Reflection – Online Portfolio

Why Does Korean American History Matter?

Creating a digital platform for the general public to learn about the history and culture of Korean Americans is important in today’s society because America is a country that has a rich history waiting to be uncovered and shared with the rest of the world. As an American, I am proud of my country and its heritage because I enjoyed learning about it throughout K-12 and college. However, as a Korean American, I do not know much about Korean Americans in American history. If someone asked me about the first wave of Korean immigrant migration to the U.S. while I was in high school many years ago, I would have to search for it elsewhere because it was not mentioned in the textbook during that time. If someone asked me if I knew about significant Korean Americans who played a role in U.S. government, politics, and economy while I was in college, then I would have to Google it. The limited information that was offered to me as a student in public school and college fueled my curiosity to find out more.

It was during my early years of teaching when I came to the realization that I had to learn more about a topic that I was not responsible for teaching in order to help my students connect selected literary works to history. I was teaching Asian American Literature, and I knew history, just like in any literature course, was an important element. Also, culture was an inevitable companion element to learning about history. However, I had very limited knowledge of Asian American history. I grew up in the South. I know it is not an excuse, but I think it is important because it is one of the reasons why I began the process of learning more about Asian American history. This information was not found in my old college textbooks as well as current U.S. History textbooks. I found the information by researching books and journal articles referencing Asian American history. However, I was still not satisfied because my students were accustomed to searching for information online that captures their immediate attention. To deter them from using Wikipedia as their single source for historical information, I realized that I had to direct them to credible and engaging sites. Still, I was not convinced that they were enough. I wanted that OMG or wow factor to be there when the students discover new information. I wanted them to examine and analyze information while learning to make their own arguments about it.

As a Digital Humanities scholar, I started the process of designing a website that explores Korean American history and culture in Texas. Also, I designed a website that linked reputable websites about Japanese American history during World War II to the novels that my students were reading for the course. I plan to design another website that links reputable websites about Vietnam War, Vietnamese diaspora, and Operation Babylift to an assigned novel written by a Vietnamese American author. In the meantime, I am learning about my own Korean American heritage by researching and documenting Korean American history and culture from Texas to the DMV area.

While I was working on my Korean American history and culture project for Texas, I discovered exciting information about Korean Americans in the South by interviewing people and visiting Koreatowns and cities that are heavily influenced by hardworking Korean Americans. While I was working on my internship for the Smithsonian Institution, I became curious of the history of Korean Americans in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. We rarely hear about Asian Americans in American history in schools, and we become more aware about it when we are in college (depending on the courses). Instead of waiting for someone or an organization to make a website to share the information about Korean American history and culture in the U.S., I decided that it was time to make a digital humanities website that celebrates and acknowledges it. Such historical information should not go unnoticed, especially when we live in a digital world that allows access to information globally. While it is waiting to be recognized and acknowledged as part of American history, Korean American history should be uncovered and shared with the public on an accessible digital platform.

May 15, 2018 (Final Self-Reflection)

The best way to learn more about Digital Humanities is working with people who have the knowledge and expertise in the field. After learning from the best professors selected by the GMU program, I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Pamela (Pam) Henson, Historian for Smithsonian Institution Archives, and her research assistant, Lisa. During my internship with the Smithsonian for two semesters, I have gained new skills to help me complete my digital public humanities site and to teach my undergraduate students about digital humanities as an introductory course. For this Spring semester, I used what I have learned in my graduate courses as well as from my own teaching experience to design an oral history collection. Pam selected Lucile Quarry Mann to be the first from the many collections (150 and counting) for my internship project.

Before I worked with Pam, I had minimal knowledge about oral history. After reading and researching more about oral history, I realized how it is a crucial component of digital humanities and the preservation of living history. Listening to the recorded interviews, which were originally recorded with tape recorders in the 1970s, has helped me to appreciate the unique discourse of oral history interviews between an interviewer and interviewee. The concept of digitizing audio recordings of interviews is fascinating because it allows the current audience to have access to living history in different formats. I also learned the importance of keeping track of everything such as documenting each interview with detailed information by viewing the transcripts and notes that were documented by Pam.

