Seltzer Awards 2013 attract DP attention

We congratulate the six students who won 2013 Seltzer Family Digital Media Awards! Read more in Joy Zhang’s recent DP article and our official press release.

Thanks to the generosity of Jeff Seltzer W’78 and his wife Annie, the Penn Libraries is proud to offer these digital media project awards. Each award provides up to $1,000 for the purchase of equipment (both hardware and software) and supplies to support a new media project for up to one year. The winners are:

• Ola Aboukhsaiwan HISB (C’15 W’15)
• Tan Chan C’15
• Yessenia Gutierrez C’14
• Theodora Pajaczkowska C’15
• Andrew Weis HISB (C’15 W’15)
• Marlie Winslow C’15

The students joined the Hoesley Digital Literacy Fellowship Program participants in a meet-and-greet in May. We look forward to assisting with projects in the upcoming academic year.

Ask and You Shall Receive

Jonathan Leung, a senior in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been working on a programming project, analyzing Khan Academy user data. Since his project requires him to have multiple windows open simutaneously, it was crucial to be working with a larger display, so he came into the lab a while back hoping to connect his laptop to one of our 27″ monitors.

The problem was that he couldn’t figure out a way to take advantage of the full resolution of 2560×1600 that his Mac Book Pro laptop was capable of. We tried DVI and HDMI adapters, but the best resolution we could get was 1080p.  (Not bad, but not good enough for his purposes) Then Jonathan asked if we had a mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort adapter.  We didn’t have one, but I told him I’d order one for him.  And I did.

Jonathan came into the lab today and was very happy to discover that using the new cable, he could get the full resolution–and I have to say, it looked great on the large monitor.

He said (and I quote): “You’ll be seeing a lot more of me here in the lab this summer.  You have the nicest, most helpful staff.  Everyone should get promotions!”  (I swear I’m not making this up.)

The mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable is available for you to use, too.  Just ask the lab consultant on duty.

And if you have suggestions for things you’d like to see in the lab, be sure to let us know–either in person or drop an email to wic1@pobox.upenn.edu

PhillyDH@Penn Takeaways

Last Tuesday was the much-anticipated PhillyDH@Penn event, inspired by the recently formed PhillyDH group and held in the new Special Collections Center.  For me, the event was a wonderful way to round out my almost-one-year anniversary of starting my WIC internship. Last summer, I tried to articulate what DH is (or rather, how difficult this is to articulate) via my brief DH encounters in graduate school. From there, I’ve spent the year reading articles, attending events, writing blog posts, and playing with new tech tools, all of which has given me a much better sense of DH scholarship. So many takeaways emerged from Tuesday’s unconference sessions and workshops that I could create a laundry list (or, more appropriately, an interactive word map). Instead, I’ll share my favorite takeaways that helped me better understand my role in DH as a WIC intern and librarian-in-training.

1) Don’t force the DH. Undertaking new digital projects is by no means an easy task for anyone, let alone time-crunched college professors and students. Before you think about incorporating DH into your classroom, think about what your goals are for your students and what you would like students to do at the end of the course. Once you figure this out, find out whether there are any digital tools that would enable or enhance students’ learning experiences. From what educators discussed at this topic’s unconference session, this approach has proven more productive than building a class around a specific digital platform.

2) Use your libraries (and librarians)! Because people have little time to learn new technologies, the library can provide a significant training grounds to teach and learn digital tools. Today’s librarians have become more “blended” not only in teaching research skills but also instructional technologies; further, the library is a neutral space on campus or in the community where everyone can come to learn. It was refreshing to hear this message from librarians, educators, and information professionals alike. It also allowed me to realize how our WICshops and special WIC programs help to meet this digital teaching/learning need.

3) Metadata is your friend. I don’t know very much about metadata, but I do know that it has great potential to change the ways people search for and find various materials. Folks from the Penn Libraries spoke about the Penn Provenance Project on Flickr, which started out as a rare book cataloging endeavor and has now captured the attention of those all over the world as they recognize books’ signatures, titles, and authors. By tagging the Flickr photos, patrons help create the metadata that link these images to Penn’s library catalog, Library of Congress records, and even Wikipedia, making information more easily accessible and retrievable for all involved.

4) Social media can be overwhelming. But, making comparisons can help! We’re always looking for the newest social media tools to use here at WIC, but I haven’t really taken the time to see which ones are most effective for which tasks. Browsing lots of graphics, online materials, and “about” sections of social media websites helped me to create a social media comparison chart to sort out all of this. I hope this information will be helpful for both our WIC staff and for all those trying to make sense out of multiple social media accounts.

These are just a few ideas I took away from PhillyDH@Penn. The event initiated so many productive conversations among folks across the humanities in universities, libraries, museums, and archives (workshop materials and unconference notes are now online).  I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that I came out of the day with the challenge to not only think about new models of teaching and learning with digital tools, but also to keep up the conversation with colleagues in the Philly area and beyond, as collaboration in DH is key to getting successful projects off the ground.

Bless This Mess

Our video recording rooms are getting major updates this month, so you may hear some extra noise in the Commons. We apologize for the interruption! We’re pretty sure the new rooms, with XXL high definition screens and new-and-improved cameras and recording technology will be worth it. If you need help finding a quieter space to study during the construction, one of the folks at the WIC desk can get you set up.

6 Reasons Your Password Stinks and How to Fix It

Over the weekend, I read this fascinating but horrifying article about the process hackers use to crack your passwords:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/05/how-crackers-make-minced-meat-out-of-your-passwords/

I thought I had really strong passwords (I had wrongly assumed that a longer password was necessarily more secure than a shorter password), and I was outright shocked at how insecure my passwords actually are.

