Tag Archives: CiviCRM

HCLE Spring 2017 Progress Report

Welcome to the spring quarter of 2017 HCLE progress report. We share many of these news items via our outlets (wiki, blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – and now, reddit, too) and collect them here for your and our convenience.

Our staff of 1.4 FTEs, volunteers and outside collaborators reached the following milestones in the winter (April through June) of 2017.

 

Fundraising

  • News release of Liza Loop’s GeekFest Berlin 2016 presentation

Catalog

  • Improved quantity and quality of images displayed in image gallery tool

Operations

  • Salesforce implementation being customized by a large crew of volunteers

Exhibits

  • Lobby/Proof-of-Concept work continues

 

Please pass our news along, especially if you know someone else who will want to contribute money, know-how, artifacts, stories, or connections. Even by glancing at what we’ve done, you’re helping make HCLE happen as you pass along the story. Thank you.

 

  • Fundraising

Salesforce was used to send out two news releases to followers and potential funders about:

  • a series of videos excerpted from Liza Loop’s presentation at GeekFest Berlin 2016
  • a series of videos excerpted from the Leuphana/LO*OP Center Oral History Workshop held last year at Luneberg, Germany.

These were two of the main steps in our fundraising strategy:

  • Establish an awareness of our background and infrastructure
    • Release Make Vs Buy report – done
    • Release Leuphana/LO*OP oral history videos – done
    • Release Liza Loop’s GeekFest excerpts – done
  • Field responses – in progress
    • If responses don’t generate enough of a response
      • Consider Kickstarter campaign
      • Reinvigorate Vision Club

We also continue to review grant opportunities. The process will benefit from the boilerplate narratives we created for previous applications.

  • Collection

Phil Tymon assisted Liza Loop in the organizing and digitizing of the Collection.

  • Catalog

Anna Narbutovskih created a presentation tool (the Interim Collections Site) that allows images in the Catalog to be readily displayed as a gallery for quicker review and comparison. The intent is to make it easier to check for duplications, and to verify proper import from the official repository, temporary storage locations, and the Catalog. The Interim Site also helps demonstrate the vision of the Virtual Museum. (Link available upon request. It isn’t ready for general public visitors, yet.)

Anna also modified the Catalog Maintenance System to repurpose unused fields.

  • People/Volunteers

VolunteerMatch.org was used to find several candidate Salesforce volunteers. The response has been enthusiastic.

A volunteer offered to investigate license management issues.

  • Outreach

Videos from last year’s Oral History Workshop (LLOHW) were made available online.

Blog posts published:

Social Media Traffic Report

1/1/2014 12/30/2015 12/31/2016 6/30/2017
Facebook 59 104 171 176
Twitter 67 408 493 507
WordPress 18 49 50 52
Wikispaces 12 62 69 70

 

  • Wiki

The HCLE wiki continues to act as a communications center and as a digital loading dock.

Chuck Morrissey joined the wiki.

  • Exhibits

Anna Narbutovskih is creating a Proof of Concept site (aka Collections Viewer). A few select artifacts will be presented and displayed so visitors, followers, and prospective funders can better understand our goal, a virtual museum of the History of Computing in Learning and Education.

  • Operations

Thanks to a team of volunteers, our Salesforce account is being customized for our needs. One of their primary goals is the establishment of documented processes that will ease and standardize Salesforce processes that will be necessary because of volunteer turnover. The database is being adjusted to reflect the differences between Salesforce and our previous database, CiviCRM. We are training ourselves in its use, and using the news releases as training opportunities.

 

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HCLE Winter 2017 Progress Report

Welcome to the winter quarter of 2017 HCLE report. We share many of these news items via our outlets (wiki, blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and collect them here for your and our convenience.

Our staff of 1.4 FTEs, volunteers and outside collaborators reached the following milestones in the winter (January through March) of 2017.

 

Fundraising

  • A news release was prepared for Liza Loop’s GeekFest Berlin 2016 presentation

Catalog

  • A presentation tool is being developed to aid image management

Collection

  • Staff was added to the task of organizing the Collection

Outreach

  • Liza Loop attended the Personal Digital Archiving 2017 conference

Operations

  • A Salesforce account was established and is being customized to HCLE’s needs

Exhibits

  • Lobby/Proof-of-Concept work continues

 

 

Please pass our news along, especially if you know someone else who will want to contribute money, know-how, artifacts, stories, or connections. Even by glancing at what we’ve done, you’re helping make HCLE happen as you pass along the story. Thank you.

