Ongoing Investigations

Author: CapnPilot

  • A Brief Look at Carleton’s Social Media History

    Over the course of winter term, each of the Digital Scholarship interns worked on a project relating to a common theme – Carleton’s history on the internet. I decided to research our social media usage on two different platforms, comparing the culture on LiveJournal in the early 2000s to the culture on Facebook now.

    My comparison took a two-fold approach: what the technological benefits and drawbacks of each platform were, and what social patterns I saw arising out of those affordances. Put simply, what can you do on each website, and what did people want to do?

    What follows is a short write-up of my project, including the pros and cons of each site, what I saw there, and why it matters. If you just want to see the PDF, you can go to the bottom. Otherwise, enjoy.

    LiveJournal

    LiveJournal is a blogging platform where each user could post to their own page, called a journal, or to the page of a community they belonged to, such as Carleton’s. It can host images but is geared first and foremost towards sharing text. It also boasts threaded comments and strong archival abilities, which made it much easier for me to go back and find posts dating anywhere from 2003 to 2008.

    Some things we might take for granted aren’t available, however. Comments can’t be made from the main page of a community, and have to be made on the dedicated page of a specific post. They’re the only way to interact with a post, meaning there’s no middle ground between lurking and starting a conversation.

    In general, it’s a bit hard to assess the culture that existed on Carleton’s LiveJournal community, given how much has changed about how we use the internet in the past twenty years. Posting was less frequent, with days or weeks going in between posts on the page. Many posts were of alumni reminiscing about their time on-campus, or new and incoming students asking for advice.

    Facebook

    Facebook is, similar to LiveJournal, a site where each user can post to their own page or to community pages. There is a mixture of text, image and video posts, as well as semi-threaded comments and the ability to react to posts with different emojis. Facebook also has other features, like the Messenger chat or games, but since those aren’t related to how the Carleton community organizes its groups, I didn’t include them in my project.

    Unfortunately, Facebook’s ability to archive posts is limited. It’s very difficult to navigate to the dedicated URL for a post, and while each group has a tab to find photo posts and video posts, there is no similar method to find text posts. This made it extremely difficult to gather data on post frequency, when communities were started, and how long discussions tend to last.

    Culturally, Facebook is geared most towards current students, who can share overheard quotes, advertise events, and comment on current events. Alumni and incoming students still have the ability to interact, leading to discussions on campus culture in the comments or posts asking for college advice similar to LiveJournal. Even professors sometimes comment on posts!

    However, the most interesting thing to me about Facebook is the way the community is decentralized: groups are formed around a specific topic, like Overheard at Carleton, Lost and Found, or dedicated groups for each class year. Community members belong to multiple groups at once and sort their posting accordingly, rather than having one primary page for all sorts of posts.

    Why We Care

    Looking at what Carleton citizens seek in a community can help us tune into what we want and what we need. These sites are primarily self-governed, with a few mods per group. This means they’re not officially run by Carleton, just affiliated with the community.

    Many departments try to reach out to students on social media, particularly on Instagram. In the future, I would be interested to learn how effective these efforts are. But in the meantime, a key part of engagement is finding out what people want from you. A low-stakes way to share funny moments, advertise events, or ask for help is what Carleton seems to seek in online communities. If there’s a way to translate that for departmental development or alumni engagement, I could see this information being very beneficial.

    Additionally, more research going forward could be done regarding alternative student groups, like Overheard at Carleton Uncut w/ Productive Discourse, which arose out of student frustration with not being able to share political topics on the main Overheard page. Keeping track of pain points with current students can help the administration work on improving Carleton’s culture for everyone.

    What I Learned

    And now, the self-reflection, a key part of any project. I like to think there’s two aspects to a research project: what you learn, and what you learn. Here, it’s what I learned about Carleton, and what I learned about the project.

    What I learned about Carleton is above. It’s also below, in my zine PDF. Check it out!

    What I learned about the project comes in a couple of different forms. I’m going to separate them into project skills and technical skills.

    Working on this project, I was able to practice some of my goals for the year regarding project management. First came writing up a project proposal, which involved coordinating resources, planning out steps, and accounting for any pitfalls. I also developed a plan for measured progress, to avoid jumping straight to the difficult parts without planning beforehand and to make sure I was keeping on track with my work.

    In terms of technical skills, I originally planned to create this project entirely in InDesign, gaining some new layout skills there which I could bring forward into future communications projects for the Digital Scholarship department. Unfortunately, learning InDesign from scratch proved to be more time-intensive than I realized, so I switched to an image manipulation program I was more familiar with called GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). The end result is a bit different than anticipated, but I’m proud of how it turned out and look forward to more projects like this in the future.

    Sources and Resources

    Carleton’s LiveJournal Community

    Overheard at Carleton

    Carleton College Class of 2020 (Student Official) [and other related class pages]

    Carleton College Lost and Found

    Overheard at Carleton Uncut w/ Productive Discourse

    GIMP

    The Project

    Carleton’s Social Media HistoryDownload

  • Working from Home? Hardly Working.

