Category Archives: How To

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Microgranting

  March 1, 2015

As a task for Justin, Amber and I went on an expedition to find out what sort of opportunities there are for academics that would like to collect money outside of grant services for research, experiments, projects and other academic related material (what Justin termed as “microgranting”).  We were unsure if platforms like kickstarter would be suitable for projects not explicitly “innovative” or “creative” that’s end goal did not necessarily have a monetary value.   Also whether schools endorsed and approved this sort of funding, outside of institutional channels. Through my google searches, read it, sub read its and blog hunts I was pleasantly surprised to find a ton of websites devoted to just this topic.  Exceedingly so was the concentration in the scientific fields, supporting costly experiments that would not be understood or easily marketed to the average novice.  In addition to these explicit academic funding sites were the typical kickstarter and crowd funding platforms we have become accustomed to seeing advertised for new start ups, indie films, and techno-savy inventions. It was through this exploration that I realized how connected much of academia is now with those outside of it.  I am sure we have all had the debate on whether research for research sake is really as important over something perhaps more functional – ie: whether doing a study on the effects of breast cancer without talking to a single patient is grounded in reality and  can be applicable in the real world.  What I like about … Continue reading

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What can you do with Unmanned Aerial Systems?

  February 3, 2015 ,

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) is a very broad topic. Part of my role as a student innovation fellow is to build and experiment with UAS, with the goal of developing a “Manual” for UAS use at Georgia State. The manual will include both safety and technical information, as well as some basic flight instruction and guidelines for use. To that end, my post today will consist of a pretty “stream of consciousness” discussion of what is available and what is possible with unmanned aerial systems in a University setting. I will also go over the differences in the various types of UAS and their pros and cons. The reason I ask this is, is that I have a somewhat narrow focus when it comes to the use of these aircraft. I want to know what sort of ideas you can come up for using Unmanned Aerial Systems in a University setting. Aerial Photography or Videography is the primary use of most UAS in academic or research settings. There are many different variations on this role. Cinematographers and photographers have been using UAS to achieve an airborne perspective with low cost in many fields including journalism, entertainment and real estate. Other Colleges and Universities are using them on sports fields to analyze athletic performance from a new perspective. Governments and utilities have used cameras in the air to perform critical infrastructure inspections, and still others have used small unmanned aircraft to survey large swaths of land with high resolution aerial imagery. … Continue reading

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Playing around with data visualization and early modern texts

  January 26, 2015 , ,

As the Hoccleve project nears our first major milestone, the digital publication of an edition of Hoccleve’s holograph poems, we are beginning to ask questions about how to transform our XML into an HTML display. Thus, we are embarking on a graph design/display phase of our work. One of the things we have been discussing is creating data visualizations of the poems as an ornament to the edition. Most likely, these will be simple. Word clouds for instance. I have been asked to explore some options for this. This is not something that I have done before, but it is something that I have been curious about as a tool for my own work. Because the plain text versions of the poems weren’t quite ready, I decided to take a little time to begin explore what might be possible, from a historical perspective, with data visualization tools. I also figured it would make an interesting first blog post of the semester, even if at this point my foray into data visualization and data mining is completely amateurish. Even so, I am reporting on some early experiments using Voyant, a free web-based tool for textual analysis. I want to to see how it worked with early modern texts and with some of the documents I am using for my dissertation. This post is also offered in the spirit of a simple review of the software. My dissertation is a study of relations of power between the English and Native Americans in colonial … Continue reading

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Finding Technology Resources on Campus: Getting Oriented

  September 18, 2014 ,

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts-I am on the “SIF Outreach and Documentation” team. This group was created after I pitched during my SIF interview the idea that communication on GSU’s campus could be improved. I, to my slight embarrassment, realized I had fallen victim to this challenge when, during my interview, I answered the “what would you do with a giant bag of money” question by basically explaining things that are already taking place in The Exchange, and the Digital Aquarium. I had no idea, and to be honest-still don’t have a clear understanding, of what those spaces offer students and faculty. And as I’ve been working with the rest of the SIF O&D team, it is becoming clear why that would be the case. The first task the team has set out to accomplish is creating a collective list of technology spaces on campus ( think computer labs, the digital aquarium, etc) that are open to all students. Once we complete this collection, our team will make some web-based maps, a series of short informational videos, and any other promotional items we may think of along the way as a resource to share with all of GSU. The idea here is that we create a visual, informational advertisement that is consistent across  resources that students, faculty, and staff can utilize to simply familiarize themselves with the resources. In my attempts to collect information for this list-I started to find myself in a vortex of confusion and frustration. Why the heck … Continue reading