A lot of New Media Lab friends and colleagues ask me about Omeka due to my experience developing for the platform. I wrote a full length post about it on the commons but I wanted to share a bit here about some important takeaways I’ve learned about Omeka. And of course for the full post, click the above link. Consider this the TL;DR version of that post.

First a little on my experience with Omeka. One of ASHP’s long standing visions was to create a comprehensive online database of all of the worksheets, teaching activities, and annotated primary document resources that they used in their professional development for American History teachers. The  outcome of this work was “HERB: Social History for Every Classroom” which launched in 2011. Herb has been wildly successful, and it is built on the Omeka platform with a front end theme designed from scratch, several customized plugins, and a couple that were built from scratch just for this project (such as one  seen here which allows the creation of reusable question sets).

The Key Takeaway: Experienced developers and development teams should have no problem working with Omeka. Developers who are not familiar with troubleshooting code on their own may find Omeka challenging to customize.

The Key Takeaway: Out of the Box, Omeka looks like Omeka. Because customizing Omeka’s appearance is done only via the code, experience developing and comfort with code can be obstacles to creating a new look for Omeka

The Key Takeaway: if you don’t have at least a passing knowledge of Dublin Core and archival practices, some of Omeka’s powerful archival features may instead be hindrances.

The Key Takeaway: Updates can be a fair amount of work to install, but there aren’t any security issues so for the time being updates can be considered optional.

On the Takeaways
For all the things that Omeka does well, its important to know where it may be more challenging than the alternatives. I find that development of an Omeka site takes probably 30-50% longer than  the equivalent site would take on WordPress. I have also found that for novices or people new to programming, altering Omeka’s functionality or layout is several times more difficult than making those same changes on WordPress.

So is WordPress the answer to all of life’s problems? Hardly. But one a current project with a rapid deadline that I had originally slated for Omeka, I’ve changed platform early in the process to WordPress in order to expedite development.

I definitely think Omeka warrants a close look. With each new version, the product improves; therefore, I think Omeka should continue to remain on our collective radar. But as it is still early in its product lifecycle, we should temper our expectations and approach Omeka with an open-mind but realistic expectations.

Omeka is a great product for people interested in curating digital collections, but customization requires at least an intermediate knowledge of PHP, CSS and HTML, as well as a comfort for forging ahead boldly where no one has gone before.

Proponents of vertical farming ask us to consider a completely different direction for the future of food production.  I recently perused these photos on the topic of vertical farming. Interestingly, the topic reminded me that creative solutions often arise when our thoughts, ideas, habits and behaviors reach in a completely different direction than what we expect.  In geometry, perpendicular lines are defined as heading in unrelated directions.  However, they also must meet at one critical point.  When reaching for creative ideas it may seem distracting to chart a course in a direction that is orthogonal to the project you have in mind, but I argue that these apparent “distractions” can actually help you refocus with a fresh perspective.

Vertical farming is fun and intriguing to consider and it may in fact be an elegant solution to the looming global food shortage and other urban issues.  But beyond that, I wonder how contemplation of the idea of veggie verticality can spur you on towards seemingly unrelated creative goals.  What kind of creative project are you working on?  How does your creative project intersect with produce and perpendicularity?

These questions need not be rhetorical.  Feel free to share your answers as comments.

The playwright, Leisha Lashawn wrote Talking to Devon to encourage audience members to commit one random act of kindness each day. I signed onto this project because the play’s premise is a jewel within in our current entertainment climate of explosions, and xenophobic apocalyptic scenarios.

Talking to Devon is a musical about kindness between strangers; it is set in the Department of Motor Vehicles, where three characters, Passion, Honesty and Balance serendipitously meet for the first time while standing in line. The show begins with a simple act of kindness that compels the women to connect and discuss a range of topics, including the L’il Black Taoist, the profound character whom they have in common.

As the New Media Consultant, I am responsible for creating and maintaining the social network, launching the initial website design, filming and editing all web-based publicity materials, and composing digital stories such as the video and copy for the IndieGoGo fundraiser.  There will be six characters onstage during Talking to Devon: the three women, their costumes, the set and the digital stories that I will create.  My role is to create engaging visuals that interweave with the dialogue to convey ideas only touched upon. At times the digital stories will serve as the know-all omnipotent character that can convey any idea within the play, while at other times it will communicate with the  audience to actively engage them in the story.

