Adaptive reuse is the conversion of an older, unused building into a building with a new purpose. Buildings that are selected for adaptive reuse retain their original architecture, but they serve a different purpose. Some examples include converting old factories into new office spaces or apartment buildings, converting old military bases into new cities, and converting older neighborhoods into new neighborhoods while retaining the historical environment. Some specific examples of adaptive reuse include the transformation of the Rookery Building in Chicago to apartment rental space and the conversion of the business Custom House in Boston to the Custom House hotel. Another example of this recycling of buildings involves the San Clemente’s neighborhood in California that transformed its older historical buildings into a new neighborhood in order to retain its heritage.
There are several advantages to adaptive reuse versus building new buildings. In most cases, it is more economical to renovate a building that to simply build another. Many historical building renovations come with a federal tax credit as well. Also, reusing the older historical buildings retains the culture of the area. In a society that is focused on becoming more “green”, reusing buildings also helps the environment. Little to no building materials are needed to fix the older buildings. As there are many advantages to adaptive reuse, there are also some disadvantages.
Some view older buildings as a sign of a declining economy, even though reusing buildings helps the economy. Also, it can sometimes be hard for older buildings to accommodate the number of people for which it will be serving. Sometimes, the older factories do not have enough restrooms for the number of people that are moving into the buildings. Also, some buildings do not have enough space outside for parking. Another issue is the structure of the building. Some buildings as a whole are big enough for many offices, but the dimensions of each office based on the support system are not large enough.
Adaptive reuse can also be associated with our discussion of copyright laws. Adaptive reuse could be considered a hinderance in the advancement of architecture, because old building styles are preserved and reused. Also, it could violate the principles of copyright because it entails taking someone else’s work and making it your own.
Questions:
1. Can you think of any adaptive reuse projects today? What effects have they had on the community of which they are a part?
2. Some people argue that new buildings are a sign of a flourishing economy and old historical buildings should be demolished. What are your thoughts on the effect of ridding the nation of its historical buildings?
3. How do you think adaptive reuse fits into the class’s views on copyright laws? How could one consider reusing a building similar to reusing literature?
4. What effect does adaptive reuse have on architectural creativity over time?
5. Do you think adaptive reuse violates copyright laws?
Works Cited
Campbell, Jan. “Is Your Building a Candidate for Adaptive Reuse?”Journal of Property Management 61.1 (1996): 26-30. (Urban Studies Abstracts)
Ghantous, Raad. “Adaptive Reuse and Preservation of Historic Buildings makes $ense!” San Clemente Historical Society 2009. http://www.sanclementehistoricalsociety.org/images/Adaptive%20Reuse.pdf
Pearson, Clifford. “Adaptive Reuse: Tackling the Really Big Ones”Architectural Record 186.2 (1998): 119-21. (Academic Search Complete)
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Blog Post 6: Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share or build upon the work of others, with compliance to the laws of copyright. That is, it allows others to skip the “step” of having to ask permission for the use of their work, because CC explains exactly what the creator indented for the use of their work. Creative Commons mostly applies to such creativities constructed with digital technology such as pictures, music, or software. The licenses allowed to the creator are much more flexible than that of copyright, but also protect the creator by giving credit where it is earned. Such license flexibilities include “attribution,” which allows others to copy, distribute, display, work or derivative work, if they give credit to the creator, “Share Alike,” which allows others to distribute derivative work only under the same license that governs the original work, “Non-Commercial,” which allows the copy, distribution, display, or performance of work as long as it is for non-commercial purposes, and lastly, “No Derivate Works,” which allows the copy, distribution, and display, of only verbatim copies of the work. In recent years, CC has dedicated themselves to exploring the internet’s fullest potential for open learning with the purpose of simplifying and minimizing the legal, technical, and social barriers to the sharing and reuse of creative material.
Before Creative Commons was established, if a person wished to create a derivative work from a previously created copyrighted work, that person would have to consult copyright lawyers and ask the author for permission. Creative Commons allows an author to choose whether to have his or her work available for free for sharing or remixing, eliminating the intermediaries and thereby simplifying the process of creating a derivative work. Moreover, the Creative Commons is constantly growing and improving. Over the course of eight years, different versions of the Creative Commons have been released, each an improvement over the previous. Creative Commons creates a shared culture where existing works can be utilized and improved upon to create a more enriched culture.