Designing a digital platform for an oral history collection comes with several challenges. One of the challenges was to present the material in a way that would engage a broad audience. In the designing stages of the digital platform, I used the skills that I have learned from the DH courses and my teaching experience. I have been teaching online since 2007, and one of my courses introduces students to think and analyze visual content from a rhetorical perspective for a writing course. Another challenge was selecting a segment of a full interview to introduce to the audience. The interview segment had to be short (5 minutes or less). There were a couple of interesting segments that lasted 10 minutes, but they were too long. The next challenge was to select images from the archives to correspond with the interview. In addition to posting images and text with the interview segment (e.g. image carousel), I came up with an idea of creating videos that combined the audio recording of the selected interview segment with images. I enjoyed the creative process of making a video because I was able to improve my video making skills while incorporating some of the techniques and skills that I have learned from my DH courses. The other challenge was making sure that there was enough memory or space for posting images and videos on the selected web page. These challenges provided a pathway for designing a digital platform for an oral history collection.

Working with Pam and Lisa has helped me to re-envision my design for Lucile Q. Mann’s oral history collection. From our weekly teleconferences and feedbacks, we collaborated to make the oral history and video history collections website possible for future launching. The progress is steady. Their helpful feedbacks were encouraging. I also provided feedback for the introductory pages of the oral history and video history collections website. Pam created a template that was modeled after my web page designs for Lucile Q. Mann’s oral history collection for future interns who will be working to put together oral history collections for the Smithsonian Institution. I am very excited that my work helped with designing the template for future oral history collections. I am very proud to be part of their project. I enjoyed working with a supportive and intelligent group, and I look forward to viewing the oral history collection on the Smithsonian Institution website when it is completed.

This semester’s internship has given me a new perspective on how oral history plays a significant role as a component of Digital Humanities. Presenting information from the past to an audience of the present and future is less challenging when certain digital tools, theories, and skills are used. How do we keep the changing audience interested in the people of the past? What digital tools are useful for creating and designing a new digital platform to present the past? How do we try to preserve the past without losing sight of our focus? Even though the past will remain constant in a form of a recorded interview in the case of Lucile Quarry Mann’s oral history collection, it is up to the digital humanities scholar/specialist to work with others to keep it visible and interesting in the present and for the future. It is also up to a collaborative group of people with various skill sets to help preserve the past and curate it as part of living history. Therefore, I plan to continue networking with people to encourage collaboration for my own digital public humanities project on Korean American history and culture while working on honing my oral history interviewing skills for future interviews.

April 13, 2018

Since my March post, I have been working on designing and creating an oral history page for Lucile Quarry Mann. After listening to more than 30 hours of audio recorded interviews and reviewing the transcripts, I selected at least 4 interesting segments from the interviews as featured items. I enjoyed the selection process because I became more familiar with Lucile Mann’s life. Her life with Dr. William Mann was exciting and adventurous. Also, I enjoyed listening to Pam Henson’s interviewing techniques because they will help me to develop a better understanding of oral history and approaching it from a different perspective. Pam’s discourse with Lucile Mann revealed exciting stories about the couple and how they contributed to the Smithsonian history and culture.

The process of linking the images to the selected interview segments was very challenging. First, I had to research the Smithsonian Archives for images to match the interview segments. Second, I had to splice the exact point an interview segment begins and ends. Third, I had difficulty narrowing down my selections. I tried my best to stay within the 5 minutes or less for the interview selections. Fourth, I was unable to find specific images for one of the interview segments that I thought would be a great featured item to entice the audience to listen to the full interviews. Even though the interviews were audio recordings, I was determined to make a video that synchronizes the audio recording segment with the images that were from the Mann family collections (e.g. photo albums, field books, and journals). During this process, I constantly thought about my audience. I created and designed for two different personas who would be most interested in listening to the oral history interviews, especially Lucy Mann’s interviews. Here is a link to the video in YouTube: https://youtu.be/lhpLiLftZpc