    So now there’s this.

    Carleton has moved online-only for the rest of the year. All academics and most staff activities are taking place over the internet, which means most of the Carleton population is now, in one way or another, working from home.

    Luckily, one of my long-term projects this year has been organization and time management. In the interest of digital ethics, I’m putting together a little compilation guide of What You Need To Know. There are three main steps: figure out what kind of problem you have, figure out what tools you have, and figure out how you want to tackle something.

    Two quick disclaimers: don’t try everything on this list at once. Seriously, just… just try one or two at first, okay? Also, if none of this works for you, you’re not allowed to blame me.

    What’s the problem?

    Start simple: you either have a tech problem, or you have a people problem. This is an important distinction! Tech can be used to aid people problems. It’s not a magic bullet. It can’t fix them altogether.

    A tech problem is exactly what it sounds like: any problem with the tech you are using to do your job. Some quick examples: Zoom isn’t working! You can’t log into your Google account! Your hard drive crashed!

    I can’t solve tech problems for you. ITS is working remotely these days. Try calling them!

    People problems are everything else – anything that results from you or anyone else being a human person, with human needs. If you keep getting distracted, that’s a people problem. If you’re overwhelmed and can’t get organized, that’s a people problem. If you’re feeling lonely, that’s a people problem. If you’ve been on Zoom for 37 hours straight and you hate everyone, that’s a people problem.

    The good news is, once you’ve identified a people problem, you can figure out the tools you need to solve them.

    What tools do you have?

    Let’s tackle a couple different areas: focus, organization, and socialization.

    Focus

    What helps you focus is different for every person. Some people need total quiet. Some people need background noise. Some people need to cut out visual clutter. Some people can go for hours. Some people work better in sprints.

    So, in keeping with that, here’s a list of random tools and tips that might work for you, in no particular order.

    • Noisli: A customizable background noise generator that lets you pick from various non-intrusive sounds, mix them together, and save custom playlists. You need an account for the free version, which gets you 1.5 hours per day, 16 sounds, and 3 basic mixes. Also has a built-in Pomodoro timer (limited functionality while free).
      • Alternatives: A Soft Murmur (fewer sounds, no time limit), MyNoise (pick from a variety of options, no cross-mixing)
      • Alternately, if you hate noise, try earplugs or headphones. It won’t fix everything, but maybe it’ll help.
    • Do you have a to-do list? If so, keep it to a maximum of five items. Yes, I know, you have so many things to do– write them down somewhere else to remember later. When you’ve done the five things on your list, you can migrate some new ones. Five things at a time. That’s all you need to do right now.
    • Put stuff where you need it. If you don’t need it, put it somewhere else. Put it in a box. I don’t care where it goes. On my desk, there is a coaster, some photos, old pens, my drumsticks– wait, no, let’s not use me as an example. The point is: if you know what you’ll need, keep it where it’s needed, and if you can’t find it under the stuff you never use, put that stuff somewhere else.
    • Color-code. Things in bright colors stand out. If you can’t see it, you might miss it.
    • Take breaks, and use your breaks for something that could not possibly become work. Moving around is really good. Literally everyone says this. It sounds stupid. I don’t care. Set an alarm or something, get up, and windmill your arms in circles. Touch your toes. Shadowbox and swear at your imaginary opponent. Walk around the room. Blast a song that makes you want to dance.
    • Figure out when works for you. I would love to work in the morning. I cannot do it. I work in the afternoons and evenings, when my brain has gotten with the program. Don’t force yourself to do things that don’t work for you. But! And this is important. Get enough sleep, and keep track of how long you’ve been working. Don’t force yourself. A non-standard schedule doesn’t mean you have to work longer or be guilty about what you’re doing.

    There are going to be more time management tips at the bottom. These ones are, hopefully, specifically geared to help you focus. Everything else comes later.

    Organization

    Over the past term, I’ve compiled and annotated a short list of organizational tools – to-do lists, project management, etc. Check these out and see what sounds good to you.

    Small note: everything here except the bullet journals requires an account. All of them are, to one degree or another, free.

