Last week’s discussion of the articles assigned for our class to read was extremely interesting. One interesting topic that emerged was the discussion of ownership of historical information.  Many sites are not free to the general public unlike Wikipedia. Some are controlled by outside parties. Such a move can be seen as a means of preventing copyright infrignement or palgarism. Google Book offers browers only a limited preview of a book being researched online.

Of greater interest to me were the case studies. As I mentioned in a earlier blog, I focused on the Theban Mapping Project website. In our class discussion, I discovered I was not the only student who had examined this particular site. Other students had turned their attentions to the Valley of Shadows and the Lost Museum case studies.  I noticed the Mapping and Lost Museum sites had interactive movies and digital tours on their sites which were of great interest. Almost as though I was walking through a real museum or ancient tomb. The diversity of case studies provided each student to choose one of interest and gain new insight into history and its ties to digital history.

For Week 3, I chose as my case study, Wikimapia.  The site is focused around a map of the world. One can manuever to various continents and hemispheres with the arrows provided in the upper left hand corner. While examining the map, one can view the world in a range of options from auto to satellite version. For a particular location like London or Seattle, a user can zoom in on the site. Having done once, the user can click on a section of displayed map linking the user with a list of websites and blogs made by individuals. I myself attempted this with London and found a relatively brief statement about the section of the city my computer’s mouse had clicked on.

While examining Wikimapia, I noticed something interesting. For many countries only selected cities were available. In Germany, only Frankfurt and Cologne were listed. Berlin or Munich were not even listed. The same concept applies to countries like Greece and France where major cities are not displayed on the map in question. I wonder why on the map chooses to display certain cities within each particular country. The key to correcting this situation is to alter the size of the map by zooming in on the particular country.

A second observation was a link to add a new location on the map.  To see what would happen, I discovered that such a process could not be undertaken so easily.  A box appeared reminding me that there were already too sites on a particular zoom. One would need to zoom in closer to undertake such a task.

Multiple choice tests for history have received criticism over the years from verbal to online comments by various individuals. I myself remember taking multiple choice tests in middle and high school. As history was favorite subject to study, I can not recall at the present moment complaining about the testing method on the part of my instructors during those years of my academic experience.

Concerns over multiple tests being conducted by teachers include the fear that teachers teach based on the tests conducted in the classroom. Such arguments do possess some validity. With the growth of easy access to information, a new method can be adapted to ensure that students can be tested upon their knowledge of history. In my college years, essays formed the greater part of my history exams, presenting myself and my  fellow classmates with a set of questions to be individually examined. To address the question, the students had to link their facts together in a coherent essay thus providing a detailed discussion in regards to the question. Facts such as names and dates are easy to memorize. The more important challenge is linking them together in understanding a greater meaning of a particular historical event. History is about making connections and recognzing their important in relation to one another.

While reading Rosenzweig’s article on Wikipedia,  I recall myself often reading articles on that particular site. Although such readings was not utilized as a potential source for writing papers, I have utilize the site for non academic purposes or to locate a word definition. Wikipedia is after all a online dictionary of articles.

Concerns for the reliability of Wikipedia are discussed in the article. While reading an article, one might notice changes in the text.  A common belief in regards to Wikipedia is that anyone can add or delete information. The article by Rosenzweig mentions attempts on behalf of the website’ managers to control the potential damage.  Control mechanisms are present on the website allowing warnings to be posted after articles being fragmented and undergoing repairs.

Concern over the use of Wikipedia as a source by students expressed by teachers is important to take into consideration. I remember Microsoft Encarta, another electronic encyclopedia being utilized in a similar way as Wikipedia back in my middle school days.  Teachers should aid their students in understanding the processes of research, thus providing them with useful tips in locating dependable sources for various papers. I myself gradually developed skills in undertaking research projects. Such a process should begin slowly with libraries or respectable journal websites like Jstor.

One should not condemn Wikipedia for its flaws regarding reliability of  its  articles and information.  As mentioned previously, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia similar to those already found outside of school with prepared articles on numerous people, dates and places. With every problem, a solution may be created to resolve the issue in question  Since Wikipedia offers free information to its numerous users, perhaps one can build upon that foundation by ensuring that more reliable site be established or allowing journals like jstor be unusable outside a library network.

Today for my History 511 assignments, I am undertaking a scavenger hunt online for a list of documents. For the majority I simply used the Google search engine. For the picture of Janet Murray, I came across a website containing the same scavenger list with a possible website for the image in question. For the poem, a similar process was undertaken after examining several links displayed on my computer.

