rel="nofollow" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/john-norris/5865469840">https://www.flickr.com/photos/john-norris/5865469840. Used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license. J. Norris, 2011, “Folders vs. Metadata—Document Organization,” accessed June 22, 2018, http://john-norris.net/2011/06/23/document-organization-folders-vs-metadata/.
TRADITIONAL METADATA EXAMPLES
Because the students are now comfortable with the idea of metadata, it is now possible to start looking at some of the more traditional uses and applications of metadata, such as in the library catalog and databases that students may frequently use. By teasing apart a record in the local library catalog to show the various pieces of metadata that describe the item (e.g., title, author name in a specific format, date), they have an opportunity to see metadata in action. This can then be expanded on to show how metadata is used to build relationships among objects and make comparisons. There are books that share an author, multiple resources about the same subject, materials that are published by the same publisher in the same year, and so on. The idea of making these connections to build a collection of related material ties directly into the idea of collection building in digital humanities. The library catalog example can also lead to a discussion with students about creating metadata with an eye toward other people using it.
Timothy W. Cole highlights what makes “good” metadata that helps students think about how to build metadata for collections. In Cole’s words:
•“Good metadata should be appropriate to the materials in the collection, users of the collection, and intended, current and likely users of the digital object.
•Good metadata supports interoperability.
•Good metadata uses standard controlled vocabularies to reflect the what, where, when and who of the content.
•Good metadata includes a clear statement on the conditions and terms of use for the digital object.
•Good metadata records are objects themselves and therefore should have the qualities of good objects, including archivability, persistence, unique identification, etc. Good metadata should be authoritative and verifiable.
•Good metadata supports the long-term management of objects in collections.”4
CREATING METADATA
The final portion of a session on metadata and digital humanities focuses on hands-on practice creating metadata for a series of objects. It is beneficial to discuss with the professor any class projects that are already built into the course to see if there is a way to create an in-class metadata lab that helps support another project. If there is not one available, designing a project that presents the students with a set of objects that have some relationship to one another, along with a list of metadata fields to use to describe each object, is a good way to contain the exercise so that students do not need to spend the time trying to locate objects to build a collection.
One way to accomplish this task is to select a popular song and locate related items. Possible examples for the minicollection that is presented for metadata creation include a CD containing the original version of the song by the original performer, the original music video by the original performer on YouTube, the sheet music for the song, a cover of the song on YouTube as performed by another artist, and a mash-up (i.e., a song containing the piece mixed with another piece in a unique way). Students then decide on the metadata, such as a title, who the primary people are involved in the piece, what type of file it is, who the publisher is, keywords/tags that can be used to describe the item, and what relationships this item has to the other items in the collection.
After some time working through this exercise, the group comes back together to discuss the decisions they made in creating the metadata. This process of practicing building metadata gives students a chance to work with objects, to think about how to describe them in a way that is useful to other people, and to understand how the creation of metadata is a subjective and valuable contribution to digital humanities projects.
CONCLUSIONS
Metadata is not a subject that has traditionally been taught in classrooms as part of the typical set of skills students learn; however, developing a skill set with metadata is valuable for undergraduate and graduate students, particularly those who are becoming active in the field of digital humanities. Introducing students to metadata will enable them to develop a firmer grounding in an understanding of how archives and collections are organized and findable through metadata. Certain students may even develop an interest in becoming involved in creating metadata for an active digital humanities project after this initial overview session. With a carefully guided approach that provides scaffolding to introduce students to metadata in familiar contexts through creating metadata for a preselected set of items, students can learn the value of metadata and develop a deeper understanding of the role it plays in digital humanities.
NOTES
1. Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner, and Jeffrey Schnapp, Digital Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012).
2. Sheila Bair and Sharon Carlson, “Where Keywords Fail: Using Metadata to Facilitate Digital Humanities Scholarship,” Journal of Library Metadata 8, no. 3 (2008): 249–262.
3. Daniel Joudrey, Arlene Taylor, and Katherine Wisser, The Organization of Information, 4th ed. (Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2017).
4. Timothy W. Cole, “Creating a Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections.” First Monday 7, nos. 5–6 (2002).
Teaching the Philosophy of Computing Using the Raspberry Pi
Indiana University East
According to ResourceEd, “32% of educators are using technology to bring experts or experiences into the classroom virtually.”1
CENTRAL TO THE CHALLENGE OF all forms of university teaching is bringing student learning to life. In the past, the tools provided to instructors with which to confront this challenge were limited. The blackboard, the whiteboard, the PowerPoint presentation—these were the staples that made up the tool kit, and this was especially true for disciplines like the humanities, and within the humanities, for subjects like philosophy. Of late, however, the tool kit of the philosophy teacher has become enlarged by more expansive and impactful teaching technologies. One such example is the creation of the Raspberry Pi kit, a low-priced set of components with which to build a computer, the act of which may hold great power to positively impact the teaching of courses like the Philosophy of Computing and the Ethics of Information and Privacy.
The hypothesis is that, in the end, much will be gleaned about the Philosophy of Computing from the student having the hands-on experience of building her own computer. Put another way, learning how the resistors and capacitors electronically create the virtual platform that makes the human communication of information—or disinformation—possible, greatly informs learning about the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical ideas that drive ideation and behavior online . . . all made possible by the Raspberry Pi and