    • Bullet Journals
      • PROS:
        • You’re not connected to the cloud, which means you know your data is safe.
        • Super customizable (Youtube has a ton of tutorials to make them fancy, but I didn’t use them; just figure out what you need to write down, and do it however works).
        • You’re not beholden to any company about what a system “should” look like.
      • CONS:
        • You’re not connected to the cloud, which means there’s no team sync, no automatic reminders, and no backups.
        • If you lose stuff easily, you might have trouble with this one.
        • Because it’s customized to you, if you’re not feeling it or you don’t know what you want, you might have a rough time keeping up the habit.
    • Google Keep
      • PROS:
        • It has a widget in Google Calendar, so you can keep it right next to your schedule for easy time planning.
        • Comes with a phone app, and you can color-code every note, pin the important things, set alerts, and more.
        • Technically meant as a note-taking app, but I find it makes better to-do lists than Google Tasks!
      • CONS:
        • One day Google will swallow the sun and we will thank it for the sweet relief of darkness.
        • Also, it’s very hard to manage indentations (very important for sub-tasks on a to-do list), and full customization functionality requires either a browser plug-in or going to the dedicated Keep page, meaning you can’t do it from your Calendar.
        • On a personal note, I hate the way it resolves completed tasks (they’re completed, I don’t want to see them anymore!
    • Trello
      • PROS:
        • Really, really good for team work and project management – we use it for the Digital Scholarship and Digital Humanities teams all the time.
        • Lots of integrated functions. You can comment, make checklists, separate tasks, separate lists of tasks, attach documents, schedule alerts… the list goes on.
      • CONS:
        • It’s best for teams, honestly. You can use it solo, but a lot of the functionality is aimed at keeping a group in communication and working toegether.
        • Recently got bought by Atlassian. I have no idea what that means for future development or privacy concerns.
        • There are extensions that help with readability and color-coding, but the ones that work best seem to be only available on Chrome.
    • Wunderlist
      • PROS:
        • Really good at readability and organization. Set my standards for how to-do checklists ought to behave.
        • Very easy to make subtasks, add notes, schedule things, etc. A lot of good functionality.
        • Very easy to organize — you can put your checklists into folders, and your folders into folders, and your folders into folders into folders…
      • CONS:
        • I hesitated to include Wunderlist because, here’s the kicker: it got bought by Microsoft, and they’re ending support for it in May. The team will be working on Microsoft’s To-Do application, and hopefully they’ll bring some good features to it, but right now… ehhhhh?
        • You can’t visually customize it at all. If you’re big into color-coding and visual organization, pick literally anything else on this list.

    Socialization

    I’m not really going to use this section to rate and review different softwares for staying in touch. Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype and Discord all have varying levels of video function and voice calling; Discord, Slack and Skype can host your messaging and keep it (somewhat) organized. Zoom, Google Hangouts, and Slack are professional. Skype is kind of professional. Discord is for hanging with your friends.

    There’s a bunch of stuff out there about making sure you’re still talking to people. That’s fine. That’s good. I encourage talking to people. I also encourage checking in with yourself. If you’re spending five hours a day in meetings or talking to people, and at the end of the day your friends want to chat for another two hours? That’s a lot of time.

    On the other hand, don’t be afraid to be the first person to message, or call, or whatever. People can be shy, or not know how to ask for support. Communicate. If you’re having problems at work, or you need some extra support, tell your colleagues. Tell your friends. They can’t see you. They don’t get any signals beyond what you give them.

    So, socialize, but not too much. Take care of yourself, but make sure to reach out to people. I don’t know what to tell you. Being human is a messy contradiction.

    How are you going to tackle this problem?

    So. You know what problem you’re having. You know what tools are at your disposal. You have, hopefully, a vague idea of what needs doing.

    BUT HOW THOUGH.

    There are only so many hours in a day, and yet there are so many hours in a day. You need a way to manage your time.

    Time Management Systems

    • Use your phone. I have every activity of mine plugged into my Google Calendar, which is plugged into an alert system on my phone. This one is less about getting things done and more about not forgetting what you have to do, though…
    • The Pomodoro Method. Twenty-five minutes on, five minutes off. Repeat four times. After four “Pomodoros”, you get a fifteen minute break. There are tons of timers for this stuff online. Just make sure whatever you’re using is noisy enough to get your attention.
    • Eisenhower Decision Matrix. Make a box with four sections: urgent/not urgent, important/not important. Write down all your stuff wherever it needs to go. Urgent & important = right away. Everything else, you can work on, delegate*, or ditch.
      • *President Eisenhower could delegate. I have no idea whether you can.
    • Kanban. Three sections: to-do, doing, done. Put your tasks on sticky notes, or use push pins, or get an app. Put whatever needs doing wherever it goes, and revel in the ability to move things across the board.
    • Ivy Lee. At the end of the day, write down the six things you absolutely must do tomorrow, in order of importance. When you start tomorrow, do those things in order. Then you can do whatever else is left. If there’s anything on the list that hasn’t been finished by the end of the day, that’s okay – it’s the end of the day, and it’s time to make a new list.

    But most importantly…

    Be kind to yourself. Seriously. There’s a lot going on right now, and everything’s stressful, and even at the best of times it’s really hard to be perfect. This is not the best of times. You don’t have to be perfect.

    I’m serious. I’ve missed the same meeting two weeks in a row for two different reasons, and I have spent the last year getting organized enough to write this blog post. I’ve forgotten so many different things this week. It happens.

    If you’re tired, there’s a reason for that. If you’re frustrated, there’s a reason for that. If you’re sad, or angry, or jittery, there’s a reason for that.

