CITations is a report featuring information technology-related news of interest to UNC-Chapel Hill faculty members, graduate instructors and the staff who support them. CITations, published twice a month, is an electronic service of the ITS Teaching and Learning division.

Final Reminder: Blackboard Outage Begins July 28
There Must Be 50 Ways to Use your Twitter
August Webmasters Meeting
Digital Curation Symposium Proceedings Available
ibiblio Joins Open Source for America
July CTC Tech Brief
Library E-Research Tool Spotlight
Blackboard Upgrade Workshops
ITS LearnIT Workshops
2009 CITations Publication Schedule
How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to CITations

FINAL REMINDER: BLACKBOARD OUTAGE BEGINS JULY 28

A major planned outage of Blackboard will begin Tuesday, July 28, 2009, at 6:00 a.m., as a key upgrade to this critical service gets underway. The outage will last until 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 6, 2009. During this period, Blackboard will be completely unavailable.

If any Blackboard materials will be needed during the outage period, these materials MUST be downloaded or extracted prior to the outage. For assistance downloading a Gradebook or extracting course materials with the tool, bFree, please contact 962-HELP.

The upgrade will result in some interface changes and new features. Training is available through help documentation, online tutorials/videos, and instructor-led sessions. For information on training opportunities, visit http://its.unc.edu/BBNews/blackboard_upgrade/tutorials/index.htm.

For additional information about the upgrade and associated outage see http://its.unc.edu/BBNews/blackboard_upgrade/. If you have questions or concerns, call 962-HELP.

THERE MUST BE 50 WAYS TO USE YOUR TWITTER (WITH APOLOGIES TO PAUL SIMON)

A recent post in OnlineColleges.net's tips and tools column, "50 Ways to Use Twitter in the College Classroom," provides instructors with ideas for incorporating microblogging in communication with students, in class projects, and in collaborations. The August meeting of the Instructional Applications Interest Group will feature an informal discussion of these and other ways of using Twitter to support teaching and learning. Come join your colleagues and share your ideas.

When: 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Where: Conference Room 08F, Peabody Hall

The OnlineColleges.net article is available at http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2009/06/08/50-ways-to-use-twitter-in-the-college-classroom/.

The IAIG provides a professional networking venue for faculty and staff who work with instructional technologies. Membership in the group is open to all interested University staff. For more information go to the IAIG website at http://its.unc.edu/TeachingAndLearning/AOE/IAIG/index.htm.

AUGUST WEBMASTERS MEETING

The University is redesigning its top-level website, www.unc.edu. Scott Jared, Web Content Director for University Relations, and Evan Carroll, a User Experience Designer from Capstrat (a Raleigh-based agency), will give a presentation about the new site at the August UNC-Chapel Hill Webmasters meeting. They will talk about their research and the development process, and will provide views of some initial design mockups.

When: 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m., Thursday, August 6, 2009

Where: Graduate Student Center, 211 W. Cameron Ave.
(Please note: this is not the group's usual meeting place in ITS Manning.)

UNC-Chapel Hill Webmasters meets monthly to discuss issues that affect webmasters across campus. Any UNC-Chapel Hill faculty or staff member interested in participating can attend the meeting and/or join the listserv. For more information go to the Webmasters website at http://webmasters.unc.edu/.

To join the Webmasters mailing list go to http://mail.unc.edu/lists/read/subscribe?name=webmasters.

-- Billy Hylton, Senior Web Producer
ITS Web Services
email: billy_hylton@unc.edu
tel: 445-9338

ELI 2009 CHALLENGES DISCUSSION ON FACULTY IT ADOPTION AND INNOVATION

During Summer 2008, the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) conducted focus groups within the EDUCAUSE teaching and learning community to talk about "challenges" -- those big issues dominating campus conversations across the country. ITS Teaching and Learning will host a series of discussions focused on the 5 challenges identified by ELI.

The next session will focus on the challenge of encouraging faculty adoption and innovation in teaching and learning with IT. The results from our discussion will be posted to the ELI Wiki for this specific challenge: http://www.educause.edu/wiki/Faculty_Innovation.

When: 3:30 p.m. - 4:45 p.m., Thursday, July 30, 2009

Where: Toy Lounge, Dey Hall

For more details and to register, go to https://www.abcsignup.com/reg/event_page.aspx?ek=0052-0006-cd6616fb5c714c228663728427c87ef7.

DIGITAL CURATION SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS AVAILABLE

DigCCurr2009, the second digital curation curriculum symposium, was held on April 1-3, 2009, in Chapel Hill as part of the "Preserving Access to Our Digital Future: Building an International Digital Curation Curriculum "(DigCCurr) project. The 221-page symposium proceedings are now available, free of charge, for electronic download. Print-on-demand through the online publisher, Lulu, is also available. To download a copy, go to http://stores.lulu.com/DigCCurr2009.