One of our greatest concerns about the Creative Commons is that although it provides licenses to creators, it avoids the bigger problem that we face of changing the current copyright law to reflect our changes in technology and authorship. Is too much energy being fueled into the Creative Commons? Would it be better to focus this energy on reforming current copyright law?
Another issue that has been brought up with the expansion of the Creative Commons is whether or not published works under Creative Commons licenses can be used for financial gain. While there is a handful case studies of artists who have made a considerable amount of money off of work published under a CC, we question: Has their use of the new progressive CC license fueled their works popularity? While popular bands have succeeded, can a start-up artist or author live off of a CC published work?
Questions
Is CC an improvement to copyright laws?
Do CC licenses ultimately avoid the question of what U.S. copyright should be in the 21st century, and how the law should best serve its citizens?
Is too much energy being fueled into the Creative Commons?
Would it be better to focus this energy on reforming current copyright law?
How much is it worth in publicity, for creators to use Creative Commons license vs. copyright registration?
Before Creative Commons was established, if a person wished to create a derivative work from a previously created copyrighted work, that person would have to consult copyright lawyers and ask the author for permission. Creative Commons allows an author to choose whether to have his or her work available for free for sharing or remixing, eliminating the intermediaries and thereby simplifying the process of creating a derivative work. Moreover, the Creative Commons is constantly growing and improving. Over the course of eight years, different versions of the Creative Commons have been released, each an improvement over the previous. Creative Commons creates a shared culture where existing works can be utilized and improved upon to create a more enriched culture.
One of our greatest concerns about the Creative Commons is that although it provides licenses to creators, it avoids the bigger problem that we face of changing the current copyright law to reflect our changes in technology and authorship. Is too much energy being fueled into the Creative Commons? Would it be better to focus this energy on reforming current copyright law?
Another issue that has been brought up with the expansion of the Creative Commons is whether or not published works under Creative Commons licenses can be used for financial gain. While there is a handful case studies of artists who have made a considerable amount of money off of work published under a CC, we question: Has their use of the new progressive CC license fueled their works popularity? While popular bands have succeeded, can a start-up artist or author live off of a CC published work?
Questions
Is CC an improvement to copyright laws?
Do CC licenses ultimately avoid the question of what U.S. copyright should be in the 21st century, and how the law should best serve its citizens?
Is too much energy being fueled into the Creative Commons?
Would it be better to focus this energy on reforming current copyright law?
How much is it worth in publicity, for creators to use Creative Commons license vs. copyright registration?
Friday, March 19, 2010
Multimodal Group Project Assignment Description
ENGL1102/Spring 2010/Wharton
Multimodal Group Project: Adaptation, Appropriation, and Transformation of The Tempest
Overview:
The goal of this assignment is to create a multimodal artifact that presents an adaptation, appropriation, or transformation of one of the following scenes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest:
If you would like to adapt a scene not listed here, that is an option. You MUST, however, speak with me and obtain my approval if you wish to adapt a scene not among the four listed above.
Although you are adapting only a small portion of the text, you should think about the relevance of the scene you’ve chosen to the play as a whole.
As part of your composition process, you should outline and write-up answers to each of these questions.
As you work on this project, you have a number of resources at your disposal. Our text includes a number of critical and historical resources, including examples of how The Tempest has been adapted previously. When you are making decisions about how to adapt, appropriate, or transform Shakespeare’s text, you should consider the individual work that you have done adapting Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and annotating Donne’s poetry:
As part of your composition process, you should outline and write-up answers to each of these questions.
You should also consider the work that you have done on the critical essay, thinking about the relationship between copying and appropriation, and creativity:
As part of your composition process, you should outline and write-up answers to each of these questions.
Assignment Description:
Your final composition may take one of the following forms:
Every group project should be accompanied by a works cited list in MLA format, and credit or citation to outside sources should be provided where feasible and appropriate. If you have an idea for another kind of composition, other than those listed above, you are welcome to develop it. Your group MUST work with me early in the development process, however, to come up with assignment guidelines specific to the alternative composition you would like to create.
Assignment Stages: Remember that all assignment stages must be completed in order to avoid receiving an unsatisfactory grade for an incomplete assignment.