  • Fundraising

A draft news release was prepared to inform followers and potential funders about a series of videos excerpted from Liza Loop’s presentation at GeekFest Berlin 2016. The organizers provided a high-resolution version of the video from which we extracted five excerpts that highlight different aspects of HCLE and its mission. (See the list in the Outreach section below.)

Thanks to some preliminary work by an outside contractor, HCLE now has a Salesforce account and database. We are training ourselves in its use, and using the news release as a training opportunity.

  • Collection

Phil Tymon is assisting Liza Loop in the organizing and digitizing of the Collection.

  • Catalog

Anna Narbutovskih is creating a presentation tool (the Interim Collections Site) that will allow images in the Catalog to be readily displayed as a gallery for quicker review and comparison. The intent is to make it easier to check for duplications, and to verify proper import from the official repository, temporary storage locations, and the Catalog.

Stan Crump is modifying the Catalog Maintenance System to repurpose one of the unused fields.

Phil Tymon is assisting Liza Loop in the cataloging of the Collection.

  • People/Volunteers

Our current team of volunteers and consultants continue to help with specific issues with the Catalog Maintenance System and miscellaneous system administration tasks.

We are pleased to introduce new volunteers and enthusiasts that have experience in the history of computing in learning and education: Chuck Morrissey, Marie Hicks.

VolunteerMatch.org was used to find several candidate Salesforce volunteers.

  • Outreach

GeekFest Berlin 2016 made Liza Loop’s video available online and also provided a copy so we may create more succinct excerpts. The editing has begun on five topics.

Liza Loop finished the quarter by attending the Personal Digital Archiving 2017 conference held by Stanford University Libraries from March 29-31, 2017.

Blog posts published:

Social Media Traffic Report

      • Twitter – Facebook ‘Following’ lists reconciled
1/1/2014 12/30/2015 12/31/2016 4/1/2017
Facebook 59 104 171 175
Twitter 67 408 493 490
WordPress 18 49 50 50
Wikispaces 12 62 69 70
  • Wiki

The HCLE wiki continues to act as a communications center and as a digital loading dock.

Chuck Morrissey joined the wiki.

  • Exhibits

Anna Narbutovskih is creating a Proof of Concept site (aka Collections Viewer). A few select artifacts will be presented and displayed so visitors, followers, and prospective funders can better understand our goal, a virtual museum of the History of Computing in Learning and Education.

Andy Molnar volunteered to highlight publications, promote existing interviews, conduct a Future Flashback interview, and work on exhibits of NSF’s impact and the military origins of technology in education.

  • Operations

The year was kicked off with a review of the program plan. As usual, the greatest variables that affect the timeline are funding and staffing.

A draft Design Document was produced to better communicate the goals, operations, restrictions, and experiences expected from the virtual museum. The primary audience is anyone involved in developing the software and web sites.

A trial contractor relationship ended with the positive consequence of establishing a Salesforce account for HCLE that is populated with our CiviCRM data. The account is being customized for our needs. The database is being adjusted to reflect the differences between Salesforce and our previous database, CiviCRM. We are training ourselves in its use, and using the news release as a training opportunity.

  • admin

HCLE’s complete collection of documents on GoogleDocs was ported to the HCLE Hostgator account as a backup.

HCLE Summer 2016 Progress Report

HCLE Summer 2016 Progress Report

 

Welcome to the summer quarter of 2016 HCLE report. We share many of these news items via our outlets (wiki, blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and collect them here for your and our convenience.

Our staff of 1.4 FTEs, several volunteers and many outside collaborators reached the following milestones in the winter (July through September) of 2016.

 

 

Fundraising

  • We updated our strategy to take advantage of our Oral History Workshop and our Make versus Buy process.

Catalog

  • The initial phase of our Make versus Buy process resulted in a trial of Collector Systems and a potential $300K savings.

Collaboration

  • The content of the Oral History Workshop is being edited prior to publication.

Outreach

  • Liza’s presentation at the Geekfest 2016 Berlin conference was well received.

