Cover Art of the October 26, 2021, Volume 54, Issue 20 American Chemical Society publication “Macromolecules”

The Digital Media Commons provided a rendering which was accepted for the cover art of the October 26, 2021, Volume 54, Issue 20 American Chemical Society publication “Macromolecules”.

Xueyan Feng provided the geometry to Mario Norton who rendered the image using Blender.

https://pubs.acs.org/toc/mamobx/54/20?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=pmd_OdrOnHnAssNcyxo_GVUxKpQZf60P0OQlimvEvEyF8SM-1635256763-0-gqNtZGzNAiWjcnBszQd9

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BIOS 201 Podcasting Project

In lieu of a traditional final, BIOS 201 students now have the option of recording a podcast as a small group project discussing some recent advance in stem cell, organoid or genome editing research focusing on a few of a curated list of original research papers in the field. As BIOS 201 is a very large class, the equipment demand is sizable. As such, the DMC assisted the class with equipment rentals, providing a list of recommended podcasting equipment and how to set up the different styles of microphones to record. As the DMC has limited copies of audio recorders or specific mics, in all likelihood there will be some variance in which each student group uses to record their podcast. The DMC Audio Studio was also proposed as an option for those interested. As for editing the podcasts, the class was directed to the DMC’s written guides and recorded short courses on Garageband and Audacity.

SOCI 389: Race, Gender, and Class on Film

SOCI 389 seeks to investigate the representation of race, gender, and class in film, how it may change over time, and what the cultural and sociological implications of that representation are. The class focuses on critical analysis of representation in cinematic media and the interplay of it with prevailing public perception of specific groups. The culmination of this course is a group project consisting of a roughly 12 minute short video focused on analysis of representation of a particular group in film. In support of this final project, the DMC provided an in-class session on editing video in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Visualizing Data with Tableau Public

Dr. Paul Treacy teaches Social Policy Analysis course (SOPA 400). He wants to have training for his students on visualizing data using Tableau. His students don’t have a lot of experience in data visualization. Using National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth Data (NSLY) data in Fall 2019 and Medical Expenditure Panel Study (MEPS) data in Fall 2020, Jane covered the basic workflow of using Tableau Public. Jane used hands-on activities to show students how to connect to data sources, how to create a line chart, a bar chart, a text table, and a map, how to create a dashboard, how to create a story, and how to save and share the created work. 

Viz of National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth Data (NSLY) data

Viz of Medical Expenditure Panel Study(MEPS) data

Using Zotero to Manage Your Citations

Zotero is a free open-source citation management tool that helps collect, organize, cite and share research data. DMC has been supporting Zotero by offering workshops and consultations since 2006. In Spring 2020, Fondren Library has strengthened its support for Zotero by subscripting to Zotero storage as an institution. That means when you use Zotero and choose to synchronize your notes, attached files, and bibliographic records across devices, you don’t have to worry about running out of the limited free Zotero file syncing storage, or buying your own Zotero file syncing storage, or figuring out third party options. All Rice Zotero users now have unlimited file syncing storage. 

The Zotero workshop covers the basic workflow of using Zotero. It begins with installation of Zotero to ensure each student can use the application on his/her own computer. It then uses hands-on activities to show how to get book items and journal items into Zotero, how to organize stuff within Zotero, and how to cite with the help of Zotero. At the end, it briefly talks about Zotero’s sync and group features. The workshop can be customized to suit a class’s specific needs. In general, it takes about 45 minutes to 75 minutes. 

Upon faculty’s request, the Zotero workshop has been offered for many different courses over semesters. In a feedback email, a faculty wrote “My students turned in their bibliographies, and all of them used Zotero!” Another faculty commented “My graduate students love it. They wish they had known it earlier.”

Below are some of the courses that have had Zotero workshops. 