Stage 1, Informal Oral Presentation and Workshop, 10 points (Presentations will be made in class during the week of April 4)
Stage 2, Formal Oral Presentation, 15 points (Presentations will be made in class during the week of April 11)
Stage 3, Final Draft, 75 points (All final projects must be submitted by Monday, April 19, at 11:00 pm)
Assignment Goals and Desired Learning Outcomes:
Rhetorical Awareness: The rhetorical situation comprises your purpose, audience and context. The rhetorical situation influences the kind of arguments that you can make as well as how you make them. The design and content of your final project should be reflective of, suited to and directed towards the intended audience, and the overall composition should clearly reflect the purpose of and context for your argument.
Stance and Support: The composition as a whole must reflect its engagement with a unified theme or thesis. The theme or thesis of the project should be developed through the presentation of substantial and appropriate supporting evidence, which can be presented in visual, aural and nonverbal form as well as orally or in text.
Organization: The organization of the composition should be determined by its argument. Evidence should be presented in a logical fashion, and the connections between and among the ideas and evidence presented, as well as their connection to the over-arching theme or thesis should be clarified through use of a logical plan of organization.
Conventions: The composition should draw upon the conventions appropriate to the primary mode of communication. Formal presentations should adhere to the tone, diction, dress and style of delivery appropriate to that context, for example, and a website should make use of the standard visual cues that indicate links, related content, video v. photo, etc.
Multimodal Integration: In this assignment, you will work with integrating multiple modes into a unified work. Ideally, your final project will demonstrate your understanding of how multiple modes of communication work together to create the final composition.
Grading Rubric: I will use the attached rubric as a guide when grading your projects. Comments on your work will in most cases consist of a summary of how the rubric applies to your work, and extended comments on the final project artifact. All members of a group will receive the same final grade.
Multimodal Group Project: Adaptation, Appropriation, and Transformation of The Tempest
Overview:
The goal of this assignment is to create a multimodal artifact that presents an adaptation, appropriation, or transformation of one of the following scenes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest:
- Act 2, Scene 2 (pp. 36-41 in our text)
- Act 3, Scene 3 (pp. 50-55 in our text)
- Act 4, Scene 1, ll. 1-164 (beginning of scene through Miranda’s and Ferdinand’s exit, pp. 55-61 in our text)
- Act 5, Scene 2, ll. 172-end (“Here Prospero discovers Ferdinand and Miranda playing at chess.” Through end of play, 71-77 in our text)
If you would like to adapt a scene not listed here, that is an option. You MUST, however, speak with me and obtain my approval if you wish to adapt a scene not among the four listed above.
Although you are adapting only a small portion of the text, you should think about the relevance of the scene you’ve chosen to the play as a whole.
- What plot-lines are involved in the scene?
- What revelations are made?
- What is the relevance of the action that takes place in the scene you’re adapting to the scene that precedes it?
- The scene that follows it?
- The play as a whole?
As part of your composition process, you should outline and write-up answers to each of these questions.
As you work on this project, you have a number of resources at your disposal. Our text includes a number of critical and historical resources, including examples of how The Tempest has been adapted previously. When you are making decisions about how to adapt, appropriate, or transform Shakespeare’s text, you should consider the individual work that you have done adapting Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and annotating Donne’s poetry:
- What is the relationship between textual adaptation and textual interpretation, as you and your group see it?
- How do your decisions about how to present Shakespeare’s text in a new context make a statement about and perhaps influence the meaning of the work as a whole?
- How does your adaptation draw upon or relate to the history of critical interpretations, adaptations, transformations, and appropriations of The Tempest?
As part of your composition process, you should outline and write-up answers to each of these questions.
You should also consider the work that you have done on the critical essay, thinking about the relationship between copying and appropriation, and creativity:
- What does your adaptation add to or draw out of the text?
- How does your adaptation mix your own creative input with pre-existing content?
As part of your composition process, you should outline and write-up answers to each of these questions.
Assignment Description:
Your final composition may take one of the following forms:
- A website consisting of a “home” or “starting” page and at least five additional linked pages (I’m willing to work with your group on the “page-length” requirement if you want to substitute the creation of flash or other advanced media content for one or more of the pages), that presents and describes your adaptation. In thinking about the rhetorical context in which such a composition might arise, consider how you might construct a promotional site for a new production of The Tempest and how such a site might incorporate scenes or a “trailer” in order to pique the interest of the audience.
