We did it – again! Thanks to all the W13 campers for participating – I hope you all enjoyed it. A big thanks also to…

Sydney Shep for helping me with the organisation…

Flora Feltham, Sara Bryan and Thomas Koentges for the extra helping hands on the day…

THATCamp HQ for the support and resources…

and our generous sponsors InternetNZ, Victoria University of Wellington, and Wai-te-ata Press for enabling us to keep registration budget-friendly.

Here are a few THATCamp W13 photos to make you smile, and a few things you might be interested in checking out between now and the next one…

Australasian Association for Digital Humanities (aaDH)

aaDH conference, Perth, 18–21 March 2014

Digital Humanities courses at University of Canterbury from 2014

Stay tuned for the next one @thatcampwgtn

Firstly, thanks to those Campers who came to my roughly planned session and who gave such great input.

Although the purpose of the session was to talk about this issue across the GLAM sector as a whole, we used Archives New Zealand’s electronic finding aid Archway as a “test case”.

Following is a list of possible solutions the group came up with, ranging from very manual to more automated:

• Capture contact details of researchers and their interests – contact them when new material becomes available
• Set up webpage to publicise new material
• Create an RSS feed of newly added items
• Something similar to the trove news bot – easy to use, it checks for messages from Twitter to create queries in Trove’s newspaper database, tweeting the result – still requires a pull by researchers
• Provide ability for researchers to save search criteria
• Provide functionality to highlight/identify those search results that have been presented to the researcher previously; ability for researcher to filter out these out of the result set

We also discussed other technologies currently in use, or provided, by various institutions:

• British Library’s Mechanical Curator – undirected, haphazard, unplanned publishing of content
• Digital NZ’s custom search builder – a tool that allows anyone to create a mini search engine across Digital NZ’s aggregated digital content, also to create an embeddable widget to share the content
• Academia.edu – allows registered users to add research interests to their profile, and delivers content (research papers, etc.) that has been shared by other registered users and tagged with the chosen research interest phrase.
• Google Scholar and other library search tools – a post THATCamp investigation of Google Scholar revealed that the tool uses “robots” or “crawlers” to fetch files from websites for inclusion in the search results.  This is the type of thing I was wondering if researchers could create for themselves.

Discussion was had about the need for not only appropriate tags against each item of material so it can be categorised/classified, but also the need for metadata that will enable capture of when records are added / updated so the researcher can filter out those items they may have already seen.

The group also identified some possible funding/resourcing options:

• Create partnerships with open source development organisations
• Collaborate with National Library of New Zealand (this option relates specifically to the Archives NZ case)
• Apply to Internet NZ for funding
• Create a research question for an information studies masters student

sorry to have led thatcamp early. here’s the link to our play with video essays

thanks to everyone who took part

Background

Data collection from human subjects is always a challenge. Now that everyone and their dog is on the internet, it has become possible to collect data online. Some researchers have investigated the feasibility of doing so and have concluded that it is possible. These data can also be analysed to understand human learning, cognition, psychology, and possibly other topics of interest.

Most of the researchers seem to be paying participants small sums in exchange for the data they produce. But another alternative exists when you consider what is going on with all the data that users generate on interactive websites. Many companies mine it and sell it to advertisers, market researchers, and the like. Others use it to improve the user experience or to evaluate changes to the code base.

Proposed discussion

I’m interested in possible ways of combining the provision of useful services in exchange for collecting (mostly) anonymised data which can then be used for research. Twitter, for example, has created one of the largest corpora in history of speech-like text which everyone from computer scientists to linguists to political scientists are analysing.

Other examples include Coursera and Khan Academy, both of which collect data on human learning in exchange for a free education. Other sites, such as Human Benchmark, don’t even really offer a service, and yet manage to collect impressive data sets.

So, what I propose is a discussion about

• what types of human data are interesting, but difficult to collect
• what kinds of services or formats could be used to entice people to produce that data
• what are some reasons why these types of services have succeeded/failed in the past
• what existing platforms/projects could be leveraged to facilitate data collection and service provision
• etc.