  • BIOC 112 Dr. Beth Beason-Abmayr
  • BIOC 587 Dr. Mary Purugganan
  • FWIS 147 Dr. Julie Fette
  • FWIS 152 Dr. Mary Purugganan
  • HIST 308 Dr. Michael Maas
  • HIST 575 Dr. Alida Metcalf
  • KINE 120 Dr. Amanda Perkins-Ball
  • LASR 251 Dr. Alida Metcalf
  • LING 499 Dr. Michel Achard
  • UNIV 600 Dr. Jennifer Wilson

MUSI 762: Artist Diploma Seminar

MUSI 762 is a class aimed at introducing a wide range of practical techniques and knowledge for the working musician in the modern age. As part of this, the DMC offered a two part crash course in various essential aspects of digital media literacy for the practicing musician. The students learned how to create a WordPress website, create a basic promotional flyer in Powerpoint, basic video and audio editing techniques with Adobe Premiere, and the basics of portrait photography. DMC staff demonstrated these various techniques primarily via in-class sessions (in this case, via Zoom), with an optional out of class in-person (socially distanced) session for demonstrating portrait photography, in which DMC staff took headshots for those who participated. Additionally, students checked out video cameras and audio recorders from the DMC to self-record their performances.

HIST 238: The Body in Global Histories of Medicine

HIST 238 introduces how people in different parts of the world have understood why we get sick and how we get better. As part of students’ exploration of different frameworks for dealing with disease and the body, they are asked to conduct original research and produce a podcast to effectively communicate their findings in an engaging way. To that end, the class made use of our in-class workshops to learn audio editing techniques with Audacity and Garageband, which they were then able to employ in our audio studio to record their final projects. Additionally, they made use of our digital lab’s scanning resources to scan tracings they made of various medical images from cultures around the world, which they then were able to print at large scale using the DMC’s high resolution inkjet plotter.

The class website with the completed projects can be viewed here.

 

 

ENG 308: Introduction to Radio Storytelling

ENG 308 leads students through an introduction to the ever-expanding medium of podcasting, specifically radio storytelling. In the process of exploring the various techniques and trends in a wide variety of audio media, students are expected to develop both an understanding of and proficiency with the basics of audio media creation. In support of this goal, the DMC provided in-class tutorials to learn audio editing techniques with Garageband and Audacity, as well as proper use of the Zoom H4N audio recorders that they rented from the DMC for their projects. Additionally, some students used the DMC’s audio studio for their projects to record high-quality narration. With the aid of these tutorials and the borrowed resources, students created podcasts, developing a storytelling style and identity of their own in the process.

The class website with the final projects can be viewed here.

Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Virtual Campus Tour

With much of the world still shut down due to COVID-19, traveling to tour college campuses has become infeasible for many prospective students. Seeking instead for a way to bring Rice to the student, the office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies reached out to the Digital Media Commons to create a virtual tour of campus that offered more immersion than a standard video. The resulting project produced a 360 degree video made up of panoramas of places of interest around campus, which when paired with Google Cardboard headsets allow a prospective student to pan around the scene and take in the sights.

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Ian produced the video by shooting a series of photos of each location, taking multiple passes rotating around a stationary point to create a sphere. Then, those individual photos were organized, aligned, and stitched using Agisoft Metashape, resulting in a 360 degree panoramic output. Finally, the completed panoramas were compiled into a single 360 video using Adobe Premiere Pro, adding in the narration and background music.

Material Science graphics

Assistant research scientist Jinho Hyon collaborated with the Digital Media Commons for the creation of this graphic. Depicted is a meandering network of multiwall carbon nanotubes impacted by a projectile. Visit “Extreme Energy Dissipation via Material Evolution in Carbon Nanotube Mats” for full article.

Can be found in “Extreme Energy Dissipation via Material Evolution in Carbon Nanotube Mats” in Figure 4, part C. Illustration by Mario Norton.

The above graphic was created using the 3D software program Blender. This particular graphic was challenging because many different features such as bundles and interconnected tubes needed to be portrayed in one image. By creating a 3D model, Mario was able to receive direction in order to position the key features accurately. 3D also allows more flexibility in terms of a more iterative workflow and different camera angles. Below is an animated rendering of an earlier iteration of the model. Please note that the color key is different.