Mar
2012

Digital Humanities

categories: Uncategorized

On March 6, 2012, LTS held the second conversation in the “Liberal Arts Learning in the Digital Age” Symposium where Angel David Nieves gave an excellent talk on “Hamilton College’s Digital Humanities Initiative: A Liberal Arts Model for Future Scholarship, Research and Teaching”. It was a very interesting and thought provoking presentation and the discussion that followed was very interesting as well. We had good attendance including several who watched the presentation remotely. Angel kindly agreed for us to post his presentation on YouTube, which you will see below.

So, what exactly is “Digital Humanities?” If anyone (including me) expected to get a clearer definition of this during this presentation that what we may already know, I don’t think that question was answered. Taken from the Digital Humanities Initiative website: “digital parlance for a research and teaching collaboration – where new media and computing technologies are used to promote humanities-based teaching, research, and scholarship across the liberal arts.” Obviously, if you replaced humanities with any other discipline, the same exact description would work too, so there is nothing particularly unique about such a broad definition. I think what Angel tried to convey was that the way in which scholarly works in Humanities are being produced in this new digital world is radically different from the way it has been done so far – mostly, the scholars working alone, using the institution’s resources, primarily libraries and librarians. By using the digital media and through collaborations extending worldwide, the work that is getting produced is very different and highly collaborative.

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Feb
2012

Interdisciplinary Science

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We began the long awaited Spring symposium “Liberal Arts Learning in the Digital Age” yesterday. Mala Radhakrishnan (Chemistry), Orit Shaer (Computer Science), Brian Tjaden (Computer Science), and Michelle Ferreirae ’13 talked about Interdisciplinary Science to a packed crowd in the Science Center 278 y’day evening. We had another 40 who viewed the webcast. The recorded version of the presentation will be made available on Wellesley’s YouTube later today. It was yet another display of the high quality teaching, learning and research taking place at the College. The presentations clearly demonstrated how the most interesting scientific research today requires knowledge that extends far beyond just the core subject. It was clear that the computational science is a core competency that would be required of all researchers and quite obviously, this is one of the areas of relevance to LTS as we move forward – how do we collaborate and engage with the faculty and students in helping with this competency.

The presenters talked about genomic data analysis , computational chemistry of protein-protein interactions and drug development and human computer interaction. In the first case, Brian, a CS faculty, is carrying out research that requires a deeper understanding of biology, biochemistry and chemistry amongst a few other disciplines. Similarly, in the second case, Mala needed to learn cell biology, physics, and applied math. BTW, she is also a poet who has written poems about atoms and molecules. Both Orit and Michelle shared their work in developing intuitive, gesture based software frameworks that helps biologists in their collaborative lab work. In each case, the presenter highlighted the importance of the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of their work and how the liberal arts education paradigm fits nicely with this model.

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Feb
2012

Software Bugs – They are everywhere!

categories: Uncategorized

I am very happy that the digitization of Browning Love letters has received all the attention that it deserves. Perfect timing and excellent collaboration with Baylor University is making it possible for a large audience to get access to the letters that otherwise required the scholars to visit our Special Collections.  I am also thrilled that we have been able to finalize the schedule for the “Liberal Arts Learning in the Digital Age”. I strongly encourage everyone on campus to participate. After all, we are discussing the future of the Library and Technology on campus and we want the community input on these matters.

The “flattened world” resulting from the internet and the web has clear advantages, but has also brought with it the ability to expose the weaknesses in software technologies. The reason is that the advances in the technologies driving the internet are moving at a pace much faster than software development tools. And it is extremely hard to keep up with. In other words, software developers develop expertise by spending a lot of time learning the tools of the trade in a select few “systems” – be it programming languages, or development platforms. The agility required to move from one to the next in a few months or years is a daunting task. And every time you do it, you are basically starting over. When you start over, you are likely to make mistakes – or introduce “bugs”.

