The UCBA College Library will have the following hours during the Thanksgiving holiday:
The Library will resume regular Fall Semester hours on Monday, November 26th at 7:30 am.
Please visit our UC Blue Ash Library Hours page to view all of our hours, including holidays and any exceptions to our regular schedule.
On Nov 3rd, the Red Cross and UC libraries partnered to hold a second Missing Maps Mapathon. Missing Maps is an open, collaborative project in which you can help to map areas where humanitarian organisations are trying to meet the needs of vulnerable people.
During the mapathon, participants used the Open Street Map platform to identify buildings in satellite images and place them on a regional map (georeference). The Red Cross uses this information to set up emergency services in areas that are impacted by natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes. The mapping will be verified by Red Cross volunteers working in the mapped country and will help prepare response teams in the area to better assist if disaster strikes.
This year’s project covered three areas in the Lake Chad region in Niger. This region of the world is experiencing a great humanitarian crisis due to poor infrastructure, conflict, poverty, and climate change. It has been reported that nearly 17 million people are affected by the dire situation and 10.7 million are in need of humanitarian assistance. The International Red Cross has been working in the area for thirty years and coordinates efforts with local relief agencies.
At this year’s event, UC Geography student Rachel Byrd led UC Cincinnatus Scholar students, UC Librarian Amy Koshoffer, UC Press Director Liz Scarpelli, and Red Cross International Services Manager Paula McIntosh through the 4 hour mapping session. In the span of four hours, volunteers were able to map three regions around the lake and identified 6065 buildings. Many thanks to all who participated and contributed to the mission of the Red Cross.
As we prepare for the holidays and the colder temperatures, please help those in need stay a little warmer this winter by donating to our Spread the Warmth Drive benefitting the Talbert House.
Look for our donation bins in Muntz, Walters and Progress halls or drop your donation at the UCBA Library Information Desk. Please donate any of these new or gently used items (all sizes are welcome) Continue reading
Did you know that between 1998 and 2016, the cost of college textbooks increased 181%? That’s almost 4 times as much as all other consumer products during that same time period. The average Clermont College student should have budgeted $1500.00 for course materials in 2017-18. As a result, students may resort to delayed purchasing of a textbook, purchasing an older version, sharing a textbook, or never purchasing it at all.
So, what can we do to help with the burden of high textbook costs and ensure students have access to course information beginning the first day of a course?
Consider adopting an open textbook!
Open textbooks are free for students to use in electronic formats. Some are also available to order in print for a low cost. In addition, these textbooks can be adapted and repurposed by faculty to better align with specific course outcomes.
You might be asking yourself, how does a free textbook measure up to more expensive, traditional textbooks? It turns out, pretty well! A recent study showed that the use of open textbooks and open educational resources led to improved grades and decreased DFW rates for all students, with the most dramatic improvements occurring for at-risk populations.
Curious to learn more?
Check out the Open Educational Resources at Clermont library guide or consider speaking with a fellow faculty member. A number of Clermont College faculty have already adopted open textbooks. Dr. Noah MacKenzie, Associate Professor of Psychology, adopted an open textbook for the fall semester of 2018 and shared that, “student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.” Assistant Professor Educator Carolyn Goodman surveyed her students and the results were all positive. Students appreciated that the language in the book was appropriate for their level and that they didn’t have to purchase a book. The academic results are impressive as well with 88% of her students showing mastery in early October.
Ready to explore open textbooks in your area?
Your liaison librarian would be happy to help you identify or adapt a textbook that will work for your class. If you aren’t ready to adopt an open textbook, but are interested in exploring other open educational resources, we can help with that as well.
Any questions? Let us know how we can help!
Heather Mitchell-Botts
Instruction Librarian
photo from: https://opensource.com/education/13/2/boundless-free-alternative-textbooks
UC Libraries will be closed Monday, November 12 in observance of Veterans’ Day, except for the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library, which will be open 9am to 5pm.
Normal hours will resume Tuesday, November 13. This closing includes the Walter C. Langsam Library 4th floor space, which will close Sunday, November 11 at 11pm and re-open Tuesday, November 13 at 8am.
By: Kevin Grace
“For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
Those are the final lines in Romeo and Juliet. The young lovers are dead, victims of their own passion and the enmity between the Capulets and the Montagues. Though their story is set in Renaissance Verona, it could be a tale told in any culture around the world in any era of humankind. For all the literary genius of William Shakespeare, scholars have long known that many of his plays were re-workings of stories he heard and historical accounts he read during his lifetime. Whether it was for Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard III, Othello, or others, Shakespeare adapted these accounts for his stage in the late 16th and early 17th centuries that now have been performed countless times for more than 400 years, and over those centuries his own words have been adapted time and again. To see King Lear presented in England or Ireland is not the same as seeing it performed in South Africa or India or China. And of course, to see it once in England or America is not the same as seeing it once again on what might be the same stage in the same year. William Shakespeare’s plays are paragons of beautiful language, infinite interpretation, and above all, compelling stories.
Researcher Name: Theresa Culley, Head of Biological Sciences and Professor of Biology, Editor-in-Chief Applications in Plant Sciences
In our fourth installment of the series “How UC Researchers use the Open Science Framework”, we hear from Theresa Culley, Head of Biological Sciences and Professor of Biology, Editor-in-Chief Applications in Plant Sciences
Research Project Description or statement about your research interest:
My research area in Botany focuses on plant population biology and genetics and I have a deep interest in the evolution of invasive species. I am also very interested in publication patterns regarding research involving hotspot areas of biodiversity. My lab has been considering the question of whether researchers from developing countries, which have the most biodiversity hotspots, receive adequate credit for their work. We are currently working on a project examining publishing bias in the scientific literature about plant conservation genetics. This collaboration is in partnership with UC Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Center and is one of several collaborations funded by a $900,000 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded to the Center. I am also interested in this topics in my role as Editor-in-Chief for Applications in Plant Sciences.