1.Willie Lynch telling Virginia slave owners how to keep slaves in line.

http://www.afroam.org/history/million/lynch/lynch.html

2. A letter from George Washington to Timothy Pickering in which Washington complains about “certain forged letters” intended to wound his character and “deceive the people.”

http://carrieannlunde.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html

3. A complete version of “Annual Review of Information Technology Developments for Economic and Social Historians, 1993″ in The Economic History Review by Roger Middleton and Peter Wardley (one of first publications for historians to talk about Internet).

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2598089

4. The home page for the Center for History & New Media as it looked in 1998.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/resources/essays/d/42

5. An online debate over whether the 1962 Cuban crisis would have been different if Kruschev had sent a fair sized contingent of Russian troops instead of missiles. (Working on locating a website for this particular debate),

6. picture of Janet Murray together with the Sims.

http://homepage.mac.com/voyager/images/janetmurray.jpg

7. Leon Trotsky speaking in English. (Difficulty in locating a possible link)

8. 1915 suffrage poem with the line: When all the women wanted it.

http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Bistro/8066/ADMsuffrage.html

9. Four syllabi for courses that include Hamlet on the Holodeck by Janet Murray.

http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/tburke1/interpret.html

Along with our reading assigments for History 511 where a list of case studies of which I found the Theban Mapping Project most interesting. Ancient Egypt is one of my favorite historical subjects. The Theban Mapping Project is a multi national team based at the American University in Cairo. The team headed by Dr Kent Weeks focuses its attention upon the ancient Theban Necroplis near modern Luxor. This ancient site  consistsof numerous funerary temples, royal and non royal tombs dating from primarily from the New Kingdom. Through the Theban mapping project, the team discovered the largest tomb in Egypt, known as KV 5 designed by Rameses II for many of his sons who predeceased their father.  The project is designed to preserve this archaeological site through surveying each tomb, studying the geological nature, photographing and excavating this famous archaeological site. In doing so, a extensive digital and topographical map containing locations and nature of these monuments will exist for succeeding generations.

The website provides severa key databases including links to additonal information on Ancient Egypt.  For individuals interested in Ancient Egypt, I would strongly recommend visiting the site in the near future. These links include access to news updates on excavations, progress and photos taken by the Theban Mapping Project over the years.  One of my favorites is the digital map of the Valley of the Kings where many pharaohs of the New Kingdom from Thutmosis I to Rameses XI were interned with their royal treasures.  Each known tomb is digitally display revealing known chambers and designs as the years progressed. In the tomb of Rameses II, the team noticed the presence of a vaulted ceiling within the burial chamber.  Each pharonic tomb is accompanied by a brief introductory video during which Dr Kent Weeks discusses the tomb’ number and occupant for the listener.

This week, our reading assignment included several articles including “The Internet and WWW :Basic Concepts and Terms“. This particular article  explains the basic elements of digital humanities and includes a review of information including various terms. The article is designed like a outline of important terms and principles broken into several sections. These sections begin with a review of the Internet continuing with Client Server Architecture, WWW Basic principles and concluding with Web Browsing. In high school, I participated in a Computer and Applications course which contained lectures on the web. Most interesting was the discussion on web addressing. I did not realize that a web address while being typed into any computer was broken into several points such as the main section being the domain of the web site or the http:// being utilized as the scheme.  In the coming years, I shall always remember this details. Overall, I found this article well written and provided me with a opportunity to renew my knowledge on issues concerning the world wide web.

In “Scan this Book” published recently in the New York Times Magazine begins with a dream involving the creation of a universal library containing all past and present knowledge ranging from books to languages. Such a dream was attempted in Ptolemaic Egypt where the Ptolemies in the 3rd Century BC commissioned the Library of Alexandria. For the first time knowledge from across the known world was collected in a single location. Centuries later, the dream has reemerged as books appear on the internet. In 2004, Google  began to digitally scan the books of five major research libraries. With the process underway, some have raised the possibility of collecting paintings, photographs and music together. In regards to scanning books, others have raised the question of whether we shall give up on ink, paper and books.

Positive aspects involving this process of books appearing online were discussed by the author. Works of marginal popularity would be able to draw larger audiences. From a historical point of view, our grasp concerning humanity’ past would be strengthened as original documents from numerous civilizations across the world became acessable in a single location. Although such arguments are valid, I feel that books should not be abandoned altogether. If such online sources were unable to be accessed, research for projects would encounter issues.  I often enjoy reading a book whether on break from work or at night. There is a feeling about a book that technology can not replace regardless of accessibility.

