Academic, Educational, Research Services

Campus collections: New systems for education and outreach

Chris Hoffman, IST–Data Services — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

UC Berkeley is home to numerous world-class museums, visual resource collections, archives, and other collecting institutions. While campus museums have always placed a strong emphasis on the stewarding and safekeeping of these collections and on fostering collections-based research, increasingly their role in education and public service has grown. Recently, IST released two systems that highlight this trend: CineFiles (for the PFA Library and Film Study Center within the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive) and the Botanical Garden Plant Propagation Information web system (for the UC Botanical Garden).

CollectionSpace webinars announced

Chris Hoffman, IST–Data Services — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The CollectionSpace project is hosting three webinars to introduce people to CollectionSpace, the open-source, web-based software application for the description, management, and dissemination of museum collections information. Webinar participants will get an advanced look at CollectionSpace; meet the design and development teams; learn about the software's advanced architecture, functionality, and user experience; hear about the production schedule and deployment plans; and learn how to get involved with the project. Each webinar will conclude with a question-and-answer session.

Improving the IT experience for incoming students

Dedra Chamberlin, CalNet Team — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

In spring 2009, the CalNet team partnered closely with staff in Student Affairs–myBerkeleyApp and IST–Web Applications to implement a number of changes, such as reducing the wait time for creating CalNet IDs, to help improve the experience new students have when they first access electronic resources on campus.

Collection management systems for campus museums: CollectionSpace 0.1 released

Chris Hoffman, IST–Data Services — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The CollectionSpace project team has released version 0.1 of its open-source collection management system for museums. This Hello World release focuses on tying the technology layers together around the function of basic object entry. Those interested in collections are encouraged to experiment with the Hello World release and provide feedback to the project team. CollectionSpace is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Campus adopts collaborative tools strategy

Ian Crew, Rick Jaffe, and Aron Roberts, IST–Data Services — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The campus's strategy to support collaboration through information technology is focused on building our readiness to "plug-in" new and innovative collaborative tools into research, teaching and learning, public service, and campus business. Among its goals are to enhance identity management, improve access to campus data for use in collaborative activities, provide clarity on when and how our data can be stored and used outside campus borders, and build communities to help guide the selection and productive use of collaborative tools.

Using Natural Language Processing and Social Network Analysis to study ancient Babylonian society

Patrick Schmitz, IST–Data Services — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Researchers in Berkeley's Department of Near Eastern Studies are working with IST–Data Services on a project using Natural Language Processing and graph analysis to support their research into ancient Babylonian society. In addition to processing valuable data, the project serves as a demonstration of broader initiatives to effectively apply technology in support of research in the Humanities.

Collaborative Tools Strategy update

Ian Crew, IST-Data Services — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

IST–Data Services' Collaboration Services unit has developed draft recommendations for a strategy to help the campus better support collaboration through the use of collaborative tools. The recommendations were released to the campus for comment in mid-August, and the final version of the strategy will be available on the Campus Collaborative Tools Strategy Development website in early to mid-October.

CalHPC: A dedicated cluster support service for campus researchers

Lucia Tsai, IST-Technical Account Management — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

IST is collaborating with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to offer campus researchers a comprehensive service for supporting Linux-based computing clusters hosted in the campus data center.

Project Bamboo engages institutions and organizations across the world to develop cyberinfrastructure for arts and humanities

David A. Greenbaum and Steve Masover, IST-Data Services — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Bamboo is a multi-institutional and interdisciplinary effort to bring together researchers in arts and humanities, computer and information scientists, librarians, and campus information technologists to collectively tackle the question: How can we advance arts and humanities research through the development of shared technology services?

bSpace and Sakai 3.0

Oliver Heyer, Educational Technology Services — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Over the last few months, institutions within the Sakai community, including UC Berkeley, have started to outline a vision and road map for what is being called Sakai 3.0 — Sakai's current release is version 2.5 and is the software on which bSpace is based. Central to this vision is a shift in design focus away from heavyweight applications and complex multi-click workflows, towards smaller bits of aggregated functionality that allow users to accomplish many of their more frequent tasks on a single screen.