Why did you chose to use the OSF to organize your research/projects?
I am an advocate for data sharing and reproducible research. In an editorial I wrote for Applications in Plant Sciences, I highlighted the many reasons to ensure access to data and major considerations behind why researchers may not want to share data. A resource like the open science framework is an excellent tool for promoting transparency and reproducibility and advancing the field at an accelerated pace. The OSF helps to manage the entire project and especially makes it easy to share data within our research group and with collaborators. This is a great place to manage the active parts of a project, and link all the different tools that members of a research group use . We also have the ability to archive data and content here and look forward to a possible integration into our Institutional Repository in the future.
What about the OSF makes this tool a good choice for your project management (i.e. specific function of the OSF)?
Some of my team members prefer to use Dropbox and some are using Box. Using the OSF makes it possible to bring all the different tools we are using under one project umbrella. And it helps us to track activity on the project.
Additional comment for the post that you are willing to share:
Currently our project is not public, but we hope to share components in the future.
The Center for Open Science has been a great resource for our lab and the journal Applications in Plant Sciences. In August 2016, the journal adopted the TOP guidelines, along with its sister journal, American Journal of Botany.
by Christian Boyles
No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America
by Darnell L. Moore
HQ76.27.A37 M66 2018
About the book
When Darnell Moore was fourteen, three boys from his neighborhood tried to set him on fire. They cornered him while he was walking home from school, harassed him because they thought he was gay, and poured a jug of gasoline on him. He escaped, but just barely. It wasn’t the last time he would face death.
Three decades later, Moore is an award-winning writer, a leading Black Lives Matter activist, and an advocate for justice and liberation. In No Ashes in the Fire, he shares the journey taken by that scared, bullied teenager who not only survived, but found his calling. Moore’s transcendence over the myriad forces of repression that faced him is a testament to the grace and care of the people who loved him, and to his hometown, Camden, NJ, scarred and ignored but brimming with life. Moore reminds us that liberation is possible if we commit ourselves to fighting for it, and if we dream and create futures where those who survive on society’s edges can thrive.
No Ashes in the Fire is a story of beauty and hope-and an honest reckoning with family, with place, and with what it means to be free.
Is it checked out?
Don’t worry about it. Here are some other titles on the subject.
The Glass Closet : Why Coming Out is Good Business
HF5549.5.S47 B76 2014
Part memoir and part social criticism, The Glass Closet addresses the issue of homophobia that still pervades corporations around the world and underscores the immense challenges faced by LGBT employees.
In The Glass Closet, Lord John Browne, former CEO of BP, seeks to unsettle business leaders by exposing the culture of homophobia that remains rampant in corporations around the world, and which prevents employees from showing their authentic selves.
Drawing on his own experiences, and those of prominent members of the LGBT community around the world, as well as insights from well-known business leaders and celebrities, Lord Browne illustrates why, despite the risks involved, self-disclosure is best for employees—and for the businesses that support them. Above all, The Glass Closet offers inspiration and support for those who too often worry that coming out will hinder their chances of professional success.
Out of bounds: Coming Out of Sexual Abuse, Addiction, and My Life of Lies in the NFL Closet (ebook)
The second NFL player ever to come out as gay and the first ever to come out as HIV-positive, Roy Simmons was an up-and-coming star offensive lineman who quit football after just four years rather than be exposed as gay. Out of Bounds tells his compelling story-from his rape at age 10 to being plucked from his poor Southern background to join the NFL, from his first taste of pro football fame and sudden enormous wealth to his fast-paced, no holds barred nightlife of heavy drugs and countless sexual encounters with women and men. Simmons led a roller-coaster life that peaked in the late 1980s with his playing in the Superbowl. Ultimately, however, reckless living left him penniless, friendless, and on the brink of suicide. Finally, in 1992, Simmons tapped the courage to come out as gay on national TV—then coming out as HIV-positive 10 years later—leading him to a healthy path of sobriety and self-acceptance.
Do the Right Thing (DVD)
PN1997 .D52 1998
It’s the hottest day of the summer. You can do nothing, you can do something, or you can…Do the Right Thing. Directed by visionary filmmaker Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing is one of the most thought-provoking and groundbreaking films of the last 20 years. The controversial story centers around one scorching inner-city day, when racial tensions reach the boiling point in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood. This powerful landmark film combines humor and drama with memorable characters, capturing an unforgettable piece of American history.
by Lauren Wahman
Wednesday, November 28 from 1:30-2:30 pm
Muntz 117
Presenters: Arlene Johnson & James Lee, Co-Directors, Digital Scholarship Center
Please join Digital Scholarship Center Co-Directors, Arlene Johnson and James Lee, for a faculty-focused session on the applications of digital humanities/digital scholarship in the classroom as well as support and resources for digital humanities/digital scholarship activities and initiatives in your teaching and research. This workshop is sponsored by the UCBA Library and the Learning + Teaching Center.
Please Note: Due to travel requirements for these presenters, please make sure to register through Faculty OneStop (click image below). This workshop requires a minimum of 5 participants to be held.