Qualifications

I have some limited experience collecting data through websites which have yielded interesting insights into vocabulary acquisition and rent pricing (yes, they are completely unrelated). I’m keen on pursuing this concept further to study the development of reading proficiency and speed in a second/foreign language.

If you’re new to the THATCamp scene, you might be wondering how to facilitate a session. This is entirely up to you, but here are a few suggestions…

Camper introductions

• Who are you?
• Where do you come from?
• What do you know about the session topic?
• What would you like to get out of the session?

Plan the session

• How are we going to record our ideas? (whiteboard/notepads/Google docs/something else)
• What are our session objectives? (write these down)

Go for it!

Learn, share, hack, build, brainstorm…

 Wrap up

• What are our takeaways?
• What this session useful?
• Do we need more time? We could use another session to continue…

Welcome to our new campers, it’s great to have you aboard!

With less than two weeks to go until W13, it’s time to start thinking about the sessions we would like to propose and participate in.

To help you get started, check out the tips at Session Proposals

Remember, a THATCamp is what we make it!

With new campers signing up every day, I was getting curious about what this year’s THATCamp Wellington might look like. Nothing like a little word-clouding to get the big picture (campers’ motivation for attending + Voyant Cirrus = big picture).

So if new + digital + technology + humanities + data + research + people + projects = YOU…

and you haven’t already signed up…

It’s not too late! All you need to do is tell us a little about yourself and what you’re interested in right here.

Welcome to the the first keen bean campers, who have shared why they’re looking forward to THATCamp Wellington 2013. Perhaps you share similar interests…

• Data visualisation
• Social networks
• Text mining
• Ontologies
• Access
• Crowdsourcing
• Hacking/coding for newbies
• Hear about new projects
• Innovation in the humanities
• New digital tools and technologies

What would you like to add to the mix? Share your ideas when you sign up here.

W13 is being held on Thursday 28 November, in the Railway Building on Pipitea Campus, Victoria University of Wellington (Bunny Street).

Thanks to the generosity of our major sponsor InternetNZ, and the help of Victoria University of Wellington and Wai-te-ata Press, we’re able to keep registration to a budget-friendly $25. This will be collected on the day, and invoices and receipts can be arranged then too.

We’ll be rolling up our sleeves for a full day, from around 8.30am to 5.30pm, with post-match drinks to follow. The schedule is what we make it, but the day will roughly break down like this.

Once you’ve signed up, start thinking about the kind of session you’re going to propose. To help you get started, check out these tips.

Questions? Ideas? Drop me a line any time at thatcampwgtn@gmail.com or @thatcampwgtn

We’re open for business! Yes folks, the wait is over and you can now sign up to be part of THATCamp Wellington 2013.

This year it is being held on Thursday 28 November, in the Railway Building on Pipitea Campus, Victoria University of Wellington (Bunny Street).

Thanks to the generosity of our major sponsor InternetNZ, and the help of Victoria University of Wellington and Wai-te-ata Press, we’re able to keep registration to a budget-friendly $25. This will be collected on the day, and invoices and receipts can be arranged then too.

We’ll be rolling up our sleeves for a full day, from around 8.30am to 5.30pm, with post-match drinks to follow. The schedule is what we make it, but the day will roughly break down like this.

Once you’ve signed up, start thinking about the kind of session you’re going to propose. To help you get started, check out these tips.

Questions? Ideas? Drop me a line any time at thatcampwgtn@gmail.com or @thatcampwgtn

We had such a great time last year – let’s do it again! THATCamp Wellington 2013 will be held on Thurs 28 November at Victoria University, after the National Digital Forum conference at Te Papa.

If you’re keen to attend, mark the date and stay tuned to @thatcampwgtn for updates. And if you haven’t been to a THATCamp before, that’s ok! Start with this video, take a look around, and all will be revealed…