Elias Tzoc blog!

This month, as I worked on the final edits of my Dossier for Continuing Contract and Promotion, I was reminded that it’s been almost six years since I joined Miami University.  Of course, another reminder took place in early June when ESGO finished 6th grade -anyway, the final edits of a dossier can be tricky, on one hand, there is a page limit so one must be careful in what to include and how to describe each entry; on the other hand, every piece of information must be self-explanatory (and answer the so-what factor) –which would be helpful to the personnel committee and external reviewers.  As for how good I did with my own document … mmmmm … I guess we’ll find out in the next few months.  Another piece that I also enjoyed working on was the supplemental materials’ site.

Now, in preparation for the next academic year -or maybe for the next six years- the rest of this summer is a mix of several exciting activities such as:

• Digital Collections, in June I spent a good amount of time trying to “decipher” the back-end files for CONTENTdm 6.1; for instance, replacing the homepage section was a bit of a challenge.  But on the positive side, I definitely like the new image viewer and the web customization option.  The next/last major challenge for me/us will be getting the videos for two collections with proper HTML5 standards.
• Scholarly Commons migration, in July we’ll complete a migration from a hosted to a local DSpace 3.0 instance; four new modules in our list are: discovery for search/browse, statistics, controlled vocabulary, and an enhanced mobile theme -this last one is also a candidate for a new contribution to DSpace 4.0; also, a new community in SC will be the CAWC Lecture Series digital archive.
• Digital Literacy Partnership, after an unexpected admin error with this site, it seems like most of the web design work has been re-covered … the meeting with Valerie last week was a good confirmation that we’re -once again- almost there.  Now I just wish Omeka had a better way to export selected metadata fields.
• Freedom Summer, besides the work with the website committee for the 2014 Conference, I’m also helping with 1-2 FS grants -one is a for NEH and one for OHS.  Grant writing is also fun -but it can be very time-consuming.
• IMS 201, as part of the new adventure in the Fall semester, in July I also plan to finalize my syllabus for this class –which will most likely include an e-book project.  It also seems like Online Security & Privacy can be a good topic for some further discussion in class -it may even qualify for a paper!

Ok, that’s it for now … ahora mejor un poco más de la Copa Confederaciones!

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