Kairos Redesign - Back End Design

Lead Researcher: Kathie Gossett, PhD
Research Team: Steve Potts, Ashley Hall (UNC) & Doug Eyman, PhD (GMU)

Research Questions:

• How can we make global changes to Kairos' pages (e.g., adding or rearranging elements in the navigation) from a single source?
• How do we use a database to drive the Kairos website?
• How do we build a back-end editorial system that addresses the unique needs of the Kairos editorial need?

Disaster Downtown

Lead Researcher: Liza Potts, PhD
Research Team: Kathie Gossett, PhD, Steve Potts, Dave Jones

Research Question:

• How can we crowdsource escape routes during times of disaster?

RAVIS

Lead Researchers: Liza Potts, Phd
Research Team: Steve Potts

Research Questions:

• How can everyday people help collect data, validate information and redistribute knowledge to the community in the wake of a disaster?
• By looking at spikes in internet traffic human moderators can trigger web services that can aggregate disaster data, which will provide a necessary service to victims, families of victims and disaster response groups.

Dissertating Digitally

Lead Researchers: Kathie Gossett, PhD and Carrie A. Lamanna (CSU)

Research Questions:

• What textual forms are current graduate students permitted to use for their theses and dissertations, what units regulate these textual forms, and how do format restrictions constrain the types of research graduate students can undertake?
• What theoretical and practical training is necessary for graduate students to be able to make rhetorically sound decisions about using new media forms in their theses and dissertations?
  
• How can the print-based model that encloses graduate research be altered in order for graduate student scholars to fully participate in the critical new media work being done in the field?

Usable DRM

Lead Researcher: Liza Potts, PhD
Reasearch Team: Dave Jones

Research Questions:

• How does usability factor into the DRM equation? Can usability solutions lead to DRM process improvement?
  
• What do current DRM models presume about users/consumers and their relationships to IP?
• Aside from server space, what reasons could content providers have for limiting content access to specific time periods?

Digital Dissertation Depository (D³)

Lead Researcher: Kathie Gossett, PhD
Research Team: Liza Potts, PhD, Kevin Moberly, PhD

Research Questions:

• Who controls the shape and form of a dissertation?
• If you choose to compose a born-digital dissertation, where can you deposit/archive it?
• How do you ensure that dissertations composed in current media are accessible in 10, 20 or 25 years?

#LOFNOTC

Lead Researchesr: Liza Potts, Phd
Research Team: Geoff Owens

Research Questions:

• How are musicians using new modes of access to audience to entertain, communicate, and collaborate?
• How are musicians using social media to collaborate with their audiences and confront their labels?
• How are musicians using social media to complicate the barriers between artist, label, and audience?

Crowd Sourcing Hurricane Evacuation Routes

Lead Researchesr: Liza Potts, Phd
Research Team: Kathie Gossett, PhD, Steve Potts

Research Questions:

• How should mobile devices display evacuation routes?
• What kinds of ancillary information can be crowdsourced such as: gas prices, availability of supplies and carpooling?

PhD Website Redesign

Lead Researcher: Kathie Gossett, Phd
Research Team: Tony Robinson, Chris Backus, Chelsea Swick, Henry Jones

Project Description:

The PhD in English at ODU website will be redesigned in two phases. First, will be a cosmetic update focused on making the site more useable for prospective students for the 2010-2011 academic year. The second phase will focus on implementing a CMS system and making the site standards compliant and fully accessible. We anticipate a site relaunch in summer 2011.

Tweetagogy

Lead Researchers: Liza Potts, PhD and Kathie Gossett, PhD
Research Team: Vincent Rhodes

Research Question:

• Can tweeting create community in a course taught primarily at a distance?

Kairos Redesign - User Interface

Lead Researcher: Kathie Gossett, PhD
Research Team: Karl Stolley, PhD (IIT), Doug Eyman, PhD (GMU)

Go Live Date: August 15, 2008

While the Kairos redesign is most obviously cosmetic, given its new visual design, many of the more exciting changes are below the surface of the visible page. The team made as many efforts as possible to ensure that all of the journal's pages follow the rules for XHTML 1.0 Strict (although work continues on bringing some legacy markup in line with XHTML). This is a major structural change, improving on design practices of the past (e.g., using tables for page layout, or placing visual attributes for colors, etc. in the HTML) while deliberately making further structural and design enhancements easier than ever.

From: The Whys and Wherefores of the 3rd Kairos Design.