Category: Post
Spotlight: Meghan & Analytics on Academia.edu
Meghan
I’ve been featured on the academia.edu blog in a discussion about the intersections of my work, the analytics the site provides, and pursuing new lines of research.
- A snapshot of analytics visualizations from Academia.edu
It was a fascinating discussion with science writer Courtney Quirin – I shared my approaches and the ways I’ve chronicled the movement of people through keywords to my profile; she also suggested a few great ways to improve my interpretation of those numbers.* If you are considering sharing your research and want a great platform to connect with scholars in intersecting ways, academia.edu could be the right place for you.
Do you already use profile analytics from academia.edu? Let me know if you have any best practice tips to share!
*Allow me to clarify that I have not been asked to give any endorsement of the social networking site, nor am I receiving anything other than good tips from Courtney to increase my ability to analyze the numbers!
Smithsonian Institution Transcription Center in Beta
Meghan
We launched the Smithsonian Digital Volunteers Transcription Center Friday 21 June as a collaborative, crowdsourced process that aims to bring digitized collections out from archives and museums. We are inviting our SERIOUSLY AMAZING audiences to help us unlock their stories by transcribing and reviewing their contents – to make them more accessible, searchable, and open.
This is another outstanding opportunity to make webs of knowledge and learn about the connections between collections. Please jump in and help where you can!
**UPDATE** (14 October): The Transcription Center is fully back in business with new features to launch shortly – while many projects have been moved to completion, there are still plenty of pages to transcribe and review. Join the community of digital volunteers!
My role has involved advising on use for communities of practice, understanding crowdsourcing capabilities, and developing coherent narratives for the pieces – rather than technical development – but I welcome feedback on usability, design, and any other “would be nice.”
Feel free to transcribe and offer feedback if you have thoughts to share! The service is still in beta and we are constantly integrating what we learn from users. Thanks for allowing me to share this successful first step in our transcription process – more to follow…
Editors Unite: Expeditions & Explorers
Meghan
On Friday, I was pleased to co-host Expeditions & Explorers – a Wikipedia edit-a-thon bringing new and experienced editors together with focus on materials from the Field Book Project.
Below are the slides I used to introduce a few of our participants to editing on Wikipedia. Rather than a pure “How-to,” the slides reflect “How to think, plan, and execute your edits.” I welcome feedback and suggestions – send me your best practice tips for editing on Wikipedia!
This Wikipedia edit-a-thon was a smashing success! We created four new articles, fleshed out existing articles, introduced new people to the Wikipedia project, exchanged a lot of best practice tips and resources. We also had an amazing lunch, courtesy of grant money from Wikimedia DC (thank you!). I hope the participants enjoyed themselves, developed skills, and learned more about the scientists and expeditions. A more detailed review of our work is in the works, so watch this space…
The Field Book Project is a joint Smithsonian Institution Archives and National Museum of Natural History initiative that is focused on preserving and digitizing field notes from scientists and researchers. The overall mission of the initiative is “to create one online location for scholars and others to visit when searching for field books and other field research materials.” Also find more information from Smithsonian Institution Archives.
Transcription beyond Description at SIA
Meghan
Last Tuesday, I shared some of the work I’ve been doing at Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) through their The Bigger Picture blog. Find out how I’ve been researching engagement and ways audiences can help weave webs of knowledge with SIA collections through the link or here.