    This stuff can (maybe) give you a jumping off point. But here’s the deal – be generous to yourself, just like you would be to your friends and family. And don’t beat yourself up, okay?

    Sources & Resources

  • Ethics Week 9: What We Talk About When We Talk About Digital Humanities

    This past week I was lucky enough to attend two different talks co-sponsored by the Cinema & Media Studies and Digital Arts & Humanities departments, both given by Jason Mittell of Middlebury College. It got me reflecting on a couple of different aspects, both of my work at Carleton as a student and my work specifically for the Digital Scholarship program. So that’s my blog post for Week 9!

    The first talk covered modes of videographic criticism or, more simply put, video essays. How do we construct criticism for media we can’t accurately depict in print? What’s the most effective way to address a text?

    The second talk explained Middlebury’s approach to digital humanities, which involved sponsoring professors to make modes of conveying their research that aren’t typically associated with the digital humanities. Mittell talked about these as a way of integrating digital arts with data-driven research or computational approaches to the humanities.

    These were particularly interesting to me because of where I am in Carleton’s academic space. I’m a CAMS major, so a lot of my coursework has been dedicated to making and analyzing art, usually using digital tools. But I’ve also taken a good number of data-driven classes in the Computer Science, Economics and Statistics departments. My job frequently has me assessing how Carleton’s humanities departments use and teach digital methods of interacting with their content.

    Yet I was honestly surprised when I started in the Digital Scholarship program this year. My expectation for digital humanities at Carleton was shaped by my understanding of CAMS, not by my experiences in the English or History departments, so I expected the topics we covered to hew much more closely to digital media and how it affects our lives.

    In keeping with the claim in their name, the Digital Arts and Humanities minor at Carleton counts three courses from the CAMS department as applying towards its program, one each in the three areas of Skill Building, Critical Reflection, and Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration. But looking at the ways digital humanities are supported at Carleton, it’s hard for me to feel like CAMS is integrated into the curriculum in the same way.

    The CAMS department has classes and resources dedicated to helping students learn the digital equipment and software available to them, separate from the work of the Digital Humanities Associates or the library. The Audio Recording Studio, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Office of the Director of the Arts but is operated through the CAMS Production Office, is frequently used for history or language courses looking to incorporate podcasting into their curriculums, but those students don’t have access to the equipment or editing training of the CAMS department. This isn’t to say either program is lacking, but I don’t feel like there’s any connections there. This might be a matter of resources, or it might be a matter of time.

    Similarly, the analytical work done in the CAMS department could greatly benefit from the integration of digital humanities’ work with ethical and critical reflection. A course offered two years ago by visiting professor Dimitri Pavlounis, Digital Cinema Cultures, tied the two topics closely together: how do we think about media when it’s digital, as opposed to when it’s not? How does digitization affect the work we do? What are the ethical, philosophical and social ramifications of the moving image in the digital age?

    These are questions I would love to see both the Digital Humanities and CAMS departments at Carleton tackle, preferably together and preferably on an on-going basis.

    I don’t have a data-driven approach to the humanities. It’s not something that’s intuitive to me. But hopefully I can carve out a humanistic approach to the digital, especially when it comes to the media we make and consume.

  • Ethics Week 8: What Do You Do with Academic Software?

    So this week (and the past couple weeks, actually) I’ve been doing some reading on the legal policies of a company called Gradescope. While this isn’t a full write-up, more an extension of some annotation I’ve been doing lately, I thought it would make a good blog post.

    So, Gradescope. What is it? Who is it? What does it mean for us?

    What is Gradescope?

    Gradescope is a web-based subscription software that allows educators to organize and delegate the collection and grading of assignments, in order to allow them to better focus on the needs of their students.

    Or, simply put: it’s like Moodle (turn in your assignments online) but it also grades stuff if you ask it to and tell it how.

    They’re not giving it to humans to grade, either — they’re grading algorithmically, based on a rubric.

    It’s aimed primarily at STEM, econ and business classes, which makes sense, since quantitative classes would be easier to grade consistently by machine. But their website does boast that it handles papers, even if it’s a little unclear on what aspects of the papers it handles (collection, maybe grammar) vs what aspects are handed to the educator (style and content, hopefully).

    Who is Gradescope?

    Well, as of October 2018, Turnitin owns Gradescope. Turnitin is another web-based software company, this one oriented towards catching plagiarism and determining authorship of papers. They partner with large databases, including Crossref, Elsevier, Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, IEEE and Taylor & Francis, in order to check what percentage of a paper matches with other papers out there. In fact, they claim their content database includes “70 billion current and archived webpages”.

    But their plagiarism checker is a little concerning, missing 44% of plagiarized sources in a 2015 experiment at UT-Austin. Penn State University, in their online guide to Turnitin, outlined various ways to get false positives, none of which inspire confidence in Turnitin’s algorithms.

