Workshops

1. Beyond Wildcards: Fundamentals of Regular Expressions

Regular Expressions are a basic part of most textual technologies, and are built into most editors, programming languages, and frameworks. Though cryptic, they’re a powerful tool for anyone who needs to perform complex searches on text or clean and manipulate textual data. This workshop will explain the fundamental concepts behind regular expressions and provide hands-on examples of how to use them. A computer capable of running Flash is required for running through some of the examples.

Taught by: Ben Brumfield, Software Engineer

2. Distant Reading Up Close: Using Voyant for Text Analysis

Text mining and distance reading are standard research methods in Digital Humanities projects. A variety of tools have been developed to serve these functions. In this workshop, we will discuss these research concepts, get a hands-on introduction to the Voyant suite of tools, and brainstorm about the potential, and the limits, of these tools for humanities knowledge production.

Taught by: Spencer Keralis, Director, Digital Scholarship Co-Operative (DiSCo) at UNT

3. Controlled Vocabularies for Digital Collections

We use many controlled vocabularies in the system underpinnings of The Portal to Texas History and the UNT Digital Library.  Most of these are simple lists, but in the Portal we also have a locally-developed subject hierarchy called the UNT Libraries Browse Subjects (UNTL-BS).   Although there are many levels of vocabularies (the most complex being ontologies and thesauri), it is not always necessary to have complex controlled vocabularies to create quality metadata and enable functionality; in fact, both list vocabularies and the subject hierarchy are used to drive browsing functions and faceted searching in our system even though they are the least complicated forms of controlled vocabularies. This workshop will include: [1] Some introduction to controlled vocabularies and how they can be used, with examples; [2] Exercises in which participants could experiment with building a vocabulary for a collection of items (either physical or digital) that would be provided at the workshop; and [3] Discussion about when to use controlled vocabularies, what kind(s) of vocabularies are best, and vocabulary maintenance.

Taught by: Hannah Tarver, Head, Digital Projects, UNT Libraries

4. Social Media: From Evolution to Revolution

Social Media is one component of the technology shaping our society. The space between roles is continually navigated by individuals such as artists, entrepreneurs, organizations and businesses. Notably we can examine global graffiti culture, Occupy Wall Street and digital liberation efforts in Detroit and in Buenos Aires, to explore the symbols, tools, architecture and movements who create and socialize in this digital space.  In this workshop we will explore social media as a transformative and integrated practice with potential as a shared learning and resource building tool. The workshop will raise the question: “Is social media a tool of revolution or an evolutionary experience that maintains the status quo?”

Taught by: Mariette Papić, Photographer

5. Shaping User Experience

Usability testing is too often overlooked as a significant step toward retaining an audience for a digital library website. The workshop will begin with a discussion of misconceptions of what usability research is. It will proceed into current research methods for user experience (UX) testing, how UX research and design affects digital library collections, and how to integrate iterative design based on usability data into their own digital library. After an overview about the processes behind planning and preparing for usability testing, attendees will create their own discount usability test plans, which they will share with the group. The workshop will conclude with a summary of the current usability research technologies, software, reading materials, and training sessions available on the market.

Taught by: Ana Krahmer, Coordinator, Digital Newspaper Program, UNT Libraries; and Tara Carlisle, Project Development Librarian, UNT Libraries