The term “bug” is traced back to a failure of an early computing machine called Mark II (in 1947) due to a bug that got trapped in an electronic relay. This was carefully saved in a logbook. The image  on the left is from Wikimedia Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:H96566k.jpg) and the actual logbook is preserved in the National Museum of American History. The term “debugging” therefore refers to the act of locating and removing such bugs. However, like everything else in life, the attribution of the term debugging to the story about the bug remains unresolved – apparently it was used by aeronautical engineers in 1945.

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Feb
2012

We are in construction business – sort of

categories: Uncategorized

The most hyped event of the year is over and the result was disappointing for the Patriots fans. However, it was a good game with a couple of unfortunate calls by the referee and a lot of dropped passes. Well, we had a great time at our home watching the game with a lot of friends. I just realized that I have not written for a couple of weeks because I have been extremely busy with a few software projects that I am working on. I am on Acela express right now, heading to NY City to participate in a Google Apps user group meeting at Google NY. Hope to not run into the ticker tape parade for the Giants and get delayed going to the meeting.

We have been marching along in terms of software development with a slight twist – web applications for the portal which rely on authoritative data stored in Banner and other systems (such as 25Live) that look and act with a level of consistency that the users expect in software. As I have written many times over, I favor this approach to “Let us wait for Banner to deliver these services” because we will be waiting for a loooong time! Also, because this framework is under our control, the interface can be manipulated in ways that are otherwise not possible. Also, if the users are happy with the navigational approach and display of data we provide, we can leave that alone for however long the users desire. This is obviously not the case with software vendors. They seem to know what is good for us when! We all know that they rarely do a good job and choose the most inopportune moments to make changes.

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Jan
2012

Liberal Arts Learning in the Digital Age – A College Conversation

categories: Uncategorized

One more weekend of Football is out of the way. I thought Patriots played a sloppy game and thanks to their defense and a missed field goal by the Ravens, they will be playing in Superbowl. The hype of the Patriots/Giants Superbowl rematch is on full swing and the whole Tom Coughlin/Bill Belichick relationship while they were both assistant coaches with the Giants is back in the limelight. Bill Belichick is a Wesleyan Alum, class of ’75, and has explained how he applies what he learned in College in NFL. I am really looking forward to an exciting Superbowl a couple of weeks from now. We have a big party planned in our house and the Giants fans amongst our visitors have back row seats with heat turned down and will be served warm beer while we in the front row seat will enjoy the warmth, better food and nice cold beer. For that one day, I don’t mind being called a bad host by a few!

As we begin the Spring semester, I am happy to talk about something that has been in the works for quite some time. It is a fact that technologies are coming at us at a rapid pace and they are changing the landscape in Higher Ed in ways that no one every anticipated. On the one hand, Higher Ed institutions have been the most influential in terms of research and development and through those, have affected tremendous changes in the world. On the other hand, they have also been very resistent to changes when it comes to teaching, learning and research, all for good reasons. As Larry Summers wrote in his NY Times piece recently “My predecessor as Harvard president, Derek Bok, famously compared the difficulty of reforming a curriculum with the difficulty of moving a cemetery.”  I believe that we need a strategy and an ongoing plan that  prepares the College for the changes in technologies and how it affects the Library and the College’s core academic mission. And we want to do develop this plan not in isolation, but in collaboration with the faculty, students, staff and the alumnae.

We have planned a symposium series for the Spring titled “Liberal Arts Learning in the Digital Age” to facilitate these conversations.

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Jan
2012

The Morning After – Calendar Transition

categories: Uncategorized

It was a fabulous weekend of football and I was glad to see the Patriots crush the Broncos. The other games were also good, especially the upset by the Giants. My wife reminded me of past life as an ardent Giants fan – a leftover from when I was a grad student going through years of agony of supporting a substandard team until Bill Parcells and Phil Simms turned things around. Somewhere along the line I switched my allegiance, primarily because of children. Anyways, this Sunday will be another terrific day and though I hope that the Pats go all the way and win it all, it is one game at a time at this point!

