This week we are looking at Github and the implications of creating an Open Notebook on the World Wide Web! Here are some questions/ideas to consider when looking at this week’s readings.
1) What barriers are there to an open source notebook? Consider a collogue or academic that does not want their work to be shared? What implications does this have? Consider Ian Milligan’s article and this idea of, “it’s our data, we collected it, and if somebody else wants the data, they should collect it themselves.”. What about the articles from WIRED and how do they relate to the creation of barriers?
2) In a world such as ours with the explosion of social media and online presence, how must we consider moving forward with online collaboration? Much like the idea that we cannot live without Facebook, Twitter or Instagram will we eventually not be able to live in an academic world without online collaboration?
3) Is this view by Caleb McDaniel too optimistic, “The truth is that we often don’t realize the value of what we have until someone else sees it. By inviting others to see our work in progress, we also open new avenues of interpretation, uncover new linkages between things we would otherwise have persisted in seeing as unconnected, and create new opportunities for collaboration with fellow travelers. These things might still happen through the sharing of our notebooks after publication, but imagine how our publications might be enriched and improved if we lifted our gems to the sunlight before we decided which ones to set and which ones to discard?” Do you think that others (in the academic sphere) have similar views? If not, why do you think this is?
4) These articles ask us to imagine Github used in a wide spread context amongst the world of Education. Considering the challenges that we have faced in class (and during our own time), do you think that Github will become wide spread? What are some tools that could assist the push of Digitizing History?
Final Food for Thought!
Digitizing history can add many values to our work as historians but consider the previous power outage. What will happen to our work if something happens to the internet? Further more, what will happen to our pre-existing institutions, if we move towards total internet collaboration and hosting (i.e the library and archives)?
Happy Reading!