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What is Digital Scholarship?

Digital scholarship at Walker Library is interdisciplinary, collaborative, and committed. As a method, it emphasizes the use of interactive technologies to expand the participation, modes of access, diversity of analysis, and the dissemination, and preservation of scholarship. The frequently used term, digital humanities (DH), is a subset of digital scholarship (DS)--the larger umbrella of all scholarship including the arts, sciences, and everything between.

Specific examples include but are not limited to:

  • Institutional repository (JEWLScholar) that promotes, highlights and indexes scholarship of campus (including peer-reviewed articles, department newsletters, theses, dissertations, conference proceedings, OER, etc)

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  • Consultations and resources on digital scholarship matters, including open scholarship—(access, data, education), author rights, digitization, digital publishing, scholarly communication, digital and data tools, data management and digital project development.

DS/DH projects are created with and for scholars. In addition to images and historical documents, projects include multimedia components, contextual themes, and lesson plans or essays. DS/DH projects are a collaborative effort with content and technology experts who use a variety of digital methods (text analysis, spatial analysis, digitization, photogrammetry, etc) and digital tools including CONTENTdm, ArcGIS, StoryMaps, TimelineJS, Drupal, Omeka and more.

Examples of Digital Scholarship/Humanties projects at MTSU

  • Image removed.Shades of Gray and Blue
    In Tennessee, we have all heard stories of life and death on the state’s Civil War battlefields, but what happened to the men, women, and children who stayed at home? Their stories, seen through the lens of the objects that were a part of their daily lives, reflect the ways Tennesseans adapted, coped, and thrived during a war whose reverberations are still felt today.
  • Image removed.Trials, Triumphs, and Transformations
    This collection explores African-American Tennesseeans' search for citizenship, community, and opportunity between the end of the American Civil War (1865) and the end of World War II (1945). The project was a collaboration between MTSU's Center for Historic Preservation and the James E. Walker Library, in cooperation with many partner institutions across Tennessee.
  • Image removed.Places, Perspectives
    This collection documents the histories of communities that are the focus of Places, Perspectives: African American Community-building in Tennessee, 1860-1920, a collaborative partnership initiative funded through a matching grant from the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area to Middle Tennessee State University’s Department of Geosciences and James E. Walker Library in partnership with the Center for Historic Preservation.

Spring 2020 Digital Workshop Series

The Spring 2020 Digital Workshops Series schedule is now available. Mark your calendar for the following topics.

*All workshops are in LIB 272. Register to get a reminder email before the workshop and to help with program planning*

Workshop Schedules below:

  • Historical Newspapers Workshop • Thursday, February 20, 2020, 11:30am-12:20pm
  • Scholarly Publishing & Open Access Workshop • Tuesday, March 3, 2020, 11:30am-12:20pm
  • Introduction to NVivo Workshop • Thursday, March 26, 2020, UPDATE 3/12/20: CANCELLED
    • Learn the basics of NVivo 12, a software tool designed for the collection and analysis of qualitative data sources.
    • More details at https://dsi.mtsu.edu/nvivoSP2020
  • Sanborn Maps Workshop • Tuesday, April 7, 2020, UPDATE 3/12/20: CANCELLED
    • Join this hands-on workshop to learn how to locate specific properties and document the development of Tennessee towns and cities (1800s-1940s).
    • More details at https://dsi.mtsu.edu/sanbornmapsSP2020

 

Free workshops: open to all faculty, staff, students and community members

50-minute workshops are in LIB 272 (near 2nd floor water fountain)

Copy of all the Spring 2020 DSI Programs (PDF)

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Sanborn Maps Workshop

Sanborn Maps Workshop

UPDATE 3/12/20: THIS WORKSHOP HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

Sanborn maps provide detailed information (location, size, construction materials) about buildings in towns across the U.S. dating back to the late 1800s to the 1940s. This hands-on workshop provides guidance on navigating through a digital collection of Sanborn maps of more than 100 towns in Tennessee. To explore the library's subscription to Sanborn maps on your own, see the Historical GIS LibGuide and click on "Fire Insurance Maps Online" (FIMo).