- A short film or video podcast of no less than 15 minutes in length, that presents your version of the scene you have chosen to adapt, transform, or appropriate. Thinking about the rhetorical context once again, this could be a straightforward adaptation of the scene to a new medium that stands on its own, or it could be presented as a promotional item for a longer work. Creation of the film should involve more than just recording a live performance of the scene and attaching a title and some credits.
- A video recording of no less than 30 minutes, that captures a live performance, complete with an audience, of your adapted scene. In thinking about this option, you could either add new material to your chosen scene if necessary to fit the 30 minute run-time, or you could have a question and answer session about your project, or you could incorporate personal interviews of group members and/or the audience discussing your composition process and/or reactions.
Every group project should be accompanied by a works cited list in MLA format, and credit or citation to outside sources should be provided where feasible and appropriate. If you have an idea for another kind of composition, other than those listed above, you are welcome to develop it. Your group MUST work with me early in the development process, however, to come up with assignment guidelines specific to the alternative composition you would like to create.
Assignment Stages: Remember that all assignment stages must be completed in order to avoid receiving an unsatisfactory grade for an incomplete assignment.
Stage 1, Informal Oral Presentation and Workshop, 10 points (Presentations will be made in class during the week of April 4)
- Each group will give a 10 minute presentation of their ideas for and a working draft of the project, followed by a 10 minute workshop session during which the class will offer critique and suggestions. I will be keeping track of time and keeping you to your time limits, so even though the presentation is meant to be informal, you should prepare in order to make the best use of your time
- A “working draft” can be a storyboard of your film project, a plan for your website, or a draft script of and plan for a live performance, etc.
- Remember to scout and book locations early. Make plans in advance to obtain required equipment from the library, and plan on needing such equipment for more than one day.
Stage 2, Formal Oral Presentation, 15 points (Presentations will be made in class during the week of April 11)
- Each group will give a 15 minute formal presentation of their final project to the class.
- In addition to presenting a draft of the final artifact, your presentation should also include a thesis-driven discussion of your how your final artifact draws upon, embodies or demonstrates your responses to the questions posed above in the “Overview” section
Stage 3, Final Draft, 75 points (All final projects must be submitted by Monday, April 19, at 11:00 pm)
- For this assignment, you will upload or post a link to the final artifact on the class blog.
Assignment Goals and Desired Learning Outcomes:
Rhetorical Awareness: The rhetorical situation comprises your purpose, audience and context. The rhetorical situation influences the kind of arguments that you can make as well as how you make them. The design and content of your final project should be reflective of, suited to and directed towards the intended audience, and the overall composition should clearly reflect the purpose of and context for your argument.
Stance and Support: The composition as a whole must reflect its engagement with a unified theme or thesis. The theme or thesis of the project should be developed through the presentation of substantial and appropriate supporting evidence, which can be presented in visual, aural and nonverbal form as well as orally or in text.
Organization: The organization of the composition should be determined by its argument. Evidence should be presented in a logical fashion, and the connections between and among the ideas and evidence presented, as well as their connection to the over-arching theme or thesis should be clarified through use of a logical plan of organization.
Conventions: The composition should draw upon the conventions appropriate to the primary mode of communication. Formal presentations should adhere to the tone, diction, dress and style of delivery appropriate to that context, for example, and a website should make use of the standard visual cues that indicate links, related content, video v. photo, etc.
Multimodal Integration: In this assignment, you will work with integrating multiple modes into a unified work. Ideally, your final project will demonstrate your understanding of how multiple modes of communication work together to create the final composition.
Grading Rubric: I will use the attached rubric as a guide when grading your projects. Comments on your work will in most cases consist of a summary of how the rubric applies to your work, and extended comments on the final project artifact. All members of a group will receive the same final grade.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Critical Essay Assignment Description
ENGL1102/Spring 2010/Wharton
Individual Assignment 4: Critical Essay
Overview:
The goal of this assignment is to create a 1000-1250 word formal, academic essay that develops an argument around some of the issues of authorship and the regulation of creative activity that we have been discussing in class.
