Thomas_Kanke_SFA_2014_prez
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This document summarizes the findings of a survey of born digital materials from the Science Education Curriculum Collection at Florida State University. The collection documents science teaching materials from the 1960s to 2005, including several interactive media science projects. The survey estimated over 4 terabytes of digital information stored on various obsolete media formats across 1750 physical items. Preserving and providing access to these materials poses challenges due to outdated technologies and lack of resources, but emulation and data migration may help make the collection accessible in the future.
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Thomas_Kanke_SFA_2014_prez
- 1. Jumping Into Born Digital: Working with the born digital materials of the Science Education Curriculum Collection Krystal Thomas and Timothy Kanke Friday, May 9, 2014
- 2. Why? • SAA Jump In Initiative held in 2013 was the catalyst • Involvement of the donor through an addition to the collection • These materials are ticking time bombs for data loss • Interesting materials and problems – not your usual straight forward born digital files
- 3. Science Education Curriculum Collection • Documents the creation and development of science teaching materials produced by FSU’s science education program from the 1960s until 2005. • The Interactive Media Science (IMS) projects were specifically the focus of our survey
- 4. Questions to Start With… • What do we actually have? – Physically – Digitally • How we access these materials? • Do we have what we need access these materials? • How are the physical items stored?
- 6. The Numbers • Est. maximum of 4380.3 GB (or 4.3 TB) of information (on external media) • 1750 items spread over six boxes including 3.5” floppy disks, CDs, micro cassettes, DAT, DVC, VHS, DVDs, EX drives, Jaz disks, laser disks, 8mm magnetic tape • Apple IIGS and Macintosh G3 systems along with external hard drives are not included in TB estimate
- 7. Game Packaging • 3 Floppies • 1 Laserdisc • 3 Booklets • Instructions
- 8. Gaming Experience • Apple IIGS • Pioneer Laserdisc Player
- 9. Preservation • Minimal • Transfer to modern data storage Access • Computer museum • Emulation • Migration / Porting
- 10. New Questions • What are we preserving? –Pedagogy –Historical computer code –Gaming experience • How do we access the digital items?
- 11. Challenges • Commitment of resources • Outmoded cutting edge technology
- 12. Data Transfer Solutions • Using original equipment • Specialized controller (e.g. KryoFlux) • Outsource
- 13. Next Steps • Procure resources for data transfer • Organize the collection for future retrieval – Digital library modules • Explore avenues for access – Emulation
- 14. Web Games • Silent Invaders – http://www.fsu.edu/~imsp/silent_invaders/n ew_weeds/main_html/ • Fire in Wildhorse Basin – http://www.fsu.edu/~imsp/wildhorse/ • EcoVentures: Focus on the Gulf – http://fsu.edu/~imsp/ecoventures_2011/ecoi ndex.html
- 15. Thank You Krystal Thomas kmthomas@fsu.edu Tim Kanke tjk11b@my.fsu.edu
Editor's Notes
- Introductions We’re going to be looking at our work with the born digital materials of the Science Education Curriculum Collection – particularly two stages of our work so far. One, inventory of the physical collection and two, inventory and principle questions about the bytes on the physical media.
- 2013 SAA Manuscripts Repositories Section sponsored the Jump In Initiative which required repositories to commit to doing a survey of any collection of born digital materials under their purview. This collection came to mind because two concurrent things had happened One, we’d received an addition to the collection from the donor who was asking what our procedures would be to continue access to the collection over time and he wanted to be involved in the work if possible Emeritus professor in the Middle and Secondary Education department – sees this collection as one of the crowning achievements of his career and is very attached to its legacy Two, when we received the addition was the first time I’d seen the collection and I realized what a ticking time bomb it was for two reasons. One, it is full of obsolete media and two, data loss was a real concern for the oldest materials in the collection even beyond figure out how we were going to access the media to find out what was on it. Lastly, it’s an incredibly interesting collection because it is not your run of the mill born digital problem. While this collection does hold your normal Word, PDF etc., the bulk of it is something very different.