    • Any rough draft stored in Turnitin’s repository could come up as a false positive when the final draft is submitted.
    • Any copies of the paper submitted to Turnitin to check for plagiarism before the paper is officially turned in for class will be stored in the repository – which can generate a false positive.
    • Turnitin doesn’t check whether a student’s original work is being plagiarized, just whether their work matches with another source in the repository.
    • A paper that expands on/includes material from a previous paper on the same topic can also generate a false positive.

    It’s remarkably hard to find any information on Gradescope’s own effectiveness or practices, incidentally. Their terms of service and privacy policy mention third-party partners and third-party recruiters, but decline to elaborate on either. One can sign in with Google, making Google a third-party partner with access to their data, but I can’t find any clear indication of what recruiters might be present on Gradescope’s site.

    Additionally, though their privacy policy claims to comply with GDPR and Privacy Shield (an opt-in U.S.-E.U. and U.S.-Switzerland privacy rubric that allows members certain privileges), their terms of service were last updated in November 2014 — which means they predate GDPR (adopted April 2016), Privacy Shield (July 2016) and the CCPA (fall 2019), a California-based privacy law which they are also subject to. Their privacy policy was last updated in June of 2018.

    What does it mean for Carleton?

    At present, not much. I haven’t heard of any courses that use either Gradescope or Turnitin, which are subscription-based models that would need to be funded by whatever department chose to use them (or by the college at large).

    While Gradescope’s privacy policy and terms of service are mostly standard legal jargon, there are a couple of things I tend to sideeye – like, what happens if your account is deleted due to a false positive?

    The first of my major issues is that they’re not publicly forthcoming with their revenue streams. Of course they charge for subscriptions from the schools they work with, and their client base is obviously private, but as I said above, I can’t find out what third-party recruiters have access to their site. Nor can I find out how these recruiters get access — do they pay for it? Does Gradescope seek them out, or do they contact Gradescope? What sort of data do they get to look at, and how can users manage their privacy?

    The second is their grading methods. Since they’re owned by Turnitin, it’s very likely they use Turnitin’s plagiarism checker — which, as we know, is faulty, despite its wide access to databases.

    Which brings me to my third point: Gradescope keeps student work, and makes it accessible to the third-party partners they use to do their work (like, for example, Turnitin). Turnitin keeps student work and adds it to their databases so they can check for plagiarism more expansively. This is a feature schools pay for.

    Or, put another way: schools pay for Gradescope and Turnitin to make money from other schools off of their students’ work.

    Gradescope has policies in place that comply with GDPR – meaning, any user has the right to be forgotten. You can write to Gradescope, ask them what information they have on you, and tell them to delete it, and they will do it (with a few caveats related to anonymized and group data).

    But, at the same time, their terms of service are six years out of date. Their privacy policy doesn’t mention the California Consumer Privacy act, and I haven’t been able to find any official statements from Gradescope on the topic. And, possibly most worryingly, it is very unclear whether their partners have the same policies in place. And even if they do, would requesting that Gradescope delete your information would extend to any party with whom they’ve shared that information?

    Sources

    “Turnitin Acquires Gradescope”, Zeligs Hand, Amanda, Turnitin, 3 October 2018. https://www.turnitin.com/press/turnitin-acquires-gradescope

    “Database Content”, Turnitin. https://www.turnitin.com/about/content

    “How Much Do You Know About Turnitin’s Content?”, Lee, Christine, Turnitin, 30 May 2019. https://www.turnitin.com/blog/how-much-do-you-know-about-turnitins-content

    “Optimizing the Originality Report”, Penn State University. https://turnitin.psu.edu/bestpractices/usingreports/

    “UT-Austin test results for Turnitin”, Schorn, Susan, University of Texas — Austin. https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/633028/pages/ut-austin-test-results-for-turnitin

    “Privacy Policy”, Gradescope, 25 June 2018. https://www.gradescope.com/privacy

    “Terms of Use”, Gradescope, 3 November 2014. https://www.gradescope.com/tos

  • Ethics Week 7: The New Travel Ban

    So. The travel ban.

    It’s not strictly digital humanities, but it’s definitely ethics and it’s definitely relevant to Carleton. So that’s my blog post for today: what’s happening, what does it mean, and how is it going to impact us?

    What’s happening?

    Basically, the Trump administration is expanding their limitations on visas for immigration into the United States. This policy was announced at the end of January, and it’s taking effect on February 21st, 2020. Spot check: that’s tomorrow.

    Up until now, there have been restrictions on immigration from Iran, Libya, North Korea, Venezuela, Yemen, Somalia and Syria. Citizens from those countries can’t obtain visas at all. With the new policy, there will also be limitations on Myanmar/Burma, Sudan, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan, and Eritrea. Citizens from these countries aren’t barred from visiting the States entirely, but they mostly won’t be able to get permanent residency.

    What does it mean?

    The Trump administration is calling this a national security measure, though the effectiveness of the policy is in doubt. Critics are calling it out for racist policies — specifically, the appearance of four African nations on the list of newly-restricted countries after many remarks by President Trump denigrating African countries has caused a backlash.