As you work on this project, you have a number of resources at your disposal. Many of you may find it helpful to return to your postings on the class blog for ideas and inspiration. The research blog has preliminary bibliographies and links to online resources regarding subjects that will be relevant to this project. The primary texts that we have been reading in class (The Canterbury Tales, The Holy Sonnets, Wit, and The Tempest) and the three individual projects that you have completed thus far all provide examples of how pre-existing material can be used creatively in new works of authorship.
In this assignment, you will work on synthesizing your own ideas and interpretations of the subject matter we have been studying with the ideas and interpretations of other writers in order to construct an informed, credible, and cohesive argument using formal prose and following the MLA style guide.
Assignment Description:
Your final composition must include the following:
1. A 1000-1250 word essay that follows MLA style guidelines on one (1) of the following topics:
3. Any additional matter that you believe necessary to illustrate, explain, or support your argument.
You will post all drafts, including your final draft to your individual blog.
Elements of the Composition:
Text of your essay
All drafts, including Stage 3 your final draft, will be posted to your individual blog.
Stage 1: Rough Draft comprising a working thesis and an outline of the main points or the significant questions that must be addressed in your argument (posted to your individual blog as “Critical Essay: Stage 1” by class time on Monday, March 15, 5 points)
Stage 2: Rough Draft comprising a working draft of your entire argument (posted to your individual blog as “Critical Essay: Stage 2” by 11:00 pm on Friday, March 19, 5 points)
Stage 3: Final Draft of your polished, proofread essay with a complete, polished and proofread works cited (posted to your individual blog as "Critical Essay: Stage 3" by 11:00 pm on Tuesday, March 30, 85 points)
Rhetorical Awareness: The rhetorical situation comprises your purpose, audience and context. The rhetorical situation influences the kind of arguments that you can make as well as how you make them. You should have a clear idea of your audience, purpose and context before you begin writing, and your final draft should reflect your awareness of all three.
Stance and Support: Making an argument involves using appropriate evidence drawn from appropriate sources. Material (summaries, paraphrases, quotations) drawn from all of your sources should be relevant to and integrated with your argument, and you should provide proper attribution in MLA format when you incorporate the words, work or ideas of another in your writing.
Organization: A good academic essay follows a logical progression from introduction to conclusion. Ideally, your paper should have a form that reflects the logical progression of your argument and an awareness of the needs of your audience in understanding it, rather than one that follows a pre-determined formula (e.g. the “five paragraph theme”).
Conventions: This assignment is designed to get you thinking about the conventions of formal, written, academic discourse. Ideally, your paper should demonstrate your still-emerging awareness and integration of these conventions in its organization, tone, diction and usage.
Multimodal Integration: Although this project involves communication that is primarily written, you should be aware of how visual elements (layout, font styling, paragraphing, etc.) will affect the readability and project the formality of your writing.
Grading Rubric:
I will use the attached rubric as a guide when grading your projects. Comments on your work will in most cases consist of a summary of how the rubric applies to your work, and extended comments on the final draft.
Individual Assignment 4: Critical Essay
Overview:
The goal of this assignment is to create a 1000-1250 word formal, academic essay that develops an argument around some of the issues of authorship and the regulation of creative activity that we have been discussing in class.
As you work on this project, you have a number of resources at your disposal. Many of you may find it helpful to return to your postings on the class blog for ideas and inspiration. The research blog has preliminary bibliographies and links to online resources regarding subjects that will be relevant to this project. The primary texts that we have been reading in class (The Canterbury Tales, The Holy Sonnets, Wit, and The Tempest) and the three individual projects that you have completed thus far all provide examples of how pre-existing material can be used creatively in new works of authorship.
In this assignment, you will work on synthesizing your own ideas and interpretations of the subject matter we have been studying with the ideas and interpretations of other writers in order to construct an informed, credible, and cohesive argument using formal prose and following the MLA style guide.
Assignment Description:
Your final composition must include the following:
1. A 1000-1250 word essay that follows MLA style guidelines on one (1) of the following topics:
- What, if anything can Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, teach us about the modern legal distinction between parody and satire?
- Does the success of the Copyleft/Free Culture movement involve a return to a pre-modern, or at least pre-copyright, creative environment?
- Is there ever a time when remixing or reusing someone else's work is actually a better response to the rhetorical situation or a better use of creative energy than starting over from scratch and creating something totally new and original?