In one of our weekly meetings, I informed Pam and Lisa that I was unable to find most of the images for one of the segmented interviews. Pam sent excellent files for me to search for more images. These files allowed me to explore another segment that might be interesting to the audience. Pam designed the Oral History Intro Page. Lisa designed the Oral Histories summaries page. I designed Lucile Quarry Mann’s page for the Oral History Collection. However, when we had our meeting, we provided feedback for each other’s design because it was a collaborative effort. I designed Lucile Mann’s page in a landscape layout, so that it would closely resemble an actual web page. I tried to stay within the current guidelines of the Smithsonian’s Natural History website. I used my skills from my GMU course in designing a digital platform for a public humanities and history website. For L. Mann’s page, I tried to keep it less crowded and spaced out with a main image of Lucile Mann, a short bio section, an image carousel, segment clips with transcript, and a video that combines the audio recording of interview with images in synchronization. I had to post it in YouTube because the video was too large to send via email. I also added closed caption and transcript. I included a link to access the full interviews with a short description to tap into the curiosity of the audience to find out more about Lucy’s adventurous life. For the description, I kept the language simple and engaging. I learned this technique in my GMU coursework in Digital Humanities. Also, I added a Finding Aid link and links for additional resources that reference Lucile Q. Mann within the Smithsonian Archives and website.

My project was challenging, but I enjoyed it. It made me think about ways to redesign my own public humanities website. It also encouraged me to work with people from different professions and listen to good feedback. Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity are key elements in presenting a living history on a digital platform. This project has given me a chance to work on honing my video making and audio synchronization skills. Therefore, I look forward to seeing the finished product.

March 9, 2018

For the past few weeks, I have been working with Pam and her assistant Lisa to redesign and re-envision the Smithsonian’s oral history website. After reviewing, evaluating, and discussing 8 different oral history websites, each of us came up with ideas for a website redesign plan. I used the skills that were learned during my GMU Digital Humanities coursework. I also incorporated skills from designing my own websites. I imagined at least 2 different personas to approach my design from an audience’s perspective. Then, I typed a document that explains each part of the redesigned website. After I wrote my draft, I sketched what the redesigned website would look like. I learned this skill in Dr. Leon’s class when I was designing my public history website. I drew 4 different web pages of the website with a pencil (traced it over with a dark blue ink pen) on white sheets of 8 x11 paper: main page, about page, oral history interview pages A and B. I included a menu with clearly labeled buttons that will allow the user to learn about the site, navigate the oral history collections, listen and/view the oral history interviews, and read about interview’s background. It also included copyright information, a finding aid, map, timeline, and a contribution page for future crowdsourcing. Then, I scanned the completed sketches and saved them into a .pdf file. At the time I was redesigning the website, I was unaware that they had a current website. I was referencing the old website from 2004. I was informed about the current website when Pam, Lisa, and I re-convened to discuss our redesign plans. Fortunately, it all worked out. I suggested adding a timeline and map. The importance of having a timeline and/or map was something I learned in Dr. Kelly’s class. It helps the audience visualize the locations and time period when connecting them to the historical content. Also, I suggested placing a short video 1-2 minutes on the main page to introduce one of their featured collections to draw in the audience and engage them to explore their site and oral history collections. The other option was to include 1 or 2 paragraphs about the featured collection with selected images.

