Purpose of the Workshop

These “Open Access” workshops will be organized to showcase the multiple, innovative uses of the Knight Lab tools and the Scalar platform. The purpose of these workshops is to support graduate students and project partners in their efforts to build sustainable digital scholarship. Additionally, these workshops on open-source, free tools seek to support, engage, and promote digital scholarship at York University while also cultivating a community of practice around existing resources and tools. These workshops will provide participants with an opportunity to learn multiple ways to use the platforms.

The workshops on the KnightLab tools, the TimelineJS and the StoryMapJS platforms, will show participants how to use these tools, and provide participants with an opportunity to create their own Timeline or StoryMap. During this workshop, Sarah York-Bertram and Zhi Ming Sim will discuss platform requirements, potential uses, and demonstrate the platforms’ compatibility with Scalar. Participants will learn how to embed both Knight Lab tools into Scalar, and/or to use them independently as standalone platforms for connecting digital content to narratives.  The Knight Lab tools, as participants will see, are excellent entry points to developing skills for data visualization and can lay the groundwork for understanding the more complex Scalar platform.

Discussions in the Scalar workshop will focus on innovative uses for the platform. Sarah York-Bertram will discuss the “Ododo Wa Community Dialogues” Scalar platform and its use for an outreach and transnational project. Likewise, Challenger’s discussions around the “Playin’ Mas, Play and Mas” Scalar platform will illustrate how the platform can be used to showcase collections of digital materials. Both Scalar projects are community-facing and engage with children and youth. York-Bertram and Challenger’s discussions seek to support participants in understanding the process of creating accessible content for the platform, curating content, and designing the platform to showcase the content. By showcasing the innovative uses of Scalar, this workshop seeks to guide participants through practices and considerations when developing a Scalar platform, and how to best make use of this platform for their own research and projects.

This event will also incorporate York University Graduate Assistants’ and Research Assistants’ experiences working on digital projects and the knowledge of digital scholarship librarians who support digital projects across York University. The workshops on Scalar and on Knight Lab tools will inform participants of open access resources and showcase experiences using digital platforms for scholarly and community engagement. In a timely fashion, this event will encourage participants to consider and discuss the shifting needs of scholars and community organizers in the context of a global pandemic, which has ushered many to digital methods.