IBIBLIO JOINS OPEN SOURCE FOR AMERICA

On July 22, 2009, ibiblio announced that it has joined Open Source for America, a broad cross-section of more than 50 companies, academic institutions, communities, related groups, and individuals that serve as a unified voice for the promotion of open source in the U.S. Federal government sector. Open Source for America strives to effect change in government to encourage broader support of open source technologies and the open source development community.

Fostering the free and vibrant exchange of ideas among a large community of contributors who share their knowledge across disciplines, ibiblio.org uses the open source model to encourage users to help shape the way information is managed and accessed in the 21st century. For more information, go to http://ibiblio.org/index.html.

To learn more about Open Source for America, visit http://opensourceforamerica.org/.

-- Paul Jones, Director of ibiblio.org
email: pjones@ibiblio.org

JULY CTC TECH BRIEF

The July "CTC Tech Brief" discusses SOAP. SOAP is an extensible and generic protocol for exchanging messages in distributed networks. Built on XML, SOAP is able to carry information adapted to a wide variety of applications and can be transported over heterogeneous networks.

View the full Tech Brief at http://ctc.unc.edu/images/stories/200907_soap.pdf.

"CTC Tech Briefs" are reviews of critical issues in information technology and data communications architecture. They are published monthly via the Carolina Technology Consultants (CTC) email list and website. Back issues are available at http://ctc.unc.edu/tech-briefs/.

CTC is a cooperative organization of professional computer support providers at UNC-Chapel Hill. The CTC is a grassroots based organization formed as a forum for IT professionals at Carolina. For more information about the CTC, go to http://ctc.unc.edu/.

— Tyler R. Johnson, Treasurer, CTC
ITS Communication Technologies Engineering
email: trjohns1@email.unc.edu

LIBRARY E-RESEARCH TOOL SPOTLIGHT

The UNC Library's Documenting the American South (DocSouth) program recently received grants that will be used to advance digital library research and development at the Library by developing a transcription and annotation tool for historical and literary archives. DocSouth will address one of the most significant obstacles for students and scholars who wish to study historical manuscripts online--how to pair a high-resolution image with a textual transcription that can be searched and browsed, and how to link both the image and transcription to scholarly annotations.

The test bed for the project will be the personal journal of James Lawrence Dusenbery, who graduated from Carolina in 1842. Erika Lindemann, professor of English and comparative literature, previously transcribed the journal, which provides insight into antebellum culture and literature, and the academic and social life of students before the Civil War.

Although the transcription of Dusenbery's diary is in its early stages, two excerpts, along with their page images, are available for viewing at http://docsouth.unc.edu/true/mss04-04/mss04-04.html. One entry narrates the story of Gooly, who set out to visit a harlot and was chased back to his dormitory. A second entry reports on George Washington's birthday celebrations, the dismissal of several students, and Dusenbery's adventures while drunk.

For information about other available DocSouth collections, go to http://docsouth.unc.edu/.

BLACKBOARD UPGRADE WORKSHOPS

There are still spaces available in the following Blackboard workshops. To read a workshop description or to register for any of these workshops, go to http://learnit.unc.edu/workshops.

What's New in Blackboard 8?
August 17
August 18

Introduction to Blackboard 8
July 27
August 17

Introduction to Blackboard 8 Grade Center
August 19
August 26

Blackboard 8: Assignment Tool, Test and Quizzes
August 20
August 24
August 25

ITS LEARNIT WORKSHOPS

There are still spaces available in the following LearnIT workshops. To read a workshop description or to register for any of these workshops, go to http://learnit.unc.edu/workshops. For links to other campus training opportunities, go to the LearnIT website.

If multiple dates are listed, the workshop is offered on each of those dates.

Introduction to Topsail, a Research Computing Server July 28 ELI 2009 Challenges: Faculty IT Adoption and Innovation (Discussion) July 30 Perl: Getting Started August 4 Introduction to Emerald, a Research Computing Server August 11 MPI for Parallel Computing August 11 Linux: Introduction, Experimental Class Setting August 12 ELI 2009 Challenges: Advancing Innovation in Era of Budget Cuts (Discussion) August 13

2009 CITATIONS PUBLICATION SCHEDULE

January 9 & 23
February 6 & 20
March 6 & 20
April 3 & 17
May 8 & 22
June 5 & 19
July 10 & 24
August 7 & 21
September 11 & 25
October 9 & 23
November 6 & 20
December 4 & 18

CITations welcomes announcements from all UNC-Chapel Hill campus organizations involved in instructional and research technology. To have an announcement considered for publication in CITations, send email to Carolyn Kotlas, kotlas@email.unc.edu, or call 962-9287. The deadline for submissions is 11:00 a.m. the day before the publication date.

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE TO CITATIONS

CITations is published twice a month by the ITS Teaching and Learning division. Back issues are available at http://its.unc.edu/tl/citations/.

For more information about ITS Teaching and Learning, see our website at http://its.unc.edu/tl/.

To subscribe to CITations, link to http://mail.unc.edu/lists/read/subscribe?name=citations.

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