Recent LITS headlines:
Upcoming LITS events:
(go HERE for more information for each event)
As a reminder, Friday, July 31 is the deadline to submit nominations for the 2019/20 LITS Significant Contribution Awards (SCAs). This is our annual opportunity to recognize our most significant contributions toward LITS objectives and Emory’s mission. To submit a nomination for an individual who has made exceptional contributions, including those whose contributions were related to a team effort, please complete the LITS SCA Nomination Form. Note that the form includes details about the program criteria and nomination process.
*Degree Attainment Request*
If you have completed a degree program between Fall 2019 and Summer 2020, please email me the degree type and the name of institution as we would like to recognize individuals who have completed a degree program at the virtual L.E.A.P! (LITS Employee Appreciate Party) event.
We look forward to recognizing the great work that has been done throughout the division at our virtual L.E.A.P! event scheduled for September 24, 2020 at 1:30pm.
The poster used for Dr. Zdenek’s lecture on February, 2020.
This Sunday, July 26, 2020, marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a landmark piece of legislation which protected the rights of people with disabilities. The ADA was the culmination of decades of activism and resulted in unprecedented opportunities for people with disabilities. Accordingly, July 26 is celebrated in the disability community in the United States as “Disability Independence Day,” and the whole month of July is celebrated as “Disability Pride Month.”
If, like many Americans, you don’t know much about the ADA or the Disability Rights Movement, this weekend is as good a time as any to start learning, and the resources listed at the end of this post provide some places to begin.
While enormous strides have been made towards the inclusion of people with disabilities over these past 30 years, much remains to be done to ensure accessibility in workplaces, schools, and businesses, including here at Emory. And the work of making Emory more accessible cannot merely be a job for our Department of Accessibility Services but must be a goal that we all strive for in our work. In particular, we in LITS have the responsibility to help make the digital aspects of Emory that we help build and maintain accessible to all members of our community, including those with disabilities.
With the aim of spurring larger conversations about accessibility both within LITS and across the university, in 2018 the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship (ECDS) joined with Emory’s Disability Studies Initiative, and the Digital Publishing in the Humanities Program at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry to begin an annual “Conversations in Digital Accessibilities” series, which has brought in experts on accessibility and technology from across the nation to expand our understanding of this evolving topic.
Just a few weeks before Emory went remote this past spring we hosted the most recent speaker in the series, Dr. Sean Zdenek, Associate Professor of Technical and Professional Writing at the University of Delaware, and author of Reading Sounds: Closed-Caption Media and Popular Culture (which all members of the Emory community have electronic access to here).
In his lecture “Access Remade: Designing, Disrupting and Transforming Inclusive Media,” Dr. Zdenek discussed how the important accessibility measure of captioning audiovisual media might be re-imagined and enhanced to more fully convey meaning and make the media as accessible as possible (a topic he also touches upon in his recent interactive article “Designing Captions: Disruptive experiments with typography, color, icons and effects”).
Screenshot of Aviary.
We at ECDS were particularly excited for Dr. Zdenek’s visit because captioning has been the focus of our own accessibility efforts over the past year and a half, during which time we have captioned approximately 26 hours of video. More recently, we have also piloted a new platform for use at Emory, Aviary, which demonstrates how making something more accessible for users with disabilities can also make it more valuable and usable for all.
Via Aviary you can search within videos that have captions (or within sets of videos) and find the specific moments when your search term is spoken. The searchability of videos by their content, and not merely their titles, is absolutely transformative. Additionally, Aviary enables videos published to separate YouTube and Vimeo channels by different units of a university to be gathered in a single place, thus allowing users to search and discover the wide range of content produced by an institution like Emory. You can explore the pilot Emory instance of Aviary and experience the exciting possibilities of increased video searchability for yourselves here: https://emory.aviaryplatform.com/.
And if you’d like to learn more about captioning and/or getting your unit’s videos added to the Emory instance, you can contact Adam P. Newman (adam [dot] p [dot] newman [at] emory [dot] edu) and Steve Bransford (steve [dot] bransford [at] emory [dot] edu).
Resources about the Disability Rights Movement and the ADA
Resources from the Conversations in Digital Accessibilities series
John Lewis (left) and CT Vivian (right) (photo courtesy of Yes! Magazine)
In the wake of the passing of a pair of civil rights icons, John Lewis and CT Vivian, the DEI Committee invites you to share your thoughts about these men and the impact they have had on you.
As news of the passing of John Lewis spread, my social media feed became loaded with stories of personal interactions with John Lewis: how he showed up at a bike repair shop, jogged in a Pride parade, taught an environmentalist about getting Black taxpayers into National Parks, or shaking hands at a school.