    Legally, there are a variety of visas the United States offers. They are divided into two main categories: Nonimmigrant Visas, and Immigrant Visas. This new update to the travel ban focuses primarily on immigrant visas, which include sponsorship by a spouse or family member, sponsorship by an employer, diversity visas, and returning residents.

    The updated ban bars citizens from the affected countries (Myanmar/Burma, Sudan, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan and Eritrea) from the diversity visa lottery, and only citizens from Tanzania and Sudan will be able to gain visas that would let them immigrate to the US. There are other specific restrictions of varying sorts on different countries related to which types of visas can be obtained (there are 34 varieties of nonimmigrant visa that I found, and 30 varieties which might apply to citizens of the affected countries).

    What does this mean for Carleton?

    This is going to hit Carleton specifically with regards to international students and faculty. Those who already have visas aren’t going to have them revoked, and student visas are among the nonimmigrant visas which aren’t going to be restricted, but students might think twice about applying to United States schools if they’re unlikely to be able to gain long-term residency in the country.

    Additionally, faculty visas seem to be a bit of a gray area. Employer-sponsored visas fall into the immigrant visa category, which the travel ban is restricting, but there is a non-immigrant visa called “Professor, scholar, teacher (exchange visitor)”, which is a J-visa. J-visas are specifically for individuals who are part of exchange visitor programs, which is unlikely to help with long-term employees of the college.

    The takeaway is… I’m not sure, honestly. The political science department hosts an off-campus studies program travelling to Thailand and Myanmar. International students may still be able to get visas, but it will likely be difficult and may lower the desire to attend Carleton. And employees of the college currently on an employer-sponsored visa shouldn’t have theirs revoked, but it’s unclear whether they’ll be able to renew it once it expires.

    Sources:

  • Ethics Week 6: The Road So Far

    It’s midterms, and you know what that means. Time to review!

    … my work so far this term, that is. I’ve already taken my exams.

    I did a little inventory of my past blog posts, as well as some behind-the-scenes stuff, so today I’m going to be talking about what I said I’d do versus what I actually did, and whether there’s room to pick back up.

    What I Planned

    It’s actually pretty easy to see what I meant to do this term, because I wrote a blog post about it. It sums up a couple of the themes I was hoping to touch on and a couple of projects I was hoping to do.

    The executive summary of it all is thus. I had four major projects:

    1. look into different ways of organizing work, especially digital vs. analog systems
    2. study open source software communities for the Digital Scholarship Interns’ winter project
    3. investigate data security laws and how they affect college software
    4. develop my Ruby coding skills

    Did I do these things? Sort of!

    What I Did

    It’s a little hard to look back through my work the past couple weeks, because some of my blog posts are password-locked and I don’t write about everything I work on (it’s important to have focused, informative posts).

    That said, I have followed through on these plans in different ways throughout the term so far.

    First: Organizing Systems

    This is very solidly a behind-the-scenes thing. I’ve experimented a little with Google Keep, comparing it to my past experience with to-do lists in the Notes app and Wunderlist, plus bullet journals. No conclusive results yet, but this investigation is ongoing. Expect a recommendation report sometime in the future!

    Second: the Digital Scholarship Interns project

    My part of the project has been reshaped a couple times to better fit with what we’re doing. Our project is a revamp of the DSI blog (you may have noticed it’s a little snazzier than it used to be). But, since we’re focusing on blogging at Carleton, open source software didn’t really fit.

    Instead, I’m going to be doing an investigation of Carleton social media culture, comparing the Carleton Livejournal community (still up online, though not very active these days) to Facebook and how people at Carleton use it. This way, we can get a good idea of the common questions Carleton users ask, and what they look for in a platform.

    Third: Investigate Data Security Laws

    This has been a way bigger part of my term than previously anticipated. When I wrote my initial blog post, setting out my goals for the term, I thought digital systems of organization and the intern project would be my two major priorities, with some legalese on the side and a little Ruby to fill in the cracks.

    In reality, my term has focused a lot on rights management and data security. Week three had me looking into some new data privacy laws in the United States (this post was password locked, for internal use only); week four saw me thinking about what it means to safely store your work with different digital entities; and week five was all about reflecting on technology in the Iowa caucuses.

    And it’s going to keep going from there! The more digging around I do, the more stuff I find. Next week looks like it’ll see me looking through the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy of some scholastic software companies, to think about what control we have over our work at Carleton. Can’t wait!

    Of course, since I’ve been spending a lot more time than expected on this, that means…

    Fourth: Ruby Coding

    My Ruby plan for the term has shifted a bit, from coding up projects to investigating its uses. Ruby’s been used in some interesting archival projects, and one of my goals is to understand its affordances in that area.

    That said, because it has less practical ramifications in the here-and-now than understanding how we organize our work, investigating Carleton’s social media footprint, or unpacking the new laws around data privacy, this project’s been temporarily shelved.