Matt Cutt’ two articles focus on the search engine Google, a engine I have utilized in the past whether to locate a website or Google Scholar. In “How Does Google Collect and Rank Results”, he discusses the process of how Google achieves this goal. A search or “googlebot’ is utilized by asking servers to return web pages, before scanning for hyper links.  A index is slowly gathered. Once this process is complete, documents are ranked in regards to relevancy. Google tries to locate pages possessing a sound reputation and relevance. The highest scores retrived provide the best matches for users of Google.  Having utilized Google in locating articles of a particular subject, one must utilize his or her own judgement whether such a process is satisfactory for locating reliable sources.

In his second article,“How Does Google Determine which Websites are the Most Trusted”, Matt Cutt discuesses such a process. He mentions such a process utilizes over 100 factors, some as per request were not discussed. One factor is a automatic analysis of content. Content is of extreme importance especially if such information is later referenced. When utilizing websites even those rated as trustworthy, a writer or research should still exercise sound judgement A page in regards to its particular importance on a a subject such as history is judged according to the number of votes.  Therefore the more votes a website receives from browsers conveys the message that more people trust this particular site.

“Google Book Search”  by Jen Grant like “Scan This Book” begins with a dream. In the late 1930s at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergay Brin had a dream based on the idea of every  book being scanned and sorted based on relavance. Such a dream came into reality  with Google. Beginning with Google Print Search and later with Google Book Search which featured three types of books including public domain, in print and books currently out of print . In 2005, Beta Google Book was lauched. Such a search engine enables individuals to research based upon a search of words and phrases within the index. The question which emerges is how many pages of a book can be displayed . As the years pass, links with libraries develop and technology improves, answers to this question will be answered.

Whil reading the assignment from Digital History  by Cohen and Rosenzweig, I found chapter one which focuses on historical websites extremely interesting on several issues.  One important fact which stood out as the internet grew, the number of historical sites grew as well. In 1995, a online search of FDR resulted in forty nine hits whereas in 2005, a similar search resulted in almost a million hits (Cohen, Rosenzweig 21). Over the years, archives have also been placed online granting new access to researchers. In regards to museum exhibits, online sites allow individuals unable to visit the physical exhibits access to gaze upon their images. Some museums posssess virtual exhibits displaying various key objects. Other sites include links to video or photographic databases.

In regards to teaching, historical websites provide useful tools in teaching students about history. Several sites offer resources of teachers including lesson plans, tips for teaching and links to other potential sources of information. The Smithsonian’s online version of the exhibit concerning the American Presidency: A Glorious Burden one example of providing useful tips for lessons and guiding students interested in utilizing this particular site (Cohen 44). Syllabi are the most common items found on history websites. As a future history teacher, I find such information extremely interesting, as technology and the internet became key elements in the educational process.

Digital Junction written by Debra DeRuyver and Jennifer Evans discusses the growing trend of primary sources being placed on the internet. The essay discusses several known sources extremely useful in conducting research including government documents, historic newspapers, maps and oral histories.   At one point, one would need to locate such resources by visiting archives, museums or libraries.  Now with the aid of a computer, such sources are merely a click away. The authors while discussing each primary source mention several sites, useful in locating useful information. Many undergoing modifications as new sources are added to the site in question. Though easily accessiable, the number of sites increases daily between existing and sites currently being created.  Therefore, individuals must educate themselves in overcoming this potential issue.

Several strategies and methods are mentioned by the authors in locating accurate information.  Search engines are one way though not always reliable. Search engines work most appropriate in locating web sites with specific collections or narrow topics. Drawing on my personal experience, I have utilized this particular method in locating articles for potential research. Multicollection sites like the Library of Congress are excellent sites to visit while searching for extensive information on a particular subject. One strategy which can not easily be replaced by easy access to information is a visit to a library like on a college campus and consulting a librarian well versed in locating appropriate resources. From my personal experience in college, such a approach enabled me to locate resources on a subject which required careful research and updated material.

Professor Cohen’ article ” Start Your Blogs”  is a discussion on the growing importance of blogs particularly in the field of academics. He addresses several arguments favored by individuals even professors against their actual importance. He assures critics of blogging that blogs containing little academic value can easily be ignored during a research process as sites with more reliable and accredited sources often by professors who have embraced this method of communication appear on the internet.

Blogs provide new avenues for those interested in a particular field such as history to express their unique knowledge and views on that particular subject.  Traditionally, members of the academic profession utilized journals and other written documents in conveying their ideas.  Blogging take this form of expression to new limits. Such blogs gradually become a growing network of individuals with a similar interest.  Through the web’s growing use, ideas amongst  members of numerous academic backgrounds are published quicker leading to responses from their colleagues in a short period of time. Soon arguments and counter arguments form a rich and potential site for students and researchers as more individuals establish links on the web through their computers.

My name is Alessandro Ciccarelli and I am beginning my graduate program of study this fall.