Session topics:

  • What are Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps?
  • Research uses: growth of towns over time, history of industries, historic preservation / city planning, and  local / family history
  • How to access Sanborn maps (Tennessee and other states)
  • Finding specific buildings (churches, schools, buildings) and streets on the maps
  • Discovering details about specific buildings (e. g., color codes for frame, brick, stone, and iron buildings)

 

Prerequisites: None

Presenter:  Walker Library’s Digital Initiatives Librarian, Ken Middleton

Location: Walker Library, LIB 272 (Instruction Classroom)

REGISTRATION RECOMMENDED

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Historical Newspapers Workshop

Historical Newspapers Workshop • Thursday, Februrary 20, 2020, 11:30am-12:20pm

This session will cover how to access and search historical newspapers of the United States that are available online, either freely available or through MTSU Library’s subscriptions.

Session topics:

  • Determining what historical newspapers are online
  • Search term tips (e.g., use of synonyms and terms in use during a historical period)
  • Search limits (publication date, front page only, letters to the editor, photo captions, etc.)
  • Searching across multiple historical newspapers
  • Finding copies of newspapers that are not available online.

 

Prerequisites:None

Presenter:  Walker Library’s Digital Initiatives Librarian, Ken Middleton

Location: Walker Library, LIB 272 (Instruction Classroom)

REGISTRATION RECOMMENDEDff

NVivo Workshop

Introduction to NVivo Workshop

UPDATE 3/12/20: THIS WORKSHOP HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

Have you begun conducting qualitative research, but are finding it difficult to keep your data organized? Would you like a better way to manage data analysis? If so, come learn the basics of NVivo 12, a software tool designed for the collection and analysis of qualitative data sources. This overview will showcase some of NVivo’s functionality by using examples using NVivo’s preloaded sample dataset, as well as real-life data sets from Dr. Reed’s research.

Session topics:

  • Navigating the NVivo Workspace
  • Uploading and linking different data sources
  • Structuring of data to facilitate coding
  • Basic coding and analysis of text sources

 

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Prerequisites: Familiarity with qualitative research methodology.

Presenter:  Walker Library’s Education Librarian, Dr. Karen Reed

Location: Walker Library, LIB 272 (Instruction Classroom)

REGISTRATION RECOMMENDED

Announcing the Final Projects for the Digital Seed Grants 2018-2019

The Digital Seed Grant (dsi.mtsu.edu/dsgrant) had an impressive amount of applications for its second year (award period 2018-2019), which initially launched in 2016 for the award period of 2017-2018. Due to the quantity and quality of proposals, the Digital Seed Grant Review Committee and Dean of Libraries decided to award two grants for the 2018-2019 academic year. The awardees were announced on the website at https://dsi.mtsu.edu/dsgrant18-19. Below is a summary of the winning projects (in no particular order) and resulting outcomes. A PDF copy of this announcement is preservedin the institutional repository. Access the PDF by clicking view/open here.

 

3D Biology: Making Claims in the Midst of Natural Variation

Primary Investigator (PI):  Dr. Anna Strimaitis Grinath, Biology Department

PI’s Project Description: This project drew upon the 3D printing and laser cutting technology available in the Library Makerspace at MTSU to create 3D material to support cognitively demanding biology tasks in three undergraduate biology lecture courses: Exploring Life, General Biology II, and Biometry. We designed tasks to support students to develop quantitative and inferential reasoning around concepts of variation in populations and population sampling. Such reasoning is critical for students to make biological claims in the midst of the natural variation that is inherent to populations of organisms. However, such tasks are rare in biology education lecture settings, and when they do occur, students often are expected to investigate biological questions using 2D representation of organisms (e.g. paper cut outs), which limits the authenticity of the biological investigation and the opportunities students have to grapple with problems of measurement, variation, sampling, and drawing inferences about a population from a sample.

The two tasks we designed through this project asked students to investigate questions around two different focal organisms: marine sponge individuals and freshwater fish populations. We created a 3D scan of a real sponge, augmented the 3D scan file with a texture file to capture the form of the organism, and printed 30 replicate models of the sponge using 3D printing technology. Additionally, we used the laser cutter to create 20 populations of over 100 fish of varying sizes out of Baltic birch plywood. With the 3D materials created from this project, we have already successfully implanted the two “3D Biology” tasks in three different undergraduate biology lecture courses at MTSU and the materials and lessons will continue to be implemented in future courses. When enacting the tasks, we also collected multiple data sources to understand how the materials created in this project support student learning. Analysis and lesson plan development is ongoing. This Digital Seed Grant also helped strengthen the NSF proposal that is in preparation.

