'Frontline' tweet 'earth-shattering'

'Frontline' tweet 'earth-shattering'

This article from the Irish Times newspaper looks at a number of issues arising from the chairperson of the final Irish Presidential debate before the election asking a question prompted by a tweet.

Indeed in the creation of liveness, spontaneity and engagement many current affairs programs use twitter and SMS as ways of allowing their audiences to engage with material under discussion. The difference here it seems, is that the production team took a tweet as being from a particular source, but that tweet was not from where it appeared to be from. It was not checked - no one looked at the other tweets from the source, or checked to look at the tweets from the political party it claimed to represent - and the result (we voters in Ireland know) was 'earth shattering'. New media and old media are not the same - the new mimics the old, but is utterly different in many respects. Authenticity is at the heart of this - anonymity and the filters that old media must uphold...

Taking stock of our pooled research

Taking stock of our pooled research

Claire O Connell in today's Irish Times is writing about a group of Medical Research hospitals that have come together to create a shared database, to further research.

Now a new initiative is linking cancer biobanks between hospitals in Dublin, Cork and Galway.

As she says herself: The word “bank” might be somewhat tainted these days, but how about this more altruistic model: depositors donate, the “currency” helps fuel biomedical research and the end results can lead towards improved therapies for patients.

“Biobanking is saving biological samples such as human tissue, blood or urine, for research purposes,” explains Prof Eoin Gaffney, a consultant histopathologist at St James’s Hospital and Trinity College Dublin.

The process looks straightforward on the surface – but “It’s no use just storing samples, you need to have a good annotated database that tells you where the samples are and what types of samples they are, as well as pathological data and clinical data,” he says.

This is another example of how sharing data, but not just raw data, but data that has been made meaningful by researchers in the field, can enrich research for all

Flash fiction: 'Intense, urgent and a little explosive'

Flash fiction: 'Intense, urgent and a little explosive'

This new form of fiction is 'just right for our times - shorter than a novel, is it a shorter story?

Digital Cultures Workshop University College Cork

Last Thursday and Friday we had a Digital Cultures Workshop at University College Cork. There were distinguished local and international speakers over the two days of the event, with a subject range from Sociology through Psychology, Music, Literatures and Geography. Most importantly, the new DAH PhD cohort met, and shared their ideas for the first time. The students projects ranged from Erasmus' epistolary connections to capturing performances. The dahphd.ie is live - and content is being added.

Launch of Aigne

Last Wednesday Aigne was launched, after a long gestation. It is an international, interdisciplinary, postgraduate journal of the College of Arts Celtic Studies and Social Sciences at University College Cork, with the support of the Graduate School. It represents the best in collaboration, graduate education and publishing - with a sustainable URL within the UCC domain.

From many submissions, through a double-blind peer review process six are published, from the USA, Germany and Ireland. Through this process many PhD candidates within the CACSSS in the university have gained valuable experience of the peer review process and editorial skills. It is a huge case of 'WELL DONE' to all the team.

PhD Slam - School of English 15th September

David Puttnam on Ireland - Digitality and Research infrastructures

Interesting piece here on David Puttnam's vision for Ireland - his role as Digital Adviser to Gordon Brown has made clear his vision for innovative research communities -

What is DH and why is it relevant for PhDs

This is Melissa Terras' blogpost of her proposed talk on Big Tent Digital Humanities (now given) at 'Interface 2011' at UCL - it cuts through a lot of posturing to the core what key terms like 'humanities' and 'scholarship' are and is well worth a read - and yes - it is an endorsement of continuing professional development, the TEI and XML amongst other topics

Innovation - Intermediality and Bjork

Here's a link to some creative work by Bjork - each song on the new album has its own app, each one by a rival developer.

ESF Humanities Spring- "Changing Publication Cultures in the Humanities".

I'm attending this European workshop on publication in the humanities - based on themes of engagement, impact, language and future. There are 19 grantees and many languages with a broad range of views - tweeting at #humspring11.

There are interesting debates on everything from bibliometrics, to open access with the scholar Gudrun Gersmann giving a masterclass on digital publishing this morning. She gave excellent examples such as OAPEN, Francia(at Perspectivia), and recensio.net

Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative

Just published - here's the link:

The interface as narrative device

This is a visual treat of a TED talk on data, visualisation, meaning with humanity and creativity at the centre of it ...

Blogging the tsunami

This is a link to a Guardian article, and a link to a translation from Japanese to English of a blog created by a disaster nurse. The translator remains anonymous. The writer has had an overwhelming and immediate online response to her blogs, and has resisted calls for them to be published in book form preferring to let people come to the writing online.

Policy Document on the Open Access Agenda - Arcadia.org.uk

This is a brilliant, comprehensive document detailing the scholarly and societal need for an urgent implementation of the open access agenda. Click here for the link to the document.

Knowledge shared online

After the stimulating discussion and debate at last Friday's Honest to Blog, organised by Pue's Occurrences, and having had many discussions about the relative merits of social media, I took the plunge in to the twitterverse tonight.

And I found a lively, stimulating online debate amongst fellow scholars about what is happening at Glasgow at present and also a host of useful links and online discussions useful to my own interests. Paperless Archaeology is one at the Digital Classicist list.

I should have known that epigraphers would be ahead of the crowd with new media.

Honest to Blog - A Symposium on Web Legitimacy

The second symposium - under the auspices of Pue's Occurrences - is being held in TCD this Friday 4th March. It promises to be a wide ranging discussion of the Irish blogosphere.

New Media - Social Networking and Inclusion

It was everywhere - everyone was tweeting - linking and engaging in debate in almost real time - social media hit the General Election 2011.
Every news programme, every paper, almost every TD had a twitter account. Post Trafigura the oft scorned tweet has gained some gravitas, that and the impact social networking is having in the Middle East at present, coupled with the impact and immediacy of the tweet and the blog cannot be ignored.
Live blogging too has impacted enormously - whether your sport is centred on the Aviva, or the local count centre, RTE's, and the IT's enhanced coverage was excellent recently.

In 'Another blog about the role of Social Media' Éanna Ó Caollaí writes about the best Tweets in #GE2011 - they are well worth a look...

Digital History by Dan Cohen

There is an absolutely excellent online resource for anyone who is interested in digital scholarship. It is by Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig and called Digital History. It discusses the shift in concepts and methodologies that the web ennables. And it is in the language of the 'techno-realist' as opposed to the 'too good to be true' optimist It is available here: Digital History. Dan's blog is at dancohen.org and has a video and pdf slides of his recent plenary at the Coalition for Networked Information posted.

Guardian review of Sherry Turkle's new book Alone Together

Sherry Turkle has written a new book Alone Together the review is here but it is the comments section where the debate is most interesting. Many respondents refute the existence of halcyon days of yore where we all struck up conversations spontaneously with stranges on public transport or in cafes and also refer to other cusp moments where new technology was derided...

Research Intelligence at Oxford's e-Science Research Centre

This is an interesting article from the THE on the inherent interdisciplinarity of what we do - and how the world has shrunk in terms of knowledge creation and sharing in real-time.

How blogging worked to communicate the photography of Vivian Maier

There is an article in today's Guardian newspaper about a hitherto unknown photographer, and the man who found her negatives in an auction house, put them on a blog and shared the work. He admittedly knew little about photography, but the international response to the images on the blog allowed him to understand the significance of Maier's work.

Steve Wozniak and the Free Internet

Maggie Shiels the BBC's technology blogger is here highlighting Steve Wozniak's recent appeal for a 'Free' internet.

In an open letter, Wozniak addresses a range of issues about the public domain, and why it matters that access remains open.

The culture wars have begun - again...