Re: Education

Hi Leif,
I’m not sure you meant to do Reply-all. :-)

But a Reply-all from me what said that you exactly have the point.
It is entirely appropriate that more than half the course, or even more, would be on scripting itself.
And that the students would start from essentially no knowledge - that is the target audience.

The course is about the students learning scripting and data stuff - it just happens that the examples used are Linked data related, giving useful added value.

By the way, someone else is going to to the course that prompted this, and will use Python with data processing and stats stuff as the subject, so not so far off.

Best
Hugh

On 23 Aug 2014, at 20:06, Leif Isaksen <leifuss@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Hi Hugh
> 
> sorry for a slow reply. I was away have been digging through my email
> backlog ever since. I think this is a really interesting question,
> although I suspect you are setting the bar a bit high for humanists
> (and probably social scientists too). The majority of them have no
> experience in scripting at all (although some do, and many are willing
> to try). I think you'd probably need to spend at least half the course
> (or more) dealing with the basic principles of scripting before you
> could start touching on these topics. Having said that, if you can get
> them inspired by the possibilities, I've found they are often willing
> to invest a lot of their own time learning the skills. Of course, you
> can't really write that into the syllabus...
> 
> As it happens, my colleague with whom I co-teach our Masters module on
> 'Web technologies in the Humanities' has just gone on leave, so if you
> feel like trialling any of these ideas, I have a captive audience for
> you :-)
> 
> All the best
> 
> L.
> 
> PS and as an ex Java developer I'm also sad to agree that java and
> Linked Data are probably a terrible mix, conceptually speaking at any
> rate. I remember in my first ever Semantic Web application we used
> Remote Procedure Calls to transfer RDF :-S
> 
> On Sat, Jul 12, 2014 at 12:02 PM, Hugh Glaser <hugh@glasers.org> wrote:
>> The other day I was asked if I would like to run a Java module for some Physics & Astronomy students.
>> I am so far from plain Java and that sort of thing now there was almost a cognitive dissonance.
>> 
>> But it did cause me to ponder on about what I would do for such a requirement, given a blank sheet.
>> 
>> For people whose discipline is not primarily technical, what would a syllabus look like around Linked Data as a focus, but also causing them to learn lots about how to just do stuff on computers?
>> 
>> How to use a Linked Data store service as schemaless storage:
>> bit of intro to triples as simply a primitive representation format;
>> scripting for data transformation into triples - Ruby, Python, PHP, awk or whatever;
>> scripting for http access for http put, delete to store;
>> simple store query for service access (over http get);
>> scripting for data post-processing, plus interaction with any data analytic tools;
>> scripting for presentation in html or through visualisation tools.
>> 
>> It would be interesting for scientists and, even more, social scientists, archeologists, etc (alongside their statistical package stuff or whatever).
>> I think it would be really exciting for them, and they would get a lot of skills on the way - and of course they would learn to access all this Open Data stuff, which is becoming so important.
>> I’m not sure they would go for it ;-)
>> 
>> Just some thoughts.
>> And does anyone knows of such modules, or even is teaching them?
>> 
>> Best
>> Hugh
>> --
>> Hugh Glaser
>>   20 Portchester Rise
>>   Eastleigh
>>   SO50 4QS
>> Mobile: +44 75 9533 4155, Home: +44 23 8061 5652
>> 
>> 

-- 
Hugh Glaser
   20 Portchester Rise
   Eastleigh
   SO50 4QS
Mobile: +44 75 9533 4155, Home: +44 23 8061 5652

Received on Monday, 25 August 2014 11:26:08 UTC