Geoffrey Rockwell

What is Text Analysis, Really?

The author revisits the question of what text analysis could be. He traces the tools from their origin in the concordance. He argues that text-analysis tools produce new texts generated from queries through processes implemented on the computer. These new texts come from the decomposition of original texts and recomposition into hybrid new works for interpretation. The author ends by presenting a portal model for how text-analysis tools can be made available to the community.

Gore Galore: Literary Theory and Computer Games

Computer games have not beenadequately theorized within the humanities. Inthis paper a brief history of computer games ispresented as a starting point for developing atopology of games and a theory of computergames as rhetorical artifacts suitable forcritical study. The paper addresses thequestion of why games should be treatedseriously and suggests a theoretical approachbased on Bakhtins poetics of the novel wherethe experience of time and space (thechronotope) provides a framework of questionsfor discussing computer games.

Is it research or is it spying? Thinking-through ethics in Big Data AI and other knowledge sciences

Abstract“How to be a knowledge scientist after the Snowden revelations?” is a question we all have to ask as it becomes clear that our work and our students could be involved in the building of an unprecedented surveillance society. In this essay, we argue that this affects all the knowledge sciences such as AI, computational linguistics and the digital humanities. Asking the question calls for dialogue within and across the disciplines. In this article, we will position ourselves with respect to typical stances towards the relationship between (computer) technology and its uses in a surveillance society, and we will look at what we can learn from other fields. We will propose ways of addressing the question in teaching and in research, and conclude with a call to action.

Serious games for patient safety education

Learning to communicate and collaborate effectively within an interprofessional healthcare team is key to improving patient safety. One of the barriers to this learning is a culture where team members do not feel psychologically safe to speak up or make decisions that might improve patient safety. With serious games – or video games for educational purposes – the learner can explore and learn about patient safety issues on their own in a safe environment before encountering challenges in the real world. Serious games engage the learner through exploration and experimentation, and support learning through increased visualization and creativity (Westera et al. 2008; Mansour & El-Said 2009).This experience can be enhanced through debriefing exercises facilitated by an instructor or reflective practice. The purpose of this study is to pilot test an inexpensive prototype of a serious game with a group of interprofessional health students to determine if the game provides opportunities to learn about patient safety. The game was constructed around a series of scenarios created in consultation with a physician, enabling the player to explore patient safety-related learning objectives within a virtual hospital setting. Players enter into conversations with characters and choose what response to provide from a given selection. At the end of the game, students review their actions, and are provided feedback about their choices. Fourteen participants tested the prototype and filled out the questionnaire. The evaluation of the prototype demonstrated that there is potential for this tool to help students learn to overcome some of the barriers to communications and teamwork that can lead to improved patient safety. The participants enjoyed playing the game, learned something about team communications and thought this was a valid method for learning about patient safety. In addition, this game would be of great benefit to teaching through reflective practice. Diane Aubin, Sharla King, & Patricia Boechler, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G5, Canada, E-mail: vist@ualberta.ca

The Big See: Large Scale Visualization

Display size and resolution has been increasing at a steady pace with the economies of scale of computing. Wall-sized displays, previously only seen in specialized centres are now affordable and being used for information visualization. But what do we know about the constraints and opportunities in designing for such Large Scale Information Displays (LSiDs)? How can one design text visualizations to take advantage of the large scale and public space of a LSiD? In this paper we describe the variety of technologies being used to create LSIDs and some example installations. We then discuss the literature about LSID information design and present two visualization ideas we have developed for LSiDs called the Big See and LAVA. We conclude with design principles that we have drawn up to guide our work.

Serious play at hand: Is gaming serious research in the humanities?

Games are used to teach the humanities not for research. We are not even comfortable studying games seriously, let alone proposing that games could be a form of research. It is only recently that computer games have become the subject of serious humanities inquiry. [Note 1] At the same time there is a tradition that proposes that what we do in the humanities is a form of play, even if it is serious play. In theorists like Huizinga, Bakhtin, and Gadamer play is presented as a component of humanities practice. The playful dimension of the dialogue of the humanities is that which distinguishes our (hermeneutical) methods from those in the social and natural sciences. If we want to resist becoming a (human) science we need to reassert the playfulness of representation and interpretation. That means acknowledging the place of games and game theory in our practice. In this component of the panel Geoffrey Rockwell will make the case for building games and playing them as a way of modeling and then reflecting on our activities that is in the spirit of the humanities. Geoffrey Rockwell was invited to sit in on the design of the Game and will provide a concluding presentation that reflects on the witnessed process of developing Ivanhoe as itself a recognizable form of research that combines the play of the symposium with the implementation demands of digital practice.

TACTweb: The Intersection of Text-Analysis and Hypertext.

While hypertext systems are changing the way we communicate, many computing humanists have concentrated on how computers can help with the study of traditional texts. The TACTweb workbook was designed to teach humanities students to use computer-assisted text-analysis tools in a hypertext environment thus bridging the study of electronic editions of classics and the study of new forms of text. TACTweb is a World Wide Web based text-analysis environment that represents the results of text queries as hypertexts. The TACTweb workbook is a hypertext tutorial that introduces students first to both the hypertextual capabilities of electronic literature and to the analysis of electronic editions of traditional texts. The TACTweb workbook has been remodeled using feedback from a student questionnaire in order to improve the interface.

Campus mysteries: Serious walking around

The Campus Mysteries project developed an augmented reality game platform called fAR-Play and a learning game called Campus Mysteries with the platform. This paper reports on the development of the platform, the development of the game, and a assessment of the playability of the game. We conclude that augmented reality games are a viable model for learning and that the process of development is itself the site of learning.

Trading Stories: an Oral History Conversation between Geoffrey Rockwell and Julianne Nyhan

This extended interview with Geoffrey Rockwell was carried out via Skype on the 28th April 2012. He narrates that he had been aware of computing developments when growing up in Italy but it was in college in the late 1970s that he took formal training in computing. He bought his first computer, an Apple II clone, after graduation when he was working as a teacher in the Middle East. Throughout the interview he reflects on the various computers he has used and how the mouse that he used with an early Macintosh instinctively appealed to him. By the mid-1980s he was attending graduate school in the University of Toronto and was accepted on to the Apple Research Partnership Programme, which enabled him to be embedded in the central University of Toronto Computing Services; he went on to hold a full time position there. Also taking a PhD in Philosophy, he spent many lunch times talking with John Bradley. This resulted in the building of text analysis tools and their application to Humes Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, as well as some of the earliest, if not the earliest, conference paper on visualisation in the digital humanities community. He reflects on the wide range of influences that shaped and inspired his early work in the field, for example, the Research Computing Group at the University of Toronto and their work in visual programming environments. In 1994 he applied, and was hired at McMaster University to what he believes was the first job openly advertised as a humanities computing position in Canada. After exploring the opposition to computing that he encountered he reflects that the image of the underdog has perhaps become a foundational myth of digital humanities and questions whether it is still a useful one.

The Humanities Matter! Infographic

The Humanities are academic disciplines that seek to understand and interpret the human experience, from individuals to entire cultures, engaging in the discovery, preservation, and communication of the past and present record to enable a deeper understanding of contemporary society. The Humanities encompass literature, classics, ancient and modern languages, history, philoso - phy, media studies, the fine and performing arts, and other related subjects. It can be a challenge to show the benefits the Humanities bring: in this infographic we gather available evidence to show the Humanities matter!