So I want to voice some thoughts on the planned intervention and consider explicit next steps for getting this off the ground. (Feel free to correct me if I’m off – my brain is off kilter this week for some strange reason….) Regarding data, I think we still need to figure exactly what data we are looking to collect in general (social media vs. instructions vs. individual ethnographies) and that may be a few more conversations until consensus is reached (e.g. determining group ethical positions on what data). Given that this conversation and the possible human subject questions that follow may take a tad more time than desirable, I believe that we should at the very least prioritize getting the project’s off the ground first and then reassess our data later. I believe this entails the following:
- Infrastructure. Let’s get the archive platform and submission system up and running so we can start collecting data when possible. I suggest using Omeka since it’s open-source and is better supported by the GC’s resources (I know this is Stefano’s platform for his work for instance).
- Participants. While it’s likely annoying to ask for participation while the specifics are still in the air, it may be helpful to start building up a sense of what data we have access to (e.g. only what our group can access vs. larger GC community vs. CUNY wide).
- Preliminary data. We’re already on this but might as well make it explicit: let’s try throwing together what data we can, even if it’s data we may reject later. For anyone that wants to add on to the web scraping but haven’t had much experience with API’S, the GC Digital Fellows made a rather straightforward guide for making a Twitter bot that we can use (I’ll add the link when I can find it). I also have an old RSS feed reader that we can tinker with if we want to probe new sources as well.
This is all I have off the top of my head. Any thoughts? Addendums?
I believe you can pull from Twitter to Google Sheets via a Google Sheets add on called Twitter Archiver: https://gsuite.google.com/marketplace/app/tweet_archiver/976886281542
I’ve not personally used it, but it seems relatively straight forward (requiring 5 mins of effort so they say!). I’m not sure if this is what Matt was referencing yesterday or if anyone has used it. I can pull from APIs, but this tool seems relatively painless if it works.
–N
Hi Travis and everyone,
Thanks for this post and others. I couldn’t say this directly in class, but I’m not able to fully engage in this intervention project. I can’t (and wouldn’t) say too much about my stance, but I’m in a particularly precarious position, so dealing with my own teaching responsibilities at this time is already a lot. I’m one of those who need sensitive care at this time. However, as promised, I’m going to collect some of images related to students’ distance learning environments from appropriate social media I can think of. But I can’t share that until near the end of next week. (Technically, everyone is having an instructional recess right now for these tasks: adjustment of teaching format and schedule and taking care of their own health and social needs.) For me, priorities at this time are setting up my own remote class and keeping up with some emergency deadlines related to my professional responsibilities. And my own social care in my surroundings. I hope everyone understands my limitations. I won’t be on GC Commons until around 20th. Take care.
PS. My close friend is a web archiving media artist (officially experienced and respected and teaching in that field several years), so we already have talked about this project and he will provide some info. But both of can’t do that until 20th or so. We need to prioritize other care. We are in survival mode. Also, there are quite a number of artists in that area of research & practice, but I’m very reluctant to bother them at this time. It’s a difficult time for artists as well. (Also, for that information, I’ll use a private board.)
Also here is the link to the Twitter tutorial (if we’d prefer to go it ourselves): https://github.com/GCDigitalFellows/twitter-workshop