    And frankly, I’m okay with that. One of the important lessons this term has been solid prioritizing.

    Where To Next?

    Honestly, keeping up what I’ve been doing. There are next steps for everything: writing up the different organization systems, putting together my content for the intern project, and decoding the mysteries of Terms of Service.

    I also have some new projects coming down the pipeline! They’re a secret for now, but might make an appearance in future blog posts.

  • Ethics Week 5: Let’s Talk About Iowa

    My post this week was going to be about how people use libraries and the information they contain.

    Then Iowa happened.

    So this week, we’re summarizing the technological debacle that was Monday’s Iowa caucus. What happened? Did anyone expect it? How did this come about?

    A quick overview

    In brief: in the Iowa caucus, people go to their precinct and vote for the candidate they want. The precinct then reports the totals in, so they can be counted up and people can figure out who got the most votes. In the past, the totals have been reported over the phone lines, but this year, the Iowa Democratic Party decided to commission a phone app from the tech company Shadow, Inc. to report the results. The Nevada Democratic Party also helped pay for the app’s development, hoping to use it for their upcoming caucus on February 22nd (this plan has since been scrapped).

    Some important things to note, first and foremost: this project was commissioned by the Iowa Democratic Party, not the Democratic National Committee; the app was for reporting caucus results, not for voting electronically; and, while there were security concerns, the primary issues were with the app’s performance.

    The app, whose name I can’t find (various sources call it ‘the Shadow app’, ‘the app’, or ‘the app from Shadow, Inc.’), was still in development this past weekend — meaning, days before the primary. In the tech world, this might not be too unusual: it’s pretty standard for games and apps to release patches in the early days after their release date. But for voting technology, that’s not an acceptable practice.

    So what’s the problem?

    Security was the obvious concern with the app, and has been since at least mid-January, when NPR put out a piece on the app’s development. It’s hard to get a general impression of the app’s security features, because the chairman of the Iowa State Party, Troy Price, declined to give any details on tests it might have undergone, companies that might have checked it, or issues they might have found. His goal was to avoid leaking information that might entice hackers, but many cybersecurity experts say that “security through obscurity” isn’t actually an effective countermeasure against hacking.

    That said, while the app’s poor performance definitely raised security concerns (it was meant to be used on the personal devices of the volunteers running the caucus), the main issue was just that: poor performance. The app was apparently hard to find, difficult to download, and glitchy.

    While the Iowa Democratic Party claimed it would have backup procedures in place, they weren’t prepared for the volume of failures. When caucus organizers gave up on the app and decided to report results the old-fashioned way, over the phone lines, the sheer volume of calls blocked most people from getting through, which contributed to the delay in results.

    So what now?

    Well, Nevada’s not going to be using the app. Iowa’s results have been checked against a paper trail, which was pretty foreseeable given the scrutiny this incident has caused.

    There are some upsides: Iowa was considering implementing smartphone voting for this caucus, but nixed that idea a while ago. The question of election security is also front and central, and hopefully people will be more cautious of tech’s place in the democratic process going forward.

    Also, just in case you were worried about what this incident means for the company behind the app, Shadow, Inc. released a tweet stating that they “regret the delay… and the uncertainty it caused” and that “[they] will apply the lessons learned in the future”.

    And as always, XKCD has a comic for this.

    Sources

    “Iowa’s caucus app was a disaster waiting to happen”, Zach Whittaker, TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/04/iowa-caucus-app-disaster/

    “Despite Election Security Fears, Iowa Caucuses Will Use New Smartphone App”, Kate Payne and Miles Parks, NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/14/795906732/despite-election-security-fears-iowa-caucuses-will-use-new-smartphone-app

    “The Shoestring App Developer Behind the Iowa Caucus Debacle”, Emily Glazer, Deepa Seetharaman, and Alexa Corse, The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-shoestring-app-developer-behind-the-iowa-caucus-debacle-11580904037

    “What We Know About The App That Delayed Iowa’s Caucus Results”, Avie Schneider, NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/02/04/802583844/what-we-know-about-the-app-that-delayed-iowas-caucus-results

    Shadow, Inc.’s Twitter Statement: https://twitter.com/ShadowIncHQ/status/1224773796307050497

    “Voting Software”, Randall Munroe, XKCD. https://xkcd.com/2030/

  • Ethics Week 4: It’s 2020. Where is Your Work?

    This week, I’ve been reading up on archival and maintenance systems, with a special eye to digital scholarship. How do we store and maintain things? How are systems designed to facilitate their own updates, and to keep their contents both safe and accessible?