- When, if ever, should authors and creators have the right to prevent other authors and creators from copying for the purposes of commentary and criticism?
3. Any additional matter that you believe necessary to illustrate, explain, or support your argument.
You will post all drafts, including your final draft to your individual blog.
Elements of the Composition:
Text of your essay
- Should follow grammar and usage conventions appropriate to formal, academic prose
- Should use MLA style, including MLA parenthetical documentation
- Should include an introduction that clearly states your thesis and provides a sense of the context for your argument, a main body that presents your argument in a logical and coherent manner, and a conclusion that considers some of the broader implications of your argument within the rhetorical context in which your thesis arises.
- Should include complete citations in MLA format to every work from which you have drawn words or ideas.
- Should be included in the same blog post as the essay
All drafts, including Stage 3 your final draft, will be posted to your individual blog.
Stage 1: Rough Draft comprising a working thesis and an outline of the main points or the significant questions that must be addressed in your argument (posted to your individual blog as “Critical Essay: Stage 1” by class time on Monday, March 15, 5 points)
- The eBook has excellent tips on developing a working thesis and constructing an argument
- See, in particular, the sections on “Reading/Understanding the Rhetorical Situation” and “Exploring Ideas and Planning”
Stage 2: Rough Draft comprising a working draft of your entire argument (posted to your individual blog as “Critical Essay: Stage 2” by 11:00 pm on Friday, March 19, 5 points)
- The final draft is due the Tuesday after spring break, so the more you do for the draft, the less you will have to worry about over the break and when you get back
Stage 3: Final Draft of your polished, proofread essay with a complete, polished and proofread works cited (posted to your individual blog as "Critical Essay: Stage 3" by 11:00 pm on Tuesday, March 30, 85 points)
- As you work on polishing your essay, see the eBook sections under “WRITTEN”: “Effective Language,” “Effective Writing,” and “Sentence Clarity”
- As you are constructing and finalizing your works cited, see the eBook section “MLA Style” under “Attribution and Research”
Rhetorical Awareness: The rhetorical situation comprises your purpose, audience and context. The rhetorical situation influences the kind of arguments that you can make as well as how you make them. You should have a clear idea of your audience, purpose and context before you begin writing, and your final draft should reflect your awareness of all three.
Stance and Support: Making an argument involves using appropriate evidence drawn from appropriate sources. Material (summaries, paraphrases, quotations) drawn from all of your sources should be relevant to and integrated with your argument, and you should provide proper attribution in MLA format when you incorporate the words, work or ideas of another in your writing.
Organization: A good academic essay follows a logical progression from introduction to conclusion. Ideally, your paper should have a form that reflects the logical progression of your argument and an awareness of the needs of your audience in understanding it, rather than one that follows a pre-determined formula (e.g. the “five paragraph theme”).
Conventions: This assignment is designed to get you thinking about the conventions of formal, written, academic discourse. Ideally, your paper should demonstrate your still-emerging awareness and integration of these conventions in its organization, tone, diction and usage.
Multimodal Integration: Although this project involves communication that is primarily written, you should be aware of how visual elements (layout, font styling, paragraphing, etc.) will affect the readability and project the formality of your writing.
Grading Rubric:
I will use the attached rubric as a guide when grading your projects. Comments on your work will in most cases consist of a summary of how the rubric applies to your work, and extended comments on the final draft.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Blog Post 5: Students for Free Culture
The Students for Free Culture movement originally started when two college students hosted confidential emails from an electronic voting booth company on their website. The company told them to remove the emails or they would sue for copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The students refused, and after attracting media attention the charges were dropped. These students went on to found Students for Free Culture. This organization attempts to reduce copyright laws to promote “creativity and innovation; communication and free expression; public access to knowledge; and citizens' civil liberties” according to its website. This includes the free access of music, software, arts, etc over the internet. Students for Free Culture believes that allowing access to this copyrighted information would promote the production of new ideas in these fields. They believe that they will inspire us and cause overall progress that is more important than possible financial losses.
The DMCA was passed by Congress in 1998 and was designed to protect copyrights from digital infringement by enacting various anti-piracy laws. The DMCA makes it a crime to get around anti-piracy measures, and it makes devices used to illegally copy software illegal. It also states that ISP’s must remove material if they are notified that it is committing copyright infringement. This was the part of the law that set off the original court case, but now Students for Free Culture has taken more of a general stance against copyright legislation.