To be an Atlantan seemed almost synonymous with meeting John Lewis. So, in reflection, whether you have your own John Lewis interaction or not, what would you say in a letter to him or what would you thank him for?
Sadly, CT Vivian passed on the same day, so it also seems right to include him as well, thanking him for his service to non-violence and civil rights, so if you have a CT Vivian story or interaction, you’re invited to write him a thank you note as well. Our plan is to collect these stories for an article or pop-up exhibit.
Submit your Dear John Lewis / Dear CT Vivian stories HERE
Below are two examples that I wrote:
Dear John Lewis,
I remember hearing you speak in person for the first time at a tiny rally in Piedmont Park. You challenged my own willingness to settle and changed my mind on gay marriage as an issue when you said, “Civil Unions is a term to make straight people more comfortable. Fight for the word marriage, because anything else is separate but not equal and separate can never be equal.” Thank you for your intersectionality, for seeing even what I did not. Thank you for modeling what showing up for each other looks like.
Dear C.T. Vivian,
Thank you for illustrating through non-violent action the ways Christianity and racism are not compatible. Rest in power from your diligence.
Danny Bridges initially joined Emory in 2009 as an application integrator. For over 10 years, he held a key role on the PeopleSoft Administration team supporting Emory’s critical administrative systems. In April 2020, Danny stepped into an interim manager role for the team when Mike Davidson moved to the new Information Security Architecture team and has accepted the position on a permanent basis.
The PeopleSoft Administration team supports not only our PeopleSoft applications (OPUS, COMPASS, HR and ELM), but also Kronos and EBI (Oracle Business Intelligence). Danny has extensive experience with the PeopleSoft architecture and integration support but was eager to step into management. This position provides the opportunity to develop new skills while continuing to fulfill his operational responsibilities.
Born in Orlando, FL, he earned his bachelor’s degree in decision information sciences from the University of Florida.
Danny has a wife and three kids and loves taking them to the pool and hiking. He has placed first, second, or third in every LITS Chili Cook-off since 2015, except one. Danny competes in a bowling league, plays tennis, and is a big Gator football fan.
“It’s a great team and I love working with such terrific people,” says Danny of his new position, “They have helped me transition into the role. I’m grateful this role also allows me to continue doing PS admin duties, which are very fulfilling for me.”
You can reach him at danny [dot] bridges [at] emory [dot] edu.
“I enjoy the challenge of finding creative ways to use digital tools to make important ideas, stories, and artifacts more accessible and exciting to encounter.” – Kayla Shipp
Kayla Shipp joins ECDS as the new digital scholarship specialist on the Digital Publishing Team in ECDS. Before transitioning into her current full-time role, she was a digital scholarship associate at ECDS from 2016-2019. At the time she was also completing her Ph.D. in English and working as an instructor in the Emory English department.
Before coming to Emory, Kayla worked as a digital manuscript assistant at Queen Square Library in London, following a position as a development officer and grant writer for a South Carolina nonprofit.
Kayla’s family moved a number of times for her dad’s project management job, so she lived in Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Oregon, and South Carolina growing up. She has earned a bachelor’s degree in English, with a computer science minor, from Converse College, a master’s degree in digital humanities from King’s College London, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees in English from Emory University.
When not in the middle of a pandemic, Kayla enjoys visiting museums, taking long walks with her dog, and traveling. She’s also currently restoring her grandfather’s Minolta film camera from the 1960s and learning how to use it.
“Between my graduate student role and my current role, I’ve enjoyed getting to know the ECDS team for a number of years already,” says Kayla. “One of my favorite parts of working on digital projects with such an interdisciplinary team has been developing unique relationships with different project partners, from museums and nonprofits to faculty and local artists. I enjoy the challenge of finding creative ways to use digital tools to make important ideas, stories, and artifacts more accessible and exciting to encounter.”
You can reach Kayla at kayla [dot] shipp [dot] kamibayashi [at] emory [dot] edu.
Meet Foxy! Foxy is a boy but my mother, before she passed, named him Foxy without knowing he was a boy. We naturally kept the name.
Foxy is about nine months old now and came to us when he was five months old. He’s extremely playful. Foxy likes to ‘torment by existing’ my 13-year-old queen, Kali-Ma, and chase my 7-year-old tomcat, Langdon. He has NO fear of anyone or anything.
A domestic shorthair, Foxy has the markings of an Egyptian Mau. He will eat ANYTHING, including spaghetti, mac ‘n’ cheese, rice, bananas, Cheerios, veggie straws, corn and more; if we have it, he wants it. Dinnertime is about dodging him because if you get up, he’s in the plate.
Foxy also pants like a dog when he’s playing hard, like when we are running the feather toy for him. And he actually enjoys belly rubs. So, he’s a bit of a cat-dog.