- The Science Education Curriculum Collection, as it notes here, documents the creation and development of science teaching materials produced by FSU’s science education program from roughly the 1960s until 2005. The majority of the collection is paper-based. Only about 10 linear feet of it is digital materials (it is 98.25 linear feet all together). The digital side of the collection is in the Interactive Media Science (IMS) projects which were the focus of our Jump In survey. IMS pioneered the use of digital instructional media into the classroom. Science Vision, its first product was the first major project using multimedia funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the resulting subprojects led the way in introducing a model of teaching using inquiry methodologies. Following this project, the FSU project team received a grant to do a multimedia videodisc/computer program called “EcoVentures: Learning in Florida’s Environment,” which included a videodisc, computer software, and accompanying print materials. These games were distributed to teachers nationally via Houghton Mifflin and came complete with the computer program, the laser disk which played at cued parts in the game and supplemental workbooks for the teacher and students to use while working with the program. Most of the EcoVentures were released in the early 1990s With the increasing technical capabilities of the World Wide Web, the project team began creating science instructional materials using the Internet. Two of its programs, “Silent Invaders” and “Fire in Wildhorse Basin,” are delivered entirely over the Internet (with an option to download the entire program for one (Wildhorse) while a third, part of the EcoVentures series, is available only for download from the internet. These were completed in the early 2000s. FSU was at the forefront of producing teaching tools like this and we were prolific in getting them produced; we were one of very few organizations creating interactive media for use in the classroom for many years We luckily had the foundation as the Science Education Curriculum program was incredibly strong before starting in digital projects and its materials were used nationally and internationally Importance of Collection may be two-fold and what makes it unique The video games themselves All the pieces that went into creating those finished products
- What Questions did we have when we sat down to try to figure out how to conduct the survey of these materials First really big question was: what do we actually have? Two fold question – we knew with the Jump In survey, we’d only start be answering the first definitely and the second where possible What do we physically have in the boxes in the stacks When possible, what is on the physical media – how many bytes, is it video, is it code? Second question had two parts: How do we access these materials – what kind of cord, OS, hardware is needed? Can we access these materials – do we have the kind of cord, OS, hardware needed? Also, the expertise to use them! Lastly, a more pragmatic question, how are these item stored – is there any sort of order? Are there items that don’t belong? What can we do to physically get control of the collection?
- Before starting the work, I put together the process for the survey and created a SharePoint folder for the data to be compiled and easily accessed by all involved. I created an inventory spreadsheet for the project based on suggestions from the Manuscripts Repositories roundtable’s Jump In Initiative webpage as well as Inventory and Planning: The First Steps in Records Management (Suzanne Etherington and Ann Marie Przybyla, New York State Archives, 2003) Four people conducted the actual survey – two graduate assistants, an intern and a part time staff member The work was completed in three weeks. The spreadsheet had eight fields to collect if possible Location, Type of Medium, Storage Capacity, [Title, Creator, Date, Description], Access requirements
- So, what did our survey tell us? That we have a maximum of 4.3 TB of information to deal with – the likelihood that it is at the max is very small but it gave us a place to start That we have a little over 1750 physical items in six boxes touching on pretty much every physical format that’s been used over the last 40 years of computing: 3 ½ floppies, CDs, DVDs, EX drives, Jaz disks, laser disks, 8mm film, VHS, DVD DAT and DVC – new arrivals include Umatic tapes Not included in our TB estimate is two complete systems – an Apple IIGS and a Mac G3 This was the information we had when Jump In finished. Tim joined as an intern working on this collection the following fall and started to fill in the gaps in terms of what did we have digitally. For most of the initial survey, we’d relied on what we could glean from labels. Tim started plugging in the items and seeing what happened, to give us a better idea of what equipment, software and expertise might be needed in the future to continue working on the project. What he found was interesting across the board and led to a lot of new questions. For example, the bulk of the digital materials is floppy disks. In his survey of these items, Tim found: 50% will in some way talk to a Mac OS 9 system 25% will talk to the Apple IIGS system 25% will need a Commodore Amiga or an equivalent to get them talking to us From this information, we now knew we were going to need more than one OS, more than one hardware system, and a lot of expertise to work with these materials From here, we developed a new set of questions and Tim’s work changed to work on those questions, research and figure out the best way for us to move forward to provide access and to preserve these materials.