The next part of my internship is to create a way to sort and bring one of the collections together. Pam has suggested focusing on women at the Smithsonian, so we agreed it was good start. I received several audio interview recordings, transcripts, blog links about Lucile (Lucy) Quarry Mann. I am in the process of listening to the interviews while viewing the transcripts. Each interview is 30 minutes or more. During this time, I have created a short video (59 seconds) to get an idea of what a short video would look like to draw the audience to Lucy Mann’s oral history interviews. I used iMovie to created my video. Since the video was too large to send via email to Pam and Lisa, I had to post it on my YouTube Channel. Here is a link to my humble and short video: https://youtu.be/caC-9EFBcGM

February 9, 2018

I enjoyed the selected readings that were recommended by my Smithsonian mentor, Pam Henson. She encouraged me to read Oral History and Digital Humanities edited by Douglas A. Boyd and Mary A. Larson before I start my internship work. The essays in the book helped me to see a different perspective of Digital Humanities, and it gave me enough background information of how oral history became integrated into the digital world. Also, oral history is a component of Digital Humanities, and it has some interesting roots. Each of the authors described their challenges and recommendations of presenting oral history on a digital platform. The methods described in the book were insightful and informative. With advancing technology, they had to constantly tweak a few things to present oral history interviews online. The concept of the audience from each author reminded me of my GMU Digital Humanities course lesson on audience or user. I thought about the type of persona they had to imagine when making adjustments to their work. In addition to budget concerns and having enough manpower, collaboration was a key factor. This book provided good resources, past and present, that revealed the changes and importance of keeping the content significant with advancing technology. I reviewed some of the older oral history websites and noticed how they much they have changed due to change in technology, budget, manpower, collaboration, and audience. Therefore, these changes are no different from creating and maintaining a digital public humanities site.

Also, Pam introduced me to 8 different Oral History websites for evaluation. Pam, Lisa (Pam’s research assistant), and I are in the process of evaluating them in order to design Smithsonian’s Oral History Archive online. So far, I have reviewed 3 oral history websites. Carefully evaluating each site helped me to come up with ideas to improve my own public humanities website. There are themes and trends that seem to be outdated on a few sites, but the content is very useful if certain things were changed. Even though I am evaluating each site from my own perspective, I am constantly reminded in the back of my mind that the user is also looking for something else. During my coursework, I learned about the importance of designing a digital platform with several personae in mind. The digital tools and presentation of the oral history interviews are very important. The description or metadata comes back to haunt me in a good way. Learning about Dublin Core at the beginning of the GMU DH program helped me to look for the basic elements for each interview. Also, I am learning to see differences on how transcripts are displayed on each site.

The work that I have completed for the past few weeks have encouraged me to use my learned knowledge during my GMU coursework and experience with designing my own digital public humanities and teaching history and literature sites. I am excited about working with Pam and Lisa. Pam has been very helpful, and I appreciate the knowledge she has shared with me. I look forward to working on their oral history archive site.

December 2017

From November through December 12th, I worked on project summaries for the Smithsonian Transcription Center. My mentor, Ricc Ferranter, introduced me to Trello (web-based project management board) and walked me through the process of drafting and launching project summaries for crowdsourcing. Each slideshow required research, and I enjoyed researching various topics. The more I read each one, the more I wanted to know about certain things. The biggest challenge was trying to select one of the items in the documents that will capture the audience and lead them to transcribe them. There was so much interesting information that the selection process was challenging and fun. The Smithsonian Transcription Center relies on crowdsourcing for their transcriptions, so my goal was to draft short and engaging summaries with a good hook. In addition to writing summaries, I researched information about the selected topic and selected online sources that will provide additional information about it.

Crowdsourcing is challenging, but it has its benefits. By drafting and revising the project summaries, I learned to tweak my words to capture a broad audience. Keeping the summaries short (3-4 sentences) was a great challenge. To make the summaries a little more interesting, Ricc suggested that I add web links for specific information; so the transcribers can have access to additional information via the web. Working with Ricc was awesome. He provided helpful feedback for each of my summaries. Ricc taught me to see things from a different perspective.

Working as a virtual intern is an amazing experience. Ricc and I communicated on a weekly basis by phone, email, and Trello. He was very patient and informative. He provided useful and informative feedback. Using Trello helped me to organize my assignments and to communicate any changes or updates with my Smithsonian mentor. Working on a digital platform was convenient for both of us. Also, waiting to see how the transcribing process from the digital volunteers was coming along was exciting. Ricc would provide an update, and I would take a peek at the transcriptions.