If the  IndieGoGo fundraiser is successful, it will give us the means to purchase key tools such as a MacBook Pro with Final Cut Express (along with  liability insurance, plywood, and a down payment to secure the theater space).  In the interim, I used Windows MovieMaker, (often  standard with your windows package), to edit the video for the fundraising campaign. I have many hours under my belt using  Final Cut Express and  Final Cut Pro, (hereafter collectively referred to as Final Cut), but this was my first chance to meaningfully engage with MovieMaker.

I was pleased to learn that Moviemaker, like Final Cut operates on the premise of non-destructive video editing. Simply put, this means that you do not need to splice your digital film into pieces before you import into MovieMaker. Instead, you can import the entire film and create clips within MovieMaker, without affecting your original video file. MovieMaker has similar keyboard commands, such as the spacebar to control the playback, however MovieMaker has limitations that make it somewhat incomparable to Final Cut.  I’ve come to conceptualize it as an early step along the spectrum of film editing software.

Click to contribute; Signature Image for Talking to Devon. The superimposed faces are those of the three main characters, Passion, Balance and Honesty, standing in line on a street, anywhere USA. The idea is that kindness between strangers is a potential that can happen between any of us, anywhere at any time. Talking to Devon explores one such opportunity taken.

If you require even moderately advanced functionality, you would do well to use Final Cut Express. For example, MovieMaker gives you two audio tracks, and only allows you to edit the total track volume. Final Cut gives you 99 audio tracks (see below), and allows you allows you to edit the audio levels at specific points without affecting the entire  track.

This means that you can decrease the volume on louder sections without also affecting the levels  of the quieter sections.  If the track in question happens to be a video clip, then your main option would be to create shortened clips of the track, in order to then adjust the volume for each. If you chose this path, then you’d need to create transitions between the clips to ensure a smooth flow. This approach poses its own challenges because of the limited transition functionality of MovieMaker. It does not allow you to adjust the length of the transition on as fine a scale as in Final Cut, so you risk creating a discontinuous clip. In general, your results tend to appear and sound less polished than if the clip were edited in Final Cut Express.

One last point of contrast between Windows MovieMaker and Final Cut is that Moviemaker offers only one video track (I consider the titles and slides as an extension of the main video track), and two audio tracks, one of which is the audio that accompanies any video that you import. This means that you cannot layer video and photo within the same frame, they can only follow each other consecutively. Also, you cannot truly interlace audio tracks for varied effects as is possible in Final Cut. In Moviemaker, the form of the program confines your storytelling to a linear format. In contrast, Final Cut allows up to 8 video and audio tracks each, so that you can place video and photos in conversation with each other.

Apple indicates that they allow 99- audio tracks with 8 available for  realtime playback. This means that you can create 99 different tracks, but only 8 of those tracks can be played at any given moment. Imagine you wanted to record a 99 seat orchestra; for best results you would need to group the musicians in (up to) 8 sections, then reserve the remaining 91 tracks for solos and flourishes that you wish to highlight or layer at different times. The inclusion of one of the 91 one tracks would preclude one of the  8-sections for that measure of time. Said differently, you can layer to your heart’s conent, but you can only play 8 of those 99 tracks at any one time.

In the past, when I’d tried to experiment with MovieMaker, using the same VISTA OS (operating system) and computer, the application would often freeze. However, this time around, MovieMaker did not crash once. It seems the updates and bug fixes over the years, have stabilized the program. Good job Microsoft.

If you are a novice storyteller, I would suggest that you begin with MovieMaker to get a sense of what these movie editing programs can do. Then I suggest you visit the Center for Digital Storytelling website (tell them I sent you!) to search for videos with interesting effects. After you’ve tried all of the MovieMaker functions, you can promote  yourself to Final Cut Express;  Some of the functions from Express do not directly translate to Pro, however it prepares you for many tools that a digital storyteller is likely to use, and introduces you to the visual logic of the program.

In creativity,

Shawndel Fraser

Digital Storyteller
New Media Specialist
Consultant
Academic

At the New Media Lab, we’re currently working on developing a better way of supporting students in the way that they present their work online. Naturally, for many students working on projects where the site itself isn’t the innovation, I strongly endorse content management systems (CMSs). The freedom to focus on the content or the digital innovation rather than the display mechanism I think is an important part of the package the lab offers, but still- I can’t help but wonder if the homogeneous CMS environment that is emerging might be inhibiting digital innovation on campus.

We’re looking to implement a Wordpress multi-user installation in the lab, which would allow students to build their digital project’s websites without worrying about things like security updates. It would also make it easier for the lab to maintain the WordPress version across multiple WordPress installations.  This would be a major win for security, but would it be a negative for us to create or endorse another WordPress multi-user installation rather than encouraging experimentation with other CMS?

