Research

This TechTalk was targeted at people already somewhat familiar with the division’s wiki which can be accessed at http://humanities.uchicago.edu/wiki/. During the presentation and Q&A we discussed various matters including how to plan and structure complex documents, employ simple wiki macros to generate pages (such as a table of contents) automatically, how to share or restrict access to your pages and gain more control over their look and feel.

Probably the best place to start to learn more about the capabilities of the software (Confluence) we use to power our wiki is the Feature Tour on its website. This is a great place to get a succinct overview of its main features. The Confluence website also hosts several excellent introductory videos explaining the product.

Following this, to dig deeper, you’ll want to look at the official documentation pages. These are actually fairly well written and organized from the perspective of a user looking to accomplish a specific task, for example, working with images. Please keep in mind too that if you are a staff or faculty member in the division you can always contact Humanities Desktop Support to help you solve a problem with the wiki.

Advanced features in Confluence are generally accessed via a system of simple macros and (optional) plugins. If you’ve browsed through the lists of plugins and macros and found something that may look useful for your project, please contact Humanities Desktop Support for assistance.

Finally, to make the most of your wiki, it’s going to be very helpful to keep abreast of ongoing new features and updates. These so called “major releases” generally get rolled out three or four times a year. To read a brief summary of the highlights of recent major releases, please consult the following links:

v2.10 (December, 2008)

v2.9 (August, 2008)

v2.8 (April, 2008)

This Thursday in the on-going Humanities Computing Lunch Series, Professor Ronald B. Inden, Emeritus, History and South Asian Languages and Civilizations, will be presenting a digital text created using LaTeX, a document mark up and type-setting language. While TeX and LaTeX has long enjoyed dominance in the Physical and Social Sciences as the preferred method of writing and presenting research, it has a relatively light footprint in the Humanities. That, however, is changing as more scholars in the Humanities are focusing on Open Source alternatives to dominant word processing programs or desiring better implementation of non-Western languages and characters in their documents. LaTeX is a key solution to both of these issues.

Prof. Inden will present Vishnu’s Will, created using LaTeX. He will discuss some of the choices and decisions that informed and his usage of LaTex to create and present his research. After his presentation, we hope to hear from many of the other users of LaTex on campus – and discuss some of the resources Humanities Computing can help provide to spearhead the growth of LaTex in the Humanities. Just recently, we have added LaTex to the Humanities Wiki. Please visit the wiki page for more links and information about LaTeX.

This event is open to all staff, faculty and graduate students. Please circulate.

Where: Rosenwald 405
When: 12 – 1:30
RSVP: manan@uchicago.edu

This Wednesday November 27th from 12-1pm in Rosenwald 405, Humanities Computing is going to offer another of informal, lunchtime “Getting to Know” presentations to staff and faculty on various technical topics and internet buzzwords du jour. The goal of the “Getting to Know” series is to help introduce and explain current technologies in a way that is relevant to your own daily work and research.

Our presentation will be highlighting “visual technology in research projects” – we will focus on visual representation; photographs, paintings, sculptures, but may digress.  We may also  discuss what technologies are available for particular research problems. How collaborations with individuals in other disciplines help in Humanities research. One example demonstration will be of photo visualization project we are working on with Microsoft and how our research may assist in visual software design.

Light sandwiches and refreshments will be provided, or else just bring along your own brown bag lunch.

Over the last two years, Humanities Computing has created over 30 projects on the divisional wiki. The most widely used is the Divisional Resources wiki which offers a wide range of practical “how-to” information for staff and faculty.

We know that many people already use this wiki as a reference (with up to 800 page views on a single day..) but did you know that with a login you can add to and amend any of the text on these pages? From the outset, wikis were conceived as easy to use, web-based tools for collaborative writing, editing, note taking, planning. Adding and modifying texts and images offer one perspective for thinking about wikis. But perhaps as importantly, wikis are also databases whose content can be commented, tracked, tagged, sorted, reverted, searched and re-arranged in a wide variety of ways.

At the next Humanities Computing technology brown bag on Tuesday, October 23rd, 12-1pm, in Rosenwald 405 we’ll offer you a beginner’s introduction to wikis along with existing, practical examples of their use by faculty and staff in the Humanities Division.

Light sandwiches and refreshments will be provided, or else just bring along your own brown bag lunch. Please R.S.V.P. on the divisional calendar (using the “Sign-Up” button) if you plan to attend.

For answers to common questions about the Divisional wiki, please see our Blog FAQ. And please feel free to contact me directly with any questions.

Every researcher in the Humanities wonders, where do I put my notes? Yellow legal pad remains a popular option. But there are some who would like to do searches on their notes, add keywords, citations, and append materials to it. All this is made easier by using database-based note-taking programs that allow you to organize and use your research most effectively.

My recommendation is the freeware Scribe 3.2 written and designed by historians at the Center for History and New Media.

Scribe allows you to :

manage your research notes, quotes, thoughts, contacts, published and archival sources, digital images, outlines, timelines, and glossary entries. You can create, organize, index, search, link, and cross-reference your note and source cards. You can assemble, print, and export bibliographies, copy formatted references to clipboard, and import sources from online catalogs. You can store entire articles, add extended comments on each card in a separate field, and find and highlight a particular word within a note or article.

Scribe works on both Macs and PCs and does not need any software purchase. You can download it here.