Category: Week 1

Working in a group setting with productive and honest people is helping me shape my project. Before this week I only had an idea of what I’d do for my research, but after talking with the group about what I had in mind really helped me gain a stronger understanding of my project. My project will be studying films and their screenplays that were released during periods of mass social activism, A few movements I had are the LGTBQ+ movement, the Civil Rights movement, and the Women’s Right’s movements. The argument I’m trying to make is that film can do more than entertain people, and that it can be used as a political and social device that either aids or harms the movement they were released during. From three periods of social activism I will gather about ten films and their screenplays each.  Lately, I’ve been thinking that I should gather more films and that ten isn’t enough. I’ve been trying to determine the scope of my project and there are only so many films I can actually watch. I met with John Hunter and he may have a way for me to analyze these films faster and more accurately. This way involves ripping the metadata off of a dvd, specifically the closed captioning which can give you a line and a timestamp of when it was said in the film. It also fins the image that’s on screen at the time. This makes it so I can spend more time gathering films and analyzing what I get in order to create a better argument because I’ll have more films to reference. John’s  way of gathering data from the dvd also finds the ten lines before the specific line you decide to choose and the ten lines after in order to provide context. I’ve also been toying with the idea of only doing one social movement with large collection of films. This movement being the LGBTQ+ movement. There aren’t many digital scholarship projects that address the history of the LGBTQ+ movement and cinema and cinema may have aided or hurt the movement. There are archives and projects that attempt to restore and preserve cinema and media, but not many that try to make arguments based on those collections. This makes me feel like my work is meaningful because there aren’t many projects like mine for people to access. I’d like for people to be able to search for films during a specific ranges of time such as ten years and understand what was being depicted in the media as  LGBTQ+.

While being able to structure my project in a better way thanks to our daily meetings I’ve been able to understand topics such as copyright and open source. My project shouldn’t run into any copyright issues as my use of the films are educational and informative. While going over fair use my project didn’t seem to fall under what didn’t constitute as fair use.

I have my project somewhat figured out, but it definitely needs work in how it’s being shaped before I actually begin gathering and analyzing data.

Week 1 of the Digital Scholarship and Summer Research Fellows program has opened my eyes to the vast amount of information and tools out there available to us and once again reminded me of how much I don’t know. Besides gaining a better understanding of what Digital Scholarship is, this week has also helped me to narrow my research topic down to the increase in internet use in China.

When many of us think about internet use and access in China, the first thought that pops up is likely to be the restrictions that the Chinese government places on internet use and the inaccessibility of information that is deemed to be too sensitive for publishing. This impression of internet accessibility in China is not without reason, for China continues to block search engines like Google and social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. However, what is less evident to people living outside of China is how the internet has drastically changed the country – business opportunities have swarmed towards e-commerce and online services, and people are becoming increasingly reliant on mobile phone apps like WeChat in their everyday lives.

On my last trip to Beijing recently, it was hard not to notice the rows of bright yellow bicycles lining roads everywhere. I then found out that these bicycles belong to a start-up company called ofo that created a bike-sharing system where people can simply go to their online app store and scan a QR code to unlock the bike at a minimal fee (charged by distance traveled). It has been an extremely successful project, and the company now owns over 3 million bikes across the country. This initiative could potentially drastically improve traffic conditions in the city in an efficient and environmentally friendly manner. Innovations like this one are constantly being introduced to people in the country, especially those living in cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

I am intrigued by the extraordinary changes that have taken place in China over past decades and especially that past few years that were brought about by increased internet use. Hence, my project will focus on the economic and social impacts of China’s internet wave on different regions in the country. I hope that through this project, I will be able to better understand and map out the significant changes that have taken place over time. By first analyzing the differences in the speed of increase in Internet use in different cities or provinces, I will then examine the possible implications of these variations.

The presentation of this information is of course also extremely important. This past week, I have had the chance to experiment with various digital tools that could be useful in the presentation of my findings and explore possible ways in which I can take my project. Storymap and Timeline JS especially stands out to me and perhaps will allow me to display the information I have in a clear and concise manner. In the weeks to come, I am excited to learn more about the digital tools out there available to us and also look further into my research topic to come up with new ideas and directions in which I can take my project.

Week 1 of the DSSRF program has been whirlwind of meeting Bucknell’s library staff, hashing out project ideas, and becoming familiar with the tools we will be using this summer. Though busy, the week has provided me strong reassurance that the DSSRF program is the great opportunity my academic advisor brought to my attention months ago. This February, while unsuccessfully trying to navigate the endless job boards, Mathematics Professor Nathan Ryan, my dedicated academic advisor, alerted me of the DSSRF program, highlighting the structured yet individualized research that could be done through this program.

To understand why this program is such a great fit for me, I must explain my intended area of reserach. I have long been interested in sports analytics. As a child, I memorized batting averages in baseball, save percentages for hockey goalies, and other seemingly useless numbers. It was only recently I realized this lifelong passion could blossom into a career. Given no other programs on Bucknell’s campus cater to this interest of mine, the DSSRF program is the perfect opportunity to get a taste of research while keeping my career goals in mind.

Through the application and interview process, I was hesitant to fully commit to a project idea. A successful eight weeks of research hinges on an intriguing, yet achievable research question. This pressure to land on the perfect research topic gnawed away at me in the weeks leading up to the program’s start. However, upon meeting with our program facilitators, Courtney Paddick and Carrie Pirrman, my nerves calmed. I was reminded that a research question is not set in stone. Projects adapt, researchers constantly strive to overcome whatever barriers they may face, and adjust as need be.

Throughout this week I have narrowed the project idea I initially brought to the application process. With the help of the program facilitators and the input of my fellow researchers, I now know that I want to create a visual data comparison of NHL teams, linking individual performance metrics with team success. In my opinion, the challenge is to present overwhelming amounts of data, to anyone, a hockey fan or otherwise, in an understandable format. This allows every viewer to understand the metrics driving the modern game of hockey. Though I am sure my project will change as the summer goes on, I am proud to have landed on an idea which I am confident will yield an interesting result. I owe great thanks to my advisor for bringing this wonderful opportunity to my attention, to my research peers for proposing project tweaks all week, and to the program facilitators for believing that this project had potential from the beginning. Though we’re only a week in,  I am confident this summer will prepare us well for whatever is to come.