For my internship, I used some of the skills I learned about crowdsourcing from my GMU Digital Public Humanities coursework. I had to constantly think about my audience, which meant shortening my sentences and being selective with my words to engage the audience. I recalled the persona exercise I had to do for one of my courses, and I put that into practice when drafting the summaries. Researching and adding the links to the summaries reinforced the concept of what is appropriate for a broad audience. Also, I had to think about copyright issues and be selective with web content when linking the websites to the project summaries. By using what I have learned from my coursework, I was able to draft project summaries for a broad audience.

My internship work with Ricc and the Smithsonian Transcription Center connected me to a digital world of communication. Even though I did not know the digital transcribers, I had a virtual connection with them by writing the project summaries. After my project summaries were launched on the STC website, I was able to see how the audience responded to each one of them. The virtual communication between different audiences to meet a certain goal via the web is truly amazing. The concept of digital humanities is reflected in this internship project. History comes alive when digital volunteers partake in the crowdsourcing efforts with Smithsonian Transcription Center.

What I enjoyed most about the internship is being introduced to different historical documents for review and research. Also, I enjoyed communicating with Ricc about my process and what things I need to revise/edit. Ricc is a very supportive mentor. I admire Ricc’s work and dedication. He does his best to keep the digital volunteers interested in the transcribing. I also had a chance to see how the public responds to my project summaries. My internship assignment with the Smithsonian Transcription Center opened my mind to thinking about my audience throughout the entire process, and it helped me to understand and appreciate crowdsourcing. Therefore, I have gained a new perspective on how digital humanities keeps history alive through digital communications.

A Reflection on Previous Interviews

After viewing the previous interviews, I learned that the process of revising and narrowing a lesson is the norm. During the project making process, I was a little worried that I was not getting my point across; and I continued to add more material. Celeste and Jeri mentions starting with an existing argument, and I thought about Dr. Kelly’s advice to narrow my focus on what part of the historical content does not make sense to my students. I will narrow my focus and not make it bigger than it should be. Also, I will select 1-3 primary sources to help my students think about history and make connections to the novel. Teaching students to access primary sources online from reliable websites is very important. Also, teaching students what to do with the primary sources is very challenging but exciting. The focus on digital media or digital resources are mentioned in all of the interviews. Maura Seale makes an excellent point about teaching students to engage with the primary sources by exposing them to archives and collections. Devon Hardy’s emphasis on Learning Objectives is spot on because she knows the importance of keeping the audience in mind while creating a digital history project. I added a few learning outcomes on my site. She also mentioned learning assessment, which is very important these days in education. For the future, I will have to consider a plan to design an assessment for my project’s learning outcomes.

Designing my project site will require a few more changes because I would like to use it as a supplement to my course in ecampus. It would be a good ready to go class as mentioned by Erin Bush. If ecampus (Blackboard) is down, then I can always refer to my project site without worries. Also, I can make additional changes without dealing with weekly and unwanted system updates. My project did not turn out what I wanted initially, but I enjoyed the process of creating it. Nate Sleeter also mentioned that his project did not come out exactly as he was hoping. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that digital history projects are work in progress due to changing times, advancing technology, differing perspectives, innovative teaching methods, broadening of diversity, and new ideas. There is always going to be something interesting to uncover when learning about the past, and in the field Digital Humanities, a digital history project is one of the means of engaging the general public, students, and/or scholars to explore, examine, and analyze the past.

Final Reflection

Building a prototype for Koreatowns in North Texas has been a challenging experience. This course has helped me to take a step back from the initial stages of my project and reconsider my audience. While learning about user-centered approaches to designing a digital project site, I encountered other challenges that I did not consider in the beginning. By studying the physical and digital spaces of a history museum, I was able to see things clearer. Also, studying various digital public history sites was very insightful. Learning about the different digital interfaces and digital tools, reading various scholarship on the digital public history, and testing digital public history sites have helped me to build a prototype.