Resulting Research and Publications Produced:

Grinath, A.S., Jones, R.S., Whitworth, C., Google, A., Morphis, H. (presented 2019). 3D biology lessons: Designing across biology, data modeling, and argumentation. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Tennessee STEM Education Research Conference, Murfreesboro, TN. (Regional).

Jones, R.S., Grinath, A.S., Jia, Z., Czap, L., Google, A. (presented 2019). Leveraging student ideas about measurement and variation in biology. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Tennessee STEM Education Research Conference, Murfreesboro, TN. (Regional).

Whitworth, C. (presented 2019. Students’ ideas about sampling and measurement. Poster presented at the annual MTSU College of Education Scholars Day, Murfreesboro, TN. (Local).

Grinath, A.S., Jones, R.S., Whitworth, C., Google, A., Morphis, H. (2019). Data MAKER Biology Framework: Designing across biology, data modeling, and argumentation. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research, Minneapolis, MN. (National).

Project News:

‘Population Variation’.’ Listen to July 17 2018 ‘MTSU on the Record” with host Gina Logue and guest Dr. Anna Grinath at https://mtsunews.com/grinath-3d-biology-july2018/

Professor Uses New Grant To Explore Biology Under the Sea in 3D on ‘MTSU on the Record’. Host Gina Logue interviews Dr. Anna Grinath on the library Digital Seed Grant Award and resulting project. https://mtsunews.com/grinath-on-the-record-july2018/

 

The Geography of Suffering: Enhancing Historical Interpretation at Stones River National Cemetery

Primary Investigator (PI):  Dr. Derek W. Frisby, Global Studies and Human Geography Department

PI’s Project Description: “The Geography of Suffering: Enhancing Historical Interpretation at Stones River National Cemetery’s” objective sought to enhance the historical interpretation of the Stones River National Cemetery by digitizing the cemetery’s records and integrating GIS/GPS interpretive capabilities for park staff, researchers, and visitors. Additionally, the project explored methods to incorporate Volunteer Geographic Information (VGI) for the cemetery to broaden the interpretive experience at the park beyond the park’s boundaries. This project would have been impossible without assistance from MTSU Walker Library’s Digital Initiative Seed Grant funds. The student training and research hours sponsored by the grant proved invaluable. It allowed me to delegate tasks and get the enormous amount of data organized and ready for integration into the geospatial model. In return, I believe they received a wonderful experiential learning experience in historical GIS projects. 

Project News:

‘The Search at Stones River.’ Listen to July 5 2018 ‘MTSU on the Record” with host Gina Logue and guest Dr. Derek Frisby at https://mtsunews.com/frisby-stones-river-july2018/

‘MTSU On the Record’ Follows Military Expert’s Searches for Answers at Stones River National Cemetery. Host Gina Logue interviews Dr. Derek Frisby of the library Digital Seed Grant Award and resulting project. https://mtsunews.com/frisby-on-the-record-july2018/

 

Funding and Support

The Digital Seed Grant is made possible by generous funding and support from the Dean of Libraries and the Digital Scholarship Initiatives project team. For many, this is a starter grant, which can lead to national grant opportunities in the future and Walker Library wants to encourage and support such creativity activity.

As a competitive grant, evaluation of applications and assessment of digital lifecycles of selected projects takes time. The Digital Seed Grant is indebted to the time of the Review Committee, comprised of digital project experts from Walker Library and the Digital Partners (a rotating member from the Department of History, Center for Historic Preservation, Center for Popular Music, Albert Gore Research Center and the University Archives). The Walker Library also thanks those that help promote the grant and encourage participation.

 

The 2019-2020 call for proposals closed; and those projects will continue until June 30, 2020. As those projects are completed, the following website will be updated: https://dsi.mtsu.edu/dsgrant19-20.   

The 2020-2021 call for proposals will open March 1, 2020 and the application deadline is April 10, 2020. For more information on the Digital Seed Grant and access the application, visit https://dsi.mtsu.edu/dsgrant.