On the other side of the argument, businesses need the revenue provided by the software/songs/etc that Students for Free Culture believe should be shared to facilitate the production of new ideas. The ideas of Students for Free Culture begin to run into some of the same opposing arguments as copyleft did. It seems to run in opposition to the current capitalist system. Also, the Constitution specifically gave Congress the right to pass copyright legislation to promote some of the same growth that Students for Free Culture claims is being harmed by it. However, the evolution of technology has far outstripped what the founding fathers originally imagined, thus these laws could be considered antiquated by some proponents of Students for Free Culture.
Questions:
1) How do you think the evolution of digital technology has changed the needs of copyright laws?
2) Do you think songs, software, art, etc should be available for free?
3) What ramifications could this have on the industries that produce these products?
4) How would allowing access to old ideas in this manner affect the development of new ideas and overall progress?
The DMCA was passed by Congress in 1998 and was designed to protect copyrights from digital infringement by enacting various anti-piracy laws. The DMCA makes it a crime to get around anti-piracy measures, and it makes devices used to illegally copy software illegal. It also states that ISP’s must remove material if they are notified that it is committing copyright infringement. This was the part of the law that set off the original court case, but now Students for Free Culture has taken more of a general stance against copyright legislation.
On the other side of the argument, businesses need the revenue provided by the software/songs/etc that Students for Free Culture believe should be shared to facilitate the production of new ideas. The ideas of Students for Free Culture begin to run into some of the same opposing arguments as copyleft did. It seems to run in opposition to the current capitalist system. Also, the Constitution specifically gave Congress the right to pass copyright legislation to promote some of the same growth that Students for Free Culture claims is being harmed by it. However, the evolution of technology has far outstripped what the founding fathers originally imagined, thus these laws could be considered antiquated by some proponents of Students for Free Culture.
Questions:
1) How do you think the evolution of digital technology has changed the needs of copyright laws?
2) Do you think songs, software, art, etc should be available for free?
3) What ramifications could this have on the industries that produce these products?
4) How would allowing access to old ideas in this manner affect the development of new ideas and overall progress?
SOS
Hey guys is it just me or is anyone else having real trouble in finding sources for their sonnet? I'm annotating Holy Sonnet XI and it's been a lot of trouble.
In Response to Some Good Questions About the Multimodal Donne Annotation Stage 1 . . .
I've received a number of good questions about Stage 1 and evaluating research sources. In addition to emailing me individually, I encourage all of you to use the class blog to pose and respond to questions about your research, our readings, and the assignments.
Here are some tips on evaluating resources and some information about the goals of this assignment:
1) This assignment requires you to do research and to communicate the results of that research, which should be drawn from at least five outside sources. As you hopefully learned during the research seminar in the library yesterday, outside sources should include journal articles and/or books, in addition to less scholarly, non-peer-reviewed, and therefore less reliable internet sources such as websites. Your Stage 1 draft should include the text of the sonnet you are annotating, a list of five sources, and a brief description of each that responds to the questions posed in the assignment description.
2) Each of your sources presumably has an author or authors (if you can't find out who the author is, then that's a red-flag as far as credibility is concerned). In determining whether the author is credible, e.g., someone who can be trusted to know what s/he is talking about and to have done his/her research, read the biographical information about him/her provided in footnotes to an article or in an author blurb in a book. Do a bit of internet research to see what else s/he has written, where s/he works. Is the author a professional scholar from Harvard or a high-school student in Topeka, KS? Do you see why that sort of information makes a difference when you're judging how much credence to give a particular source? It's not that the high school student is necessarily wrong, just that his/her work probably hasn't been through the peer review process and may need to be checked with a bit more thoroughness than that of the Harvard professor. In some cases you may find that one particular article or book is cited or discussed in a number of your other sources. If it has received favorable treatment, then that weighs in favor of the author's credibility. If it has been panned and criticized, then that usually weighs against the author's credibility.