I selected Omeka for the prototype because it was user-friendly and easy to navigate. It also allowed me to design my project site with creative freedom. The storyboarding technique, mentioned in Shawn Medero’s article “Paper Prototyping,” helped me to visualize the interface for Koreatowns in North Texas. In addition to storyboarding, I learned about the importance of testing and evaluating the prototype. I asked several people to visit Koreatowns in North Texas and provide feedback. Their comments helped me to see things that would be helpful for the audience when navigating the site. The comments from Dr. Leon were also helpful. My classmate’s review/feedback was helpful, but I think having more than one classmate to review the site would have been more helpful to gain more than one perspective.

Overall, I learned that building a prototype for a digital public history site is very challenging; yet the process is a great learning experience. This course has allowed to me explore things that I would not have done on my own such as building a prototype, accessing course materials, and learning different techniques to engage the audience. Since there is little information available online about the history and culture of Koreatowns and Korean Americans in North Texas, I was excited to build a prototype for the information to be available to the public. Finding time to take the images was a little bit challenging because I had to find the time to visit the places during the week and before sundown. After taking the images, I carefully selected the images that would be the best fit for the prototype. Before I learned to incorporate oral history into the prototype, I learned how to interview wonderful people who have close connections to the Korean American communities in North Texas. Another challenge that I encountered was the visual display of my images and text. I learned to experiment with different layouts of the images in Omeka. Writing short descriptions and narratives paved the way for me to understand my audience better. I had to consider the language usage and colloquialism, so I would not lose my audience to an abyss of words. Despite the challenges, I received so much support from the Korean American community. Finding the right people to interview was easy, but finding the time to interview them in person was a good challenge. Also, Dr. Sharon Leon has provided supportive and constructive feedback to lead me in the direction of learning something new in order to see the benefits down the road when I further develop my prototype.

Before the end of this semester, I revisited Michael Frisch’s article. In “From A Shared Authority to the Digital Kitchen and Back,” Michael Frisch explains the purpose of exploring: “Exploring, I think, is more interesting than searching, and it suggests a non-linear spatial imagination rather than a linear, tunneled one: one inhabits a space that is being explored rather than simply forging a narrowing path through it” (133). For my prototype, I came to a realization that I want the audience to explore instead of just search for information and images on the site. I want them to come away with some ideas or information that make them think about the reasons why Korean American history is rarely available online. Also, I hope their explorations and curiosities can help me to continue building the prototype. Ultimately, I want Koreatowns in North Texas to be our digital public history project by inviting people from different backgrounds and experiences to share in the building of the site as a community. The key to making the prototype available to the public would be an engaging collaboration with the audience. Echoing Corbett and Miller, “Honest sharing, a willingness to surrender some intellectual control, is the hardest part of public history practice because it is the aspect most alien to academic temperament and training” (36), I am steadily learning to take less control of my project and reconsider my audience. The question of “How do I engage my audience?” changed to “What are some changes that can be made to the prototype for audience engagement while connecting them to the purpose of preserving the history and culture of Koreatowns in North Texas and the Korean American experience?”

A Reflection on the Complexities of Creating Public History for a Specific Place

Working on digital public history that is tied to a specific place has its advantages and disadvantages. The complexities include various parts of history that are to be covered about a specific place. Digital technologies have allowed the implementation of mobile devices such as the smartphone to view public history from different locations and spaces. For The Philly.org project, “Mobile augmented reality applications serve as a method for engaging with smartphone users as they conduct their daily tasks, rather than requiring them to visit a physical building or invest time in a laptop or desktop computer” (Boyer and Marcus). The audience is given access to the public history site from different locations and time in a digital space. To overcome the complexities of designing a digital public history for a specific place/location, project designers should consider the three responsive approaches: how they want it, when they want it, and what they want (Baer, Fry, and Davis). By studying these responsive approaches, project designers are able to use certain digital technologies to enable the viewing of public history from different perspectives.