 

Please pass our news along, especially if you know someone else who will want to contribute money, know-how, artifacts, stories, or connections. Even by glancing at what we’ve done, you’re helping make HCLE happen as you pass along the story. Thank you.


A Pioneer has passed

Seymour Papert, co-founder of the MIT Media Lab (then known as the AI Lab). Liza worked with him briefly in the 1980s and taught his childrens programming language, LOGO, in several California schools.

Although Seymour’s work is already well documented, his death highlights the urgency of our museum’s oral history work. Other prominent Pioneers are approaching the end of their lives. Many have not had a chance to provide such a complete legacy. We are working on a virtual exhibit to highlight Seymour’s numerous advances and accomplishments within the field of education and computing. His work is appreciated. His loss is felt.


 

  • Fundraising

    • Strategy

We updated our fundraising strategy to take advantage of our inaugural Oral History workshop (see below), the opportunity to refine our Cal Humanities proposal, and the preliminary results of our Make Versus Buy process (see below). In general, we intend to use feedback from our recent CalHum proposal to update our appeals. The results of the workshop are also an opportunity to demonstrate some of what we hope to preserve and accomplish. The results of the Make Versus Buy process help demonstrate one way we intend to support the creation of the museum.

After we’ve incorporated the feedback from CalHum, we intend to contact Foundations and NGOs with the news of the various updates.

If there are no direct responses, we intend to revisit the Kickstarter campaign, contact key foundation board members for advice, referrals, and hopefully resources.

We’re revisiting our list of foundations and so far have researched candidates to contact from:

      • Kresge
      • Moore
      • Broad
      • Sloan
      • Carnegie
      • Kresge
      • MacArthur

We welcome suggestions about who to contact.

In preparation for the next Kickstarter campaign that will target funding our Proof of Concept, we’ve drafted a series of interview questions from which we’ll create a video interview of Liza. A good video is highly recommended for Kickstarter campaigns, which is why we are focusing on a simple, yet hopefully effective approach.

 


  • Collection

    • social media

Our social media campaign is predominantly for advocacy, collaboration, and fund raising, but it has also been uncovering and collecting digital artifacts, online collections, and oral histories. We conducted a review of the discoveries and compiled them for eventual inclusion in our Catalog.


  • Catalog

    • Catalog Maintenance System – Make Versus Buy

We completed the main selection phase of our Make Versus Buy analysis. After reviewing approximately two dozen candidates, we decided to begin a trial of Collector Systems. Estimated savings are of ~ $300,000 and a shortening of the software timeline of approximately six months. Collector Systems was chosen because it is a cloud-based solution, with relatively low recurring and non-recurring costs, that is somewhat customizable, and that can be readily scaled as needed. The cost of the study was ~$800.

Our preliminary evaluation of the trial is inconclusive because of an interruption in communications, plus a miscommunication about the particular software package we should be using. Liza’s conversations with their CEO enabled a free extended trial until we’ve made our decision. At the close of the quarter, Collector Systems was shifting us to the software package more appropriate for museums, and using our map of the metadata crosswalk to modify their displays to match our needs. They were very receptive to suggested improvements such as including social media in the contact information. A gallery was created with relative ease, but will be probably be replaced after the account is switched to the museum system.

Concurrently, we will continue to use HCLE’s Catalog Maintenance System because it is our established process and we may need to return to it.

One consequence of our review has been an improved documentation of our current digitization, cataloging, and artifact management process. If we choose Collector Systems, we will similarly document the process.

We continue to improve our Catalog Maintenance System by fixing bugs and improving functionality.


  • People/Volunteers

    • Student Project

Liza attended the Sonoma State Internship Faire to recruit interns to work on any of eleven tasks.

Our current team of volunteers and consultants continue to help with specific issues with the Catalog Maintenance System and miscellaneous system administration tasks.

Kimberly Loop has been contracted to edit the videos from the Oral History Workshop held in June.


  • Outreach

    • Events

The primary event was Liza’s participation as a presenter at GeekFest 2016 in Berlin. It was a two day event that “brings together the founding fathers of the early personal computer era and the first Hacker scene and there will be a panel of memories from this era.” Liza was invited partly because of her involvement in the Homebrew Computer Club and the West Coast ComputerFaire. Videos of the presentations are available on YouTube.