The article is definitely worth a read (especially if you’re a little on the geeky side), but here are few take-aways for those not inclined to read the whole thing:

1. Password cracking isn’t done by trying to log in to a website over and over until the hacker hits the right password.  It’s done offline after someone hacks the website’s servers and illegally obtains a list of passwords in their encrypted form.

2. Depending on how a website has stored your passwords, hackers can try several BILLION (with a B) combinations per SECOND.

3. There are lots of FREE resources online to help hackers crack your passwords.

4. The more convenient your password is for you, the less secure it’s likely to be.  And even passwords you assumed were secure may take only a few seconds to crack.

5. The length of the password is less important than the way it’s constructed.  A somewhat shorter password made of *RANDOM* upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols is better than a longer password with a simpler or more predictable structure.  For example:

CHOOSE “C6:rwsm@” or “/m?>7A3%”

DO NOT CHOOSE “momof3g8kids”,  “1368555av”, “ILoveChocolate46,”, “n3xtb1gth1ng,” “Sh1a-labe0uf,” “Philippians4:6-7,” or even “qeadzcwrsfxv1331″

6. Hackers don’t simply crack passwords through brute force, ie. trying every possible combination; they also take advantage of the kind of patterns listed above, because they know how people usually choose passwords.  This is why a long password that seems secure to you (like “Sh1a-labe0uf”) takes no time at all for a hacker to crack. This was probably the single most enlightening fact in the entire article from my point of view. (essentially: “You weren’t nearly as clever as you thought you were when you picked that password.”)

Make sure your passwords are a minimum of 11 characters, contain upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols, and aren’t part of a pattern.  That last bit is really, really important so I’m going to say it again: AREN’T PART OF A PATTERN.

On one hand, this is kind of tragic, because it means you’re in bigger danger than you thought, your passwords just got a whole lot harder to remember, and you may need to resort to using a password manager.  On the other hand, it’s actually good news, because you just learned how to minimize your chances of having your passwords cracked.

As for me, I’m off to change my passwords….

Gadget Day Memories

Our spring Gadget Day was just about a month back. We’re excited to announce our playlist of edited videos and Storify. This was our first fully successful attempt recording and web-streaming Gadget Day – so here is a shout out to Google Hangouts on Air! It really was a fun day – fast-paced with a lot of laughter. Our thanks to all our presenters!

WIC iPads in Action @ PennDesign

Each semester, participants in the WIC iPads in the Classroom Project wow us with new and exciting ways to use iPads for teaching and learning. This spring, several courses in Fine Arts, Visual Studies and Architecture used our iPads to display innovative student work in exhibitions. Professor Carla Diana borrowed two of our iPads for students in her course Design of Contemporary Products: Smart Objects, which challenged students to design everyday goods enhanced by information technology. I attended her students’ show and was very impressed by their work. Below are a few images of “ReVITALize: Corrective Gym Assist,” which was the project that incorporated the two WIC iPads. Students Mia Kim and Matthew Schultz used the two tablets to display video content within their prototype. ReVITALize is a device designed to help gym-goers prevent injury by analyzing their movements.

Staff Retreat Photo

On May 10, all of us headed over to the Education Commons for our first-ever staff retreat. We (gasp!) closed down the Vitale Digital Media Lab. Jes Sokolek from Human Resources was our amazing facilitator – and she snapped the photo at right.

We were all surprised by how much we had to say. The three hours sped by. Although normally we are a highly digital group, we really enjoyed working with scented markers and multi-color post-it notes. There was much laughter, especially about the need for “mouse showers”.  We realized how rare it is that we all get to sit together, have lunch and chat informally.

We used the SPOT Matrix method to organize our thoughts. Lots of ideas emerged on how to improve what we do here at the Weigle Information Commons. Now we have a road-map and plenty to do over the summer.

We ended the retreat with a small celebration, to congratulate our three graduating interns (Marie Jaquish, Chao Xiang and Yuting Wang) and Nick Salvatore who has accepted a new job in SAS Computing.

Screen Videos LibGuide

Over the past few months, we have been gathering information and advice from many people and resources around Penn on creating screen videos for educational use. We recently published a new LibGuide that presents an overview of screen videos and includes resources for beginners, advanced users, students, and faculty.  We recommend software (from iMovie to Camtasia to Snapz Pro) and hardware (E-beam Whiteboard Capture and Wacom Tablets) to get started with screen recording, as well as specific resources for faculty from SAS Computing, the Arts & Sciences Learning Commons, and the TechSmith Blogs.  We also feature materials from our WICshop on voice-over narration in PowerPoint, as another powerful tool for recording lectures and presentations.  We will be updating our guide over the summer with more resources and examples. Please do share your comments with us.

Join us for PhillyDH@Penn – only 25 spots left!

Inspired by the success of last year’s THATCamp@Penn, along with the great energy from the newly-formed PhillyDH group, a group of folks doing DH* work decided to get together to plan an event that will bring together interested parties from across the Delaware Valley (and beyond – we have registrants from as far away as Buffalo, NY!). The day is going to be jam-packed with both formal and informal learning opportunities. It will also be one of the first big events in the brand new Special Collections Center on the sixth floor of Van Pelt, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to show off our new space.

All of the details are on the event website, but some of the highlights of the day include:

• workshops, including some taught by WIC staff on WordPress, Social Media and Free Image/Photo Editing Tools
• unconference sessions that attendees will get to vote into existence on the day of the event
• our keynote speaker Michael Edson, who is Director of Web and New Media Strategy at the Smithsonian Institution
• a “lightning round” featuring two-minute talks on exciting projects

Sign up NOW to reserve your spot, and join us on the sixth floor on June 4th!

*DH stands for “Digital Humanities.” Want to learn more about DH? Check out our blog posts on the topic!