Also, the implementation of digital technologies has created new ways of delivering oral history to the public. In reference to the Cleveland Historical project, Mark Tebeau explains, “Ironically, digital tools have presented us with new dilemmas precisely by presenting new possibilities, such as allowing us to more easily edit oral histories. As a result, we are brought closer to the human voice than ever before, no longer experiencing oral history as mediated by the transcript or interpretation”(33). With advanced technology, oral histories are transcribed, recorded, and presented in various ways to capture a wide audience. Paraphrasing Wineburg,“With this in mind, the Center for Public History + Digital Humanities has moved toward an activist model of curation in which team members develop interpretive stories that introduce historical and cultural contexts that challenge audiences to understand history in a new fashion—a practice in line with the process of historical research and thinking” (Tebeau 32). Instead of just listening to oral history online, the audience is allowed to think about history in a different way and derive ideas or questions that invite new approaches to the historical content.

Digital technologies have reinforced the concept of collaboration. Tebeau argues,“inspired by the promise of social history and the radical ways that oral history can restructure power relations, we moved toward curating the city in collaboration with the community, rather than curating it for the city’s many constituencies” (30). Digital technologies have enabled the concept of collaboration within the project community and with the community. “Of particular note, this collaborative oral history project pro vides a transformative way of understanding “place” and of moving beyond an emphasis on visual interpretive practice, in order to provide a deeper way of building interpretive stories for public humanities exhibitions on mobile computing devices” (Tebeau 25). Digital technologies have challenged the concept of traditional collaboration vs. non-traditional collaboration. By taking on a humanistic approach, project designers implement digital technologies to allow a wide audience to take part in contributing to the place specific, public history site.

Furthermore, digital technologies can be used to include a different type of communication and engagement with an audience in digital space. Presenting place specific, public history in a physical space versus a digital space can be challenging; however, digital technologies are being used in different ways to provide the audience with a similar experience as if they were touring the exhibit in person or sometimes presenting more ways of audience engagement. The location-based projects are user centered. The Murder on Beacon Hill project engages the audience to peer into what had happened in the past by providing an interesting narrative that speaks to the audience and takes them on a journey in digital space. The maps, images of the place in past and present, and the architecture invite an engaging communication between the site and the audience. The narrative is presented in segments to allow the audience to search different points of the digital history of Beacon Hill. Digital technologies have enabled the public history site to engage the audience audience by inviting them to explore a mysterious past and to question what had happened during that time and location.

However, there are some challenges when implementing digital technologies for a public history project. Digital technologies might inhibit the seamless transition from physical space to digital space. Some of the contents that are presented in the museum may not be available in digital space due to various issues. According to Hart and Brownbill, “The amount of content available on the app when out of the museum or exhibition is an issue for some, striking a balance between the in-museum and out of museum experience is challenging…A major challenge was to present all these types of content in a meaningful way.” Also, certain objects that can be viewed in a physical space might not be the same when viewed in digital space. For example, “Due to rapid technological changes, specifically in the technology used in mobile augmented reality or in placing objects in 3D space as in the case of PhillyHistory.org, implementing an augmented reality project requires an advanced level of technical knowledge” (Boyer and Marcus). Viewing objects in a physical space allows the visitor to have a 3D image of them. However, digital technologies need to be carefully selected to create the same effect as if the object was viewed in person in a digital space.

Another challenge is the access to mobile devices. For example, not everyone has access to smartphones. “Although the smartphone market is growing rapidly, many individuals do not own a device that would enable them to access an augmented reality application.” (Boyer and Marcus). By focusing more on mobile devices, the site begins to ignore the disenfranchised/marginalized audience.

The materials and exploration sites for Module 8 have allowed to me consider how location-based techniques can be implemented into my project. The mobile format for my project will require some modifications and additional digital tools. Creating a seamless transition from the website to mobile app will be challenging; however, it will be an exciting challenge because it will adapt to the changing ways of viewing things on a smartphone and engaging my audience. At the same time, I am wondering if Iess is more when implementing digital technologies to capture a wide audience for my project.