Does the Graduate Center need another WordPress installation? The CUNY Commons is available for faculty and staff; Open CUNY is available for students. Would a third or fourth such option make it seem too much like we’re outright endorsing a single way of doing things?

I open up the discussion students, faculty and friends of the New Media Lab. What do you think going forward? Is there a technology that we should be providing more support for? Do we need an “equal time” provision?

http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/download/ojs-2.3.5.tar.gz

Upgrading from source (the third option listed) has been for me the easiest way. Here are the instructions from the UPGRADE file:

3. Full Package

It is also possible to upgrade by downloading the complete package for the latest release of OJS:

- Download and decompress the package from the OJS web site

- Make a copy of the config.inc.php provided in the new package

- Move or copy the following files and directories from your current OJS installation:

- config.inc.php

- public/

- Your uploaded files directory (“files_dir” in config.inc.php), if it resides within your OJS directory

- Replace the current OJS directory with the new OJS directory, moving the old one to a safe location as a backup

- Be sure to review the Configuration Changes section of the release notes in docs/release-notes/README-(version) for all versions between your original version and the new version. You may need to manually add new items to your config.inc.php file.

In our installation, the folder public/ must be copied from the old installation into the new one, and the “files_dir” must be linked as is currently in the config.inc.php file. This folder should be located outside the ojs installation, or otherwise protected from http access by creating a .htaccess config file, with a “deny all” rule. In the first case (recommended) it shouldn’t be necessary to copy it into the new version, provided that the config.inc.php file has the path to it.

Important: the config.inc.php file cannot be copied as is, because the new version includes options that are not contemplated in the old one. I used a program called kompare (a graphical front-end of the diff program, for KDE) to see the differences.

File Permissions

This can be a little tricky. In the OJS forum, there is some advise about how to set them. It can be found here:

http://pkp.sfu.ca/support/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2967

However, in our installation we have taken a different approach. Basically, the ownership of the installation is given to the unix user, while it belongs to the apache group. The command should look like this:

$ chown <user>:apache -R /path/to/the/ojs/directory

This is because the config.inc.php and the public and files_dir folders must be writable by the apache user. In the OJS forum, the recommendation is to make these files and folders universally writable. How potentially risky this can be has been discussed here:

http://pkp.sfu.ca/support/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5100

The permissions are not set out of the box, the system administrator must apply them manually. This step has given me a few headaches in the past.

DB upgrade

Once these steps are completed, the DB upgrade is straightforward. The easiest way to do it is by using the CLI tool provide by OJS, as explained in the UPGRADE file:

1. Command-line

If you have the CLI version of PHP installed (e.g., /usr/bin/php), you can upgrade the database by running the following command from the OJS directory:

$ php tools/upgrade.php upgrade

Layout changes

As I have seen when testing the newest version at the New Media Lab, it has some minor changes in the layout, which will affect the look and feel of your journal. If you have a customized appearance (as LLJournal does, it can be seen at http://lljournal.gc.cuny.edu) you will have to edit the CSS in order to adapt it to the new version.

The CUNY Middle Eastern Music Ensemble was established in 2008 under the direction of Ozan Aksoy. The Ensemble includes CUNY students, staff, and faculty who share an interest in performing Middle Eastern music. Members comprise trained musicians and novices who are eager to learn the Arab, Turkish, Greek, Ladino, Armenian, Kurdish, Persian, and other musical traditions of the region. The Ensemble holds rehearsals at the Graduate Center, where members are instructed in the basics of folk, popular, classical and other repertoires, using recordings, notations, and text transliterations. The Ensemble seeks to portray the multicultural nature of the region and emphasizes commonalities among the diverse groups.

We will spend some time getting to know some of the new students involved with the lab. We will also talk about our latest ASHP project, an Omekadatabase called HERB.

We hope you can make it and join us one final time for the semester. The New Media Lab is busier than ever, here’s to a great summer and hope to see you on Thursday!

Of course, this will also be our first opportunity to meet even more new students who will be working at the Lab this year. In addition to Igor Rodriguez, Eathan Janney, and Elsie Hueng, who we met last month, Kenn Watt, Jake Hooker and Hillary Miller, all of the theater program of will be joining us. We are up to 16 students working on digital projects at the lab at the same time which is a new all-time high for us. Of course, there are also faculty members participating and Claire Fontaine has also been regularly bringing in new recruits. Go Lab!

Hope to see everyone on Wednesday.

A short seminar/workshop using your own projects as possible participatory injection sites; Thursday 3/24 in the New Media Lab 1:30-3

Please let me know if you can make it. It would be lovely to get the participatory bandwagon moving.

cheers
-joan