Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Wednesday, 3 October 2018
Supporting education for 'digitally enfranchised' visual arts students?
Written for visual arts policy makers, educators and those visually creative who just may be interested...
As a genre closely aligned with the Modern take on aesthetic distinction, the visual arts school genre is very distant from postmodern approaches, let alone meta-modern ones. There are large gaps between school art and what occurs in contemporary art (Faucher, 2016), creative industry and screen-based visual culture. The national syllabus' emphasis on the institutional artist (as mostly an observational drawer and painter) ignore many other roles that young people might pursue for becoming successful visual creatives. Likewise, the visual arts syllabus does not explicitly address the existence of multiple visual creative hierarchies (i.e. observational drawing versus Manga illustrations) whose genres may compete in prioritising very different aesthetic and creative values (e.g. detailed realism versus imaginative graphic abstraction) for their creative communities. There is an opportunity for visual arts policy makers and educators to consider how visual arts teaching might address such competition and support young peoples' exploration of contemporary visual creative roles outside the traditional gallery path.
Within this opportunity lies the challenge of considering how the visual arts syllabus might respond to the growing role of digital media in contemporary life and art? In particular, what new academic and technical cultural capital should aspirant visual creatives be taught for supporting their
development of artistic identities and access to opportunities, whether in art worlds, creative industry or elsewhere... Here arts educators and policy-makers can turn to media studies educators and researchers who have explored young adults' creative digital productions and associated development of new media literacies (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, and Leu, 2014; Ito et al. 2009, 2010; Jenkins, 2006; Jenkins and Ito, 2015; Gauntlett, 2000, 2007, 2011; Lankshear and Knobel, 2006).
As introduced in my opening paragraph, the doxa of a highbrow Modernist taste in South African visual arts education contributes to its many blindspots. Foregrounding the institutionalised artist as its (only?) hero distances the school art genre from many learning opportunities. These span artistic media and genres (i.e. mobile phone photography for self-portraiture and perspective), creative processes (e.g. not handmade and crafted by others) and approaches to contemporary art (i.e pseudonyms) and creative industry (e.g. writing creative briefs). Educators could support students with considering decolonisation and its arguments against implicitly foregrounding only highbrow/high status cultural capital as "the legitimate one". Educators could also draw on indigenous repertoires {beadwork and other patterns} and the energy of African artists' identities as exemplified via the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa and Norval Foundation's Art Museum's collections. Multiple platform, creative entrepreneurs could also be positioned as heroes by visual art educators who choose to address the fields of creative industry, fandoms and craft.
As a genre closely aligned with the Modern take on aesthetic distinction, the visual arts school genre is very distant from postmodern approaches, let alone meta-modern ones. There are large gaps between school art and what occurs in contemporary art (Faucher, 2016), creative industry and screen-based visual culture. The national syllabus' emphasis on the institutional artist (as mostly an observational drawer and painter) ignore many other roles that young people might pursue for becoming successful visual creatives. Likewise, the visual arts syllabus does not explicitly address the existence of multiple visual creative hierarchies (i.e. observational drawing versus Manga illustrations) whose genres may compete in prioritising very different aesthetic and creative values (e.g. detailed realism versus imaginative graphic abstraction) for their creative communities. There is an opportunity for visual arts policy makers and educators to consider how visual arts teaching might address such competition and support young peoples' exploration of contemporary visual creative roles outside the traditional gallery path.
Within this opportunity lies the challenge of considering how the visual arts syllabus might respond to the growing role of digital media in contemporary life and art? In particular, what new academic and technical cultural capital should aspirant visual creatives be taught for supporting their
development of artistic identities and access to opportunities, whether in art worlds, creative industry or elsewhere... Here arts educators and policy-makers can turn to media studies educators and researchers who have explored young adults' creative digital productions and associated development of new media literacies (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, and Leu, 2014; Ito et al. 2009, 2010; Jenkins, 2006; Jenkins and Ito, 2015; Gauntlett, 2000, 2007, 2011; Lankshear and Knobel, 2006).
Young people who develop new media literacies arguably enjoy a form of digital enfranchisement through developing a level of visibility through personal presences in digital environments through which they exercise their voices. This may feature roles that range from prosumption (i.e. liking, commenting on and re-sharing YouTube videos) to produsage (editing and sharing videos via videos on a YouTube channel) (Bruns, 2008). By contrast, individuals and groups who choose not to participate or cannot surmount gatekeepers are disenfranchised through being invisible in digital environments. As the online and offline environments become increasingly interlinked, individuals who enjoy high visibility online are potentially advantaged. Their digital symbolic capital serves to generate further interest and opportunities versus the proverbial 'people of no account/sans digital personas'.
Case studies for South African aspirant design students (Venter, 2018), visual arts students (Noakes, 2018) and media studies students (Brown, Czerniewicz and Noakes, 2016) suggest that young creatives are deriving benefits similar to those identified in the global North's media studies research. That said, there are large contrasts between the affluent research contexts of the Global North (in which most media studies research with