We also had an adventurous and  long night last night, trying to get my Prius up the hill in snow onto Weston Terrace. Somehow survived all of that. It is not the morning after that adventure that I wanted to write about, rather one of our other major transition – Project Goodbye MM!.

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Jan
2012

New Year Resolutions

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New Year arrived roughly the same way that it always does. The usual gatherings on New Year’s eve, watching Dick Clark and the Ball drop, toasting etc. etc. We had a rather quite party this year and settled down in the basement. A group of friends who wanted to surprise us came home to find no lights and wanted to head back. But just to make sure, they called and of course, we were home in the basement. They joined and the party was on with a fine bottle of Champagne.

One of the resolutions I made was not to send emails to my staff during the holiday break unless it was absolutely essential. I believe I kept that up! Yay!

Yes, like many out there, I made a few resolutions. Of course, they are personal ones and I am not going to discuss them here. These resolutions also have a very predictable path – you do what you resolved to do in January and then it goes downhill. I actually keep data on all of these and this path is evident. So, why even bother? Well, at least for a short period of time you are more disciplined about something.

What I want to talk about here is less of resolutions than some of the plans for the upcoming year at the College. (more…)


Dec
2011

Happy Holidays!

categories: Uncategorized

Here I am in warm, sunny Jupiter, Florida for a week of golf, parties and just relaxation for the holidays. Wait, relaxation? No, that does not come to me naturally. Soon after we arrived here, we grabbed something to eat and hit the golf course for 9 holes. My sons and I had a very good first outing, the last 2 holes were played in not so ideal conditions, but we were able to locate our balls. I have been up since 5:30 AM, my usual wakeup time, attending to College work – we have some purchases to finalize because we got “excellent” deals because of the end of the year. It is yet another game that we all have to play.

I am happy to say that I have brought a different attitude to negotiating purchases at Wellesley and I am thrilled to see some of the staff practicing it effectively. We have saved significant amount through these bargaining which are going towards academic initiatives such as classroom technologies and academic software purchases.

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Dec
2011

Snow Leopard to Lion – Rough Road

categories: Uncategorized

This week so far has been a difficult one – too many late nights. A couple of holiday parties, meeting a good friend in Boston and then the headache caused by the OS upgrade to my machine, which I discuss in detail later. I am looking forward to the trip to Jupiter, FL next week with my family. my sons and I plan to play golf and hopefully get some time to relax too.

I was all excited by the prospect of upgrading to Lion sometime in October when I got the DVD. Here we are in mid-December and finally it happened. My frustration with the upgrade is caused by unique circumstances surrounding my own computer, however,  there have been more than the usual complaints about a Mac OS upgrade like the one discussed here.

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Dec
2011

Happy Holidays and Happy Anniversary ACLTP!

categories: Uncategorized

I am not sure if things have changed the way we celebrate the holiday season or that I am getting older. It just feels so different. I remember the excitement around looking forward to the month of December. I distinctly remember how happy I was walking along 5th avenue in NY City looking at all the displays and going to Barnes and Nobles downtown to pick up books on sale. I was in NY City last Friday and didn’t even occur to me to do these things or the Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree and watch the skaters in the skating rink. I am sure that all of these are still happening and that I am just geting old and my interests are elsewhere.

Our children have grown and the celebrations and buying gifts for them have changed so dramatically, partly due to technologies. I remember how I was running from store to store like a mad man trying to locate that one missing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Character that our elder son so badly wanted. I literally snatched it out of the hands of an old lady in one store after not finding it in seven stores. She was deliberating whether to take that one or another and the moment she put it down, I took it and rushed out. It was a rare commodity then! And boy, it was indeed a happy holiday when the little kid was thrilled to see it under the Christmas tree! Good old days!

A year has gone by since I began at Wellesley around the Holiday season. The creation of the Advisory Council for Library and Technology Policies coincided very closely with my official arrival date and I had a chance to review and comment on the legislation. The first meeting of the ACLTP Committee was held on Wed. 12/15/2010 at 4 PM. Happy Anniversary to ACLTP!

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