculty with FSSE.

17. NSSE/ACUHO-I Student Housing Study Report Walk-Through (50:36)

Date:
2019-09-27
Main contributors:
Bob Gonyea, Kevin Fosnacht, Polly Graham, Kyle Fassett
Summary:
Institutions that participated in the 2018 NSSE/ACUHO-I Housing Study are invited to join this free webinar to walk through the new reports, ask questions of the researchers, and hear a brief summary of findings from the study. Feel free to include others from your institution – especially those from campus housing. NSSE webinars are live and interactive, providing participants the opportunity to ask questions via polls and text chat. The webinar will be recorded and posted on the NSSE website for those who are unable to participate.

18. Dismantling Borders' Toxic Discourses and Colonial Cultural Records (1:00:52)

Date:
2019-11-20
Main contributors:
Institute for Digital Arts & Humanities, Sylvia Fernandez
Summary:
While cartography is a colonialist product when unrepresented individuals or communities utilize and recreate these tools they serve to contest a colonial cultural record. With respect to U.S.-Mexico borderlands, toxic discourses have continuously altered its history, social dynamics, culture, local and binational relationships. This presentation brings to the forefront initiatives that create alternative cartographies that challenge colonialist impositions such as: Borderlands Archives Cartography (BAC), a transborderlands project dedicated to locate, map and facilitate access to nineteenth and mid-twentieth century U.S.-Mexico borderlands newspapers; and Torn Apart / Separados, a mobilized humanities project that intervenes in the United States’ immigration debates with data narratives illuminating the effects of the government’s policy of separating families and the infrastructure subtending immigration enforcement. These initiatives use GIS tools to interpret data and archival material in new ways, enabling to see patterns otherwise invisible in static maps. BAC and Torn Apart digital maps and visualizations pose new questions contest established narratives, creates alternative forms of mapping and activate a knowledge production shaped from the ground-up. With this in mind, these alternative cartographies function as a historical and cultural record of the present and become resources to resist impositions in the future.

19. Approaches to public data and archives: Mapping as a form of activism (1:18:08)

Date:
2019-11-20
Main contributors:
Institute for Digital Arts & Humanities , Sylvia Fernandez
Summary:
Toxic discourses towards the Mexico-United States borderland and its communities have continuously altered history, social dynamics, culture, among other things that are part of this region. Meanwhile, by utilizing digital companions such as digital maps, it is possible to contest to these kind of narratives that invisibilized borderlands’ dynamics. According to Annita Lucchesi, “The power of mapping is that there is so much power in it. It doesn’t necessarily have to be oppressive…It can be liberating. It can be healing. It can be empowering, especially when it’s being used by people who have been historically oppressed” (“Mapping MMIWG” 2019). By taking into consideration Lucchesi’s argument, this workshop will work in a hands-on experience with archival material and public data to create maps that challenge toxic discourses and colonial cultural records. Taking into consideration projects such as Borderlands Archives Cartography and Torn Apart / Separados, this workshop will go over the creation process of activism projects through the use of mapping technology. Participants will work with archival material and public data, will gain ethical and critical skills to the incorporation of humanities studies with digital companions, as well as collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to create activism mapping resources.

20. Academic Libraries; Mapping; Public Engagement; Public Participation (1:30:02)

Date:
2019-11-20
Main contributors:
Institute for Digital Arts & Humanities, Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Summary:
Working in public, and with the public, can enable scholars to build vital, sustainable research communities, both within their fields, with other scholars in different fields, and with folks off-campus who care about the kinds of work that we do. By finding ways to connect with a broad range of publics, in a range of different registers, and in ways that allow for meaningful response, we can create the possibilities for far more substantial public participation in and engagement with the humanities, and with the academy more broadly. This workshop will focus on ways of envisioning the publics with whom we work and the questions that public engagement surfaces.