We are also preparing a workshop for next year’s Society of California Archivists Annual General Meeting (AGM) April 27-29 in Pasadena. The workshop will convey our experience with our Catalog Maintenance System Make Versus Buy process, and will help others modify HCLE’s process to meet their critieria and situation.

1/1/2014 12/29/2014 12/30/2015 9/30/2016
Facebook 59 91 104 137
Twitter 67 271 408 469
WordPress 18 42 49 49
Wikispaces 12 41 62 68

  • wiki

    • The HCLE wiki continues to act as a communications center and as a digital loading dock. An alternative format was proposed and is undergoing outside review.

We continue to refine the videos from the Oral History Workshop that was conducted in June with Leuphana University in Luneberg, Germany. The goal is to create a series of videos, one for each presentation.

We are also in discussions about possible publications, both informal and academic, based on the event.

No decision has been reached on holding a similar event in 2017, partly because of insufficient funding.

Inspired by the event, we are considering producing a monthly series of Oral History videos and podcasts. Each video would be an interview with an HCLE Pioneer. Questions would be standardized. The interviewee would have the opportunity to present several slides, which is one of the benefits of a video rather than a podcast.


  • Exhibits

    • Thanks to some auspicious networking, we are in discussion to create a demonstration exhibit using virtual reality.

  • Operations

    • There are continuing efforts to improve our processes within CiviCRM and our gallery exhibits.

  • LO*OP Center

    • No significant support efforts were required in the quarter.

  • admin

    • A web site and domain name audit was begun to manage site and file proliferation.

 

I just love “open source” people!

The other day I had two awesome conversations with folks who work with CiviCRM, an open-source, constituency relations management platform we are considering for HCLE.  Each of these young gentlemen was knowledgeable, cordial, helpful and imaginative.  Of course they would be — they donate a portion of their work time and know-how to support free software used by nonprofit organizations world-wide. One of them loaded up CiviCRM on our host server so we can try it out without charging a consulting fee. Thank you, Joshua.

One of the most important themes HCLE has to develop is the many ways edtech pioneers, computer hobbyists, students, teachers and company employees found to contribute their efforts for the benefit of all. Sometimes the contributions were intentional – as in the formation of SoftSwap by Computer-Using Educators and the San Mateo County Office of Education. This was before there was much educational software available so teachers wrote their own and put the programs in SoftSwap. From there, anyone could get and use a copy. Talk about “Open Educational Resources“! At other times someone’s creation became “open source” without the expressed consent of its creator — I’m thinking of the episode when one of the Homebrew Computer Club members made copies of Microsoft BASIC and handed them out at a meeting. Bill Gates wasn’t happy about that but once the cat was out of the bag there was no putting it back in. Actually, that event may have been instrumental in spreading Microsoft’s popularity.

The challenge of the “open” movement is how to participate generously in the “sharing economy” without starving in a world dominated by “the dismal science” (economics – meaning a money economy). The fundamental assumption of economic theory is “scarcity” — that to have economic value there must be a shortage or limited supply of something. Software, like many other informational products has an interesting property that puts it in a different category from either “material stuff” (whether raw material or manufactured) or “labor” (which is limited both by the energy of the laborer and the time it takes to do the work). The first instance of a software program may be very expensive to create but the cost of replicating subsequent copies is negligible. How does one make a living in either open source software or open educational resources?

I can think of two solutions: 1. Have a paying gig in some other field and only contribute your leisure time to “open” projects. Geeks who love to code often choose this route. 2. Give away the central core of the software and then let your developer community sell their services to customize these generalized products. That’s how it will work with at least two of the software packages HCLE is trying out: CiviCRM and Mediawiki. That’s how teachers who write open textbooks continue to pay the rent.

So HCLE probably won’t get its open source infrastructure entirely for free in the end. We will have to raise enough money to pay consultants, perhaps the overall expense will not be that much less than buying a pre-configured museum relationship management package. But we’ll get to work with kindred spirits, with people who understand that nickel- and dime-ing a fledgling non-profit doesn’t help build the industry, with seasoned collaborators who regularly participate in “code-a-thons” and have a mission beyond the money.

A lot of people have gotten rich in the computer industry; but a lot more, including me, have gained a supportive and fascinating ‘sharing’ community. Come to think of it, even those who got rich have figured out that they can’t take it with them and have created charitable foundations. I’d better sharpen my proposal-writing pencil so HCLE can afford to stay open-source itself and give away the history we collect.