Scholarly Publishing and Open Access Workshop

Scholarly Publishing and Open Access Workshop • Tuesday, March 3, 2020, 11:30am-12:20pm

Do you need to produce a peer-reviewed journal article? Come jump-start your scholarly writing with this presentation emphasizing the Open Access movement. Participants will receive instruction on the evolution of the scholarly publishing model as well as an overview of author publishing concerns. In addition to lecture time, the session will include hands-on activities in which participants will create an individualized, multistep action plan for turning one’s research into a submitted article.

Session topics:

  • Overview of scholarly communication
  • Introduction to the Open Access movement       
  • Using library resources to locate possible journals in one’s field
  • Understanding author publishing agreements
  • Production of an individual action plan

 

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Prerequisites: Familiarity with one’s research interests/agenda

Presenter: Walker Library’s Education Librarian, Dr. Karen Reed

Location: Walker Library, LIB 272 (Instruction Classroom)

REGISTRATION RECOMMENDED

CFP Now Open: Digital Seed Grants 2019-2020

Announcing the call for Digital Seed Grant Awards

The Digital Seed Grant competition for 2019-2020 is now open. Walker Library Digital Scholarship Initiatives invites proposals for seed grants to support individual or collaborative digital scholarship projects in research, teaching, or public outreach from any discipline or area at MTSU.

The call for proposals (CFP) is open to MTSU faculty, staff, researchers and graduate students pursing digital scholarship projects (from the arts to sciences and everything in between). See the call for proposals at https://dsi.mtsu.edu/dsgrant. Examples of digital projects, past winners, and application guidelines are available at that website. Applications for the 2019-2020 cycle are due April 15, 2018. Projects run from July 1 to June 30.

Seed Grants (up to $2,000)

The number of grants available each year will vary, with each at a maximum of $2,000. Applications for 2019 are now open. A list of the awarded projects are available by year: 2018-2019 and 2017-2018. The 2019 cycle will open April 1-15.

Journal for Economic Educators now hosted at MTSU Walker Library

During summer 2019, the Journal for Economic Educators (JFEE) migrated publishing platforms. It's new online home is the journal hosting service provided at MTSU Walker Library, which uses the Open Journal Systems (OJS) open access platform.

Visit JFEE at https://libjournals.mtsu.edu/index.php/jfee.

Vol 19 No 1 (2019)  is now available online, as well as its full issue backlog. The journal is edited by Dr. Michael Roach (Middle Tennessee State University) and is published twice annually. Read more about the journal's scope, focus, and policies here.Image removed.

Walker Library offers free journal hosting services to members of the Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) community. All of the journals we service are digital and open access (free to read online). Walker Library established this journal hosting program to meet the needs and support the mission, values and vision of the university. See more journals published at MTSU here

Presenting the Digital Collection - Historic Clothing Collection

Historic Clothing Collection

Since the inception of the Historic Clothing Collection, the primary method of locating or researching items has been a physical search utilizing hard copy descriptions of items, in three ring binders.  The 2017-2018 Digital Seed Grant (and library expertise) enabled the collection’s digital development through photography, garment metadata, digital inventory and a permanent website for the collection’s continued growth. This effort allows visual identification and study of the collection by the current MTSU community, community partners, and the public at large.

The Historic Clothing Collection (1790-1990) provides tremendous growth in learning opportunities for anyone studying historic clothing and accessories.  Several TXMD student assistants also worked on this project, which adds to their own digital learning. Additonally advantageous is the project’s contribution to the long-term preservation of the items in the MTSU collection, since garments can now be previewed before being removed from storage.

Collection available at http://dsi.mtsu.edu/clothing

Read more about the collection via the MTSU News article published October 2, 2018, the MTSU Sidelines news article publishing December 2018, or the one-page collection summary (PDF) available here.

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Features

Features include photo zoom, viewing size (fits to browser, window or width), rotate, and download options. Enhanced features include the Side-by-Side View, linked metadata fields, and collection indexing for discoverabilty through search engines and databases.

 

Collection Staff

Grant Primary Investigator: Dr. Teresa King, TXMD Director, Dept. of Human Sciences, Middle Tennessee State University

Photographer: Rachael Krasnow, TXMD

Digital Curator (database, web design): Digital Scholarship Initaitives, Walker Library

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