3) With regard to audience, it is true that on a basic level, everything about Donne is directed to people interested in Donne. Some sources, though, are intended for students and beginning researchers. Others are aimed at a more sophisticated and knowledgeable audience. This information is important because it helps your audience to determine where your research is coming from, whether it's credible, whether you're drawing upon a variety of sources to give an objective overview of the field or giving a one-sided view based on the information that gets returned in the top ten hits of a Google search.
4) I've given you some guidance with regard to credibility above. Additional factors include where the source was published (scholarly journal, which means peer-review and vetting before publication, or a self-published blog or website, which means less "screening" before publication), who is the audience (other experts, who are likely to be able to pick up on flaws in argument or research, or students or non-experts, who are less likely to be able to pick up on such things). Here again, a self-published blog or a study-guide generated for an undergraduate audience aren't necessarily "bad," but if you use them you want to make sure that they have other markers of credibility, such as a good bibliography of a variety of sources, corroboration by peer-reviewed sources, perhaps a forum of commentary (on a blog post, for example) that offers corroboration and/or corrections to the argument.
5) One of the big goals of research assignments such as this one is to develop students' information literacy, to get students to understand how to make decisions about what to believe and what to take with a grain of salt. We all know that just because we see it on the internet doesn't necessarily mean it's true. This assignment is in part about making the transition from being a skeptical and careful reader to being a knowledgeable reader, one who can make informed decisions about what information is reliable and needs to be taken into account, and what information is less reliable and therefore needs to be given less weight or perhaps even discounted altogether.
Here are some tips on evaluating resources and some information about the goals of this assignment:
1) This assignment requires you to do research and to communicate the results of that research, which should be drawn from at least five outside sources. As you hopefully learned during the research seminar in the library yesterday, outside sources should include journal articles and/or books, in addition to less scholarly, non-peer-reviewed, and therefore less reliable internet sources such as websites. Your Stage 1 draft should include the text of the sonnet you are annotating, a list of five sources, and a brief description of each that responds to the questions posed in the assignment description.
2) Each of your sources presumably has an author or authors (if you can't find out who the author is, then that's a red-flag as far as credibility is concerned). In determining whether the author is credible, e.g., someone who can be trusted to know what s/he is talking about and to have done his/her research, read the biographical information about him/her provided in footnotes to an article or in an author blurb in a book. Do a bit of internet research to see what else s/he has written, where s/he works. Is the author a professional scholar from Harvard or a high-school student in Topeka, KS? Do you see why that sort of information makes a difference when you're judging how much credence to give a particular source? It's not that the high school student is necessarily wrong, just that his/her work probably hasn't been through the peer review process and may need to be checked with a bit more thoroughness than that of the Harvard professor. In some cases you may find that one particular article or book is cited or discussed in a number of your other sources. If it has received favorable treatment, then that weighs in favor of the author's credibility. If it has been panned and criticized, then that usually weighs against the author's credibility.
3) With regard to audience, it is true that on a basic level, everything about Donne is directed to people interested in Donne. Some sources, though, are intended for students and beginning researchers. Others are aimed at a more sophisticated and knowledgeable audience. This information is important because it helps your audience to determine where your research is coming from, whether it's credible, whether you're drawing upon a variety of sources to give an objective overview of the field or giving a one-sided view based on the information that gets returned in the top ten hits of a Google search.
4) I've given you some guidance with regard to credibility above. Additional factors include where the source was published (scholarly journal, which means peer-review and vetting before publication, or a self-published blog or website, which means less "screening" before publication), who is the audience (other experts, who are likely to be able to pick up on flaws in argument or research, or students or non-experts, who are less likely to be able to pick up on such things). Here again, a self-published blog or a study-guide generated for an undergraduate audience aren't necessarily "bad," but if you use them you want to make sure that they have other markers of credibility, such as a good bibliography of a variety of sources, corroboration by peer-reviewed sources, perhaps a forum of commentary (on a blog post, for example) that offers corroboration and/or corrections to the argument.
5) One of the big goals of research assignments such as this one is to develop students' information literacy, to get students to understand how to make decisions about what to believe and what to take with a grain of salt. We all know that just because we see it on the internet doesn't necessarily mean it's true. This assignment is in part about making the transition from being a skeptical and careful reader to being a knowledgeable reader, one who can make informed decisions about what information is reliable and needs to be taken into account, and what information is less reliable and therefore needs to be given less weight or perhaps even discounted altogether.
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