HCLE Catalog Progress – The Three Cs

One of the most important parts of our Virtual Museum is the catalog, the place where everything will have its place, and from which we will build exhibits and connect items in the collection to related people, institutions and topics. Rather than wait until it is done, we’ve decided to share our progress. The three C’s: Collections, Constituency, Content.

The following is mostly written by Liza Loop. This page, like all pages on the wiki, is a work in progress. Want to help?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Introduction

Here’s the challenge. We have a collection of physical items – books, papers, letters, videos, audios, software on all media, urls, program listings, course syllabi, etc. Most of this “stuff” is on paper. I expect to have at least 10,000 items and grow from there. In addition we have hundreds of web links to digital items other people and organizations have posted on the web. By combining these items in many different ways we can tell the story of how computing was learned and became a tool for learning in general. We need a comprehensive catalog to help us find these items.

We have three types of information to be managed — three C’s. Physical paper needs to be scanned to create digital images readable online. Computers, robot toys and ephemera need to be photographed. Then both physical and digital items need to be cataloged. All of this stuff is the “collection” and should be described in the Collection Catalog (first C). We also need some kind of constituency relationship management software (CRM) to keep track of members, donors, potential funders, authors, staff, volunteers — all the people and institutions that are related to a museum or library or archive. This will probably start with about 3,000 entries and grow. “Constituency” is the second C. I want to relate the people with the items catalog without having to double enter any of the data. For example, the volunteer who enters a piece of software into the catalog should have a record in the CRM and an identifying field (element) in the catalog. The third C is Content, specifically, the content of the web site we are building as a Virtual Museum. So our Collections Management System has to talk to our Constituency Management System and both have to work with our (Web) Content Management System. What are the best (most functional and easiest to maintain) open source tools to use for this? Simple, eh?

A Few Terms, Tools and Standards

2014 is a banner year for museums, libraries, archives and private collections to go digital. If each of us invents a different way of describing what we have to the world of web users most of our valued items will not be found. Hence the need for a common vocabulary (or “ontology”) and global standards. These indexing systems are not handed down from on high by some higher-than-human authority, they are created by groups of humans. The process comprises holding a series of meetings (who attends such meeting is a whole other issue), proposing a list of terms with descriptions, publicizing this list among potential users, trying it out over several years and eventually converging on a single “core” list with idiosyncratic additions (extensions) needed by differing communities of practice (say, automobile parts dealers and 4th grade school teachers). The builders of HCLE wish to be as compatible as possible with global standard as they emerge. The commentary in this section is aimed at exploring the major standards now being developed for describing the kind of “stuff” in our collection.

Digital Resource Locators

As our collection grows, more of our digital items are being hosted (stored on a computer connected to the Internet) by other institutions, (e.g. Stanford University Libraries Special Collections and Internet Archive) and not necessarily in HCLE’s own digital repository. To make these items show up on a museum visitor’s screen requires each one must have its own internet address. There are several competing methods for identifying online resources and HCLE is working on choosing which one to use. For those of you interested in this issue here’s an excellent explanation: About Persistent Identifiers.

Metadata and Ontologies (Specific HCLE details at HCLE Metadata discussions)

The question of how to describe different kinds of objects (items) online is being hotly debated today. Books are fairly straight forward since librarians have been exploring this issue for thousands of years. Other media, such as software, or complex content, such as a programmed teaching workbook, may require more description. HCLE needs a volunteer specialist who can advise us as we proceed down the metadata path. So far we have identified the following resources:

Metadata Agencies and Standards Committees

Some examples of metadata schemes

HCLE Tools

So far I’ve explored MS Access, MySQL, Omeka and I want to look at CiviCRM. One of our volunteer consultants has suggested that we should think of the task as implementing CiviCRM and extending it to include the catalog. I prefer to have the catalog be a single, simple, flat table rather than a complicated relational structure. I’m collecting opinions on this from advisers who have experience in this. I will either have to be dependent on volunteers or raise the money for paid consultants.

Stay tuned.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

There is plenty of work to do, and much of it is industry-wide. If you want to do more than just “Stay tuned”, then let’s talk about how we all can work on this together.

 
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