    What I’m talking about has a couple of different aspects attached to it, since there are a lot of different factors in data storage. Here are some quick questions to ask when it comes to archiving your work:

    • Who is the entity organizing this storage?
      Different entities store different data for different reasons and in different ways. Consider: Google Books, the Gould Library, JSTOR, the Internet Archives 
    • What types of information are being stored?
      Consider file formats, storage limits, and what types of information the storing body might prioritize (and why). 
    • When was this system created, and how is it being maintained?
      Digital systems require maintenance, just like physical ones. Old websites are hard to navigate; outdated software can cause security issues. 
    • Where is your information stored, and where is it accessible?
      Is your paper being paywalled? Can the people who need to find it, find it? And conversely, is the storing entity capable of secure storage? 
    • Why is this entity storing your information?
      Have they expressed a commitment to the long-term accessibility of knowledge? Do they have a profit motive (and, if they lose profits, will that commitment waver)? 
    • How is this entity demonstrating their commitment to preserving information?
      Are they transparent with their motives, their methods, and their means? Are they likely to waver in difficult times?

    No system is perfect, but looking to an entity’s motives and methods can be particularly illuminating. Also worth investigating is how comparable companies that have shut down dealt with their records, whether they kept them after closing down, and whether those items are still accessible by their creators, or by the general public.

    Vine, for example, hosted short videos which could be made through its phone app, but went defunct after struggling to find a way to consistently monetize its content. The site still has videos available to view and to download, but people can no longer post new videos, and I couldn’t find a source on whether creators can remove their old videos or control who can see them.

    Moving forward, I’ll continue looking into how digital systems are maintained and what they might store; this will also tie into a side project I’m working on, where I will be researching the history of the internet.

  • Ethics Week 3: What’s the CCPA?

    This week I’ve been following up on looking into the CCPA, or California Consumer Privacy Act. Quick intro: the CCPA is a law that came into effect in California on January 1st, 2020, which addresses data security with regards to companies that collect and sell user data. There is a cheatsheet provided by the California government which summarizes the law, available at the end of this post.

    Essentially, what it boils down to is pretty similar to the GDPR, the European Union’s data privacy regulation which took effect in May of 2018. California consumers have the right to know what data is being collected, the right to have that data removed from records, the right to know what sorts of companies are buying their information, the right to tell people not to sell their data, and the right to not be retaliated against for exercising any other rights granted by the CCPA.

    The laws also only apply to certain businesses (specifically, ones that meet certain thresholds for revenue or user traffic), and they only apply to the sale of data. That’s caused some concern, since companies like Google and Facebook technically don’t sell their users’ data: they sell access to their users, based on the data they have on file.

    The laws also only apply to for-profit businesses, which means that non-profits which operate in California and might otherwise meet the CCPA’s criteria are not subject to those regulations; however, if they do business with for-profit institutions that involves user data, they may still have to comply with the CCPA.

    While I looked into the CCPA’s effect on for-profit institutions that work with higher education, such as ProQuest and Elseviere, I couldn’t find an official statement from those companies. I did, however, find a cybersecurity law report published by Elseviere. This report mostly touches on those facts already stated earlier, but also makes a point of emphasizing that the CCPA has defined ‘personal information’ in a much broader way than the GDPR, or any other current privacy regulation.

    Going forward, it’s not clear what the ramifications of the CCPA will be. Some people claim it goes too far; others are worried that restricting only the sale of personal information doesn’t go far enough, and won’t actually protect people’s privacy. California tends to be a trendsetter where state legislature is concerned, however, so I’ll be looking into other potential privacy bills and seeing where we’ll be going from here.

    References:

  • Ethics Week 2: Laying the Groundwork

    This being the second in a series of weekly blog posts, intended to edify the public on the various goings-on within the ethical strata of the Digital Scholarship community of Carleton, particularly with regards to…

    I kid, I kid. Here’s a quick catch-up on what I’ve been doing this week!

    The process of my work has been primarily logistical, getting up and running for the rest of term. I’ve been exploring various topics, deciding which ones are worth pursuing, and solidifying them into project ideas and questions to answer. I’ve determined four projects/areas of research, two major and two supporting, which I’ve outlined below and which feed into each other in various ways.

    After some exploration, my common question for this term will be regarding the tradeoffs between organizational affordances in the cloud, and data security. This will consist of testing various organizational systems, seeing what conveniences they offer and what drawbacks, and researching how this data is stored and what it might be used for. I will also be keeping an eye on project logistics and multi-person information/storage systems, because my major project will center around open source software.

    The Digital Scholarship Interns’ winter 2019 project will consist of revamping our website and, in the process, exploring the history of collaboration, accessibility and performance in web design. Part of my job will be examining open source communities and how they work with each other, as well as how that workflow affects the final product of their projects and designs.

    In addition, I will be following up on my earlier data security question by looking at some common sites used by colleges for logistical purposes, investigating their practices, and researching the laws being passed about data security which affect those sites. Some of the writeups on these topics may not be made public, but rest assured, I’m looking!

    And finally, I will also be engaging in a side project of mine, which is to develop my coding skills, particularly in the programming language Ruby. I’m hoping to learn more about Ruby on Rails, and possibly use it in order to build a web-based presentation of my research for the DSI project.

    Happy Week 2!

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