A Reflection on Oral History in DPH Projects

Digital technologies have provided different ways of including and delivering oral history in a digital space. There are systems or software programs that are available to help project designers to include oral history in a digital space. For example, “The Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS), a web-based system, provides users with word-level search capability and a time- correlated transcript or index, connecting the textual search term to the corresponding moment in the recorded interview online” (Boyd 95). On the other hand, there are some challenges that complicate the practice of oral history. According to Boyd, “… it still remains underutilized because oral history can be a cumbersome resource to use, even in an online environment” (95). Initially, OHMS was developed for transcribed oral history; and it became a challenge in the digital space. Also, “Software designed to offer access to archived materials is not sensitive to specific challenges posed by oral histories” (Boyd 96).

The American Folklife Center uses Oracle APEX for their platform. Groce and Lyons “expect the online platform developed for the Occupational Folklore Project to result in cost-efficient protocols for the acquisition of oral history materials from partners in geographically dispersed locations…to minimize the work of translating and mediating data that accompanies these acquisitions” (65). It allows the user to include content with less complications.

Another challenge is the cost of transcribing and auditing oral history. “The digital index has the advantage of being a true timecode; however, very few digital archival systems have been developed to automate the linking of the timecode representing the segment created to the corresponding moment in the interview” (Boyd 101). As a result, “Indexing in OHMS allows us to create a workflow that puts these interviews online much more quickly and efficiently at a very low cost” (Boyd 103). It is not cheap. So, OHMS developed a better option. Currently, OHMS is free. Also, OHMS is compatible with certain programs. For example, “As part of this initiative, OHMS is being developed as a plug-in, working seamlessly with other content management systems, including Omeka, Kora, CONTENTdm, and Drupal” (Boyd 96). There are helpful video tutorials (and transcripts) on how to use OHMS for annotating oral history.

Furthermore, there is a challenge of having too many topics. The Occupational Folkore Project, designed by the American Folklife Center, came up with a great solution. “To address this challenge, we again worked with our archiving and cataloging colleagues to develop a controlled vocabulary, a list of preselected words and terms designed to limit ambiguity and aid the search and retrieval of information” (Groce and Lyons 62). This solution created an efficient way to catalog the topics prior to the oral history interviews.

To ensure that the project site maintains its user centered focus, testing the site at various times is very helpful. Including oral history in a digital space presents another complication that can be good for the project designers. American Folklife Center uses Beta-testing, which they rely on volunteers from libraries, schools, organizers, etc. This allows the AFC to “use testers’ feedback to refine our [their] procedures and improve our protocols” (Groce and Lyons 65). Referring to Angela Colter’s “Testing Content,” “Whatever your budget, timeline, and access to users, there’s a method to test whether your content is appropriate for the people reading it.” Therefore, testing the site is a win-win situation for both the project designers and users.

The articles and project sites for Oral History (Module 7) have strongly influenced my proposed decision to add an oral history component to my project. Here is the link for my OHMS annotation assignment: https://ohms.uky.edu/preview/?id=35461. I plan to add interviews to complement the Exhibit items in Omeka. Also, the oral history component would be a great add-on for including and engaging the audience. I might consider adding an option for the audience to add their oral history of Koreatowns in North Texas by selecting one of the two options: text or recording (voice/video). They can upload a document or type their history in the space provided (with word limit), or they can upload a short video. The transcription of the oral history will be beneficial for me and the audience. I like the idea of the segmented transcription of oral history in OHMS. If either text or video includes Korean language, I will have to find a way to translate it in either format. Adding the oral history, in the form of text, voice, or video recording, reflects a humanistic approach to my digital public history project. The audience will be introduced to real people and their stories in order to make human connections in a digital space. The connections result in engaging and interesting communication that will help me improve my project.