Handing over the iPads

We had a very productive meeting today starting out on the iPad project and handing out the iPads to the Learning Advisors.

We went through the project objectives and then spent the rest of the 2 hours setting things up: Apple accounts, some things in the Settings options, setting up ECU email.

While most staff already have a smartphone, as all of us, bar one, are new to iPads. Most did not already have an Apple or iTunes account, so it took some time to go through setting up and establishing Apple account, email, answering questions. But in the end everyone felt a lot happier about going home and having a play.

Lessons learned

Learning through play will be a key theme of this project I am sure.

The time spent in getting familiar with the iPads before we start on activities with students will be greater than anticipated. Building staff skills will be a big component of the project, especially initially.

We will meet again in a few weeks and run a full-on training session. In the meantime everyone will be gathering their questions and thinking about applications.

Starting out on the iPad project

We were successful in gaining small grant funding from Edith Cowan University, Faculty of Education and Arts, Learning and Teaching for the purchase of 10 iPads.

The devices will be distributed between library staff, faculty learning advisors and students.

Our project is called: Learn everywhere using iPads


Now we have purchased the 10 "new ipads" (iPad 3) and the fun begins!

Today is start day plus 3 for the iPad project, so I will use my blog to record my progress.

So far I have downloaded various game apps (Angry Birds, Solitaire), social networking apps (Twitter, Facebook), news apps (ABC News, SBS), sport apps (AFL football, Cricket), plus OzWeather and the Planets. All of these are free apps. I have set up ECU email on the iPad too.

On advice from the IT staff I have let the battery run right down to start and am recharging today. This is taking a few hours.

Dr Jenny Lane in the TPACK iPad project in schools (TIPS) Blog has some great ideas for using iPads with students http://tips2012.edublogs.org/ I hope to explore these over the next few months.

Lesson one: iPad charging. The iPod charger doesn’t work, you need to use the iPad charger that came with the device.

Lesson two: setting up ECU email on the iPad. follow a process similar to that for for setting up ECU email on an iphone. Or contact me and I will send you the ECU Help Desk instructions.

Data management for supervisors

These are my slides from my 2012 presentation for HDR student supervisors on research data management

Data management for supervisors

View more presentations from Julia Gross

Coming to grips with data as an asset

The week before last we had Research Week at ECU.

For me the highlight was the Three Minute thesis competition and the winner this year was Matthew Bambach. He goes onto the finals later this year at UWA.

I gave a presentation: Research data as an asset: taking the long term view.

Here are the PowerPoints which have been loaded to our institutional repository, Research Online

Library life day two

Yesterday I neglected to include a link to what the Library Day in the Life Project is all about:

The Library Day in the Life Project is coordinated by Bobbi Newman of Librarian by Day. Twice a year librarians, library staff and library students from all over the globe share a day (or week) in their life through blog posts, photos, video and Twitter updates.

This site includes links to all the other people involved in the project:

http://twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/libday7
http://www.netvibes.com/librarianbyday#Round_6_Library_Day_in_the_Life_Project

I started the day conducting a data interview with one of our researchers in computer security.
This involved discussing several datasets the research centre holds that could possibly be shared with other researchers outside the centre. One dataset I heard about is what they call “honeypot” data that reveal patterns in security attacks. It was fascinating and I came away just a little bit worried about how secure any of us are online. Going by the laws of probability, despite our best efforts some malware will get through and do damage.

The data interview is one of the key roles of a research data librarian. The idea of the data interview is to gather as much information as possible about a research project and associated research dataset or data collection. This information (in our case) then gets written up and described and added to Research Data Australia (RDA) Australia's research data portal. The metadata schema used to described data in RDA is RIF-CS.

There are several elements to this work: one is using the skills a research or faculty librarian would have whereby you learn to understand the client’s research area. Another is having a sound understanding of research data and how that may differ across disciplines. Another is more a cataloguing/metadata librarian role whereby you use a defined metadata schema to describe the data.

I have been working on some research data training and seminars which I will talk about tomorrow…

Day in the life of a research data librarian

I had a late night last night, sitting up watching the conclusion of the Tour de France, witnessing history being made when Cadel Evans became the first ever Australian to win..…yeah go Cadel. It was so inspiring to see him cycling into Paris in the yellow jersey, with the BCM team all in red. With the 8 hour time difference between Europe and Western Australia the event finished after midnight our time. Then at 5am someone rang on my mobile…wrong number from someone in another time zone across the other side of the country. Still, I managed to start the day with a visit to the Joondalup Arena 50 metre indoor pool for a great swim. It’s winter here, so the pool is pretty quiet. At one stage there were just three of us with a lane to ourselves…bliss. The pool is about one kilometre from work, so I bring my breakfast and change of clothes and then head straight on to work.

At work the main activity today revolves around finish off the Seeding the Commons project. This is a national research data project funded by the ANDS (Australian National Data Service). The details about the project at Edith Cowan University (ECU) are here. There are similar projects running at most Australian universities and major research institutions.

This time last year I was getting ready to attend research data management training at the ANDS BootCamp which was held in Canberra in August 2010. Later on I was seconded to work on the project as a research data librarian. It has been a steep learning curve, but lot of fun. I have left my substantive job as the Faculty librarian for Education and Arts at ECU to become a research data librarian. Now, a year later, the project is winding up. We are at Week 25 of a 32 week project and the 3rd progress report is due on 12 August. More on this project and the work involved tomorrow.

The Woman in White

First of all a confession… I am not, strictly speaking, “reading” this book, but listening to an audio version. Audio books provide a really convenient way to increase your amount of reading, if you commute or spend time at the gym you can listen to the audio. Fortunately there are more and more excellent audio titles available through the public libraries in Perth and they are narrated by some fine actors.

At the moment I am “reading” The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Incredibly, The Woman in White has never been out of print since it first appeared in serial form in Victorian England (1860) and it still has readers in its thrall.

The narrative hook draws you into the story right in the beginning when the hero, Walter Hartright, comes across the mysterious woman in white late at night on a lonely road north of London. She stops him, appears agitated and asks strange questions. Later on our hero comes across some men who are searching for the woman, claiming has escaped from an asylum. Then the story moves to another location where Walter meets another woman in white. Is this a doppelganger? As the story develops, Hartright becomes a type of Victorian detective as he follows clues along the way to discover the truth about this mysterious woman: who is she and why was she so agitated, why is she on the run?

In many ways Wilkie Collins' novels were forerunners of contemporary crime fiction and they certainly influenced many current writers of crime and mystery. Collins most famous novel is The Moonstone (published 1868) which Dorothy L Sayers considered "probably the very finest detective story ever written". I plan to read The Moonstone next and I already have downloaded a free ebook copy onto my Kindle.

As an aside, Wilkie Collins was a great friend of Charles Dickens and he lead quite a sensational life for Victorian times.

My post for the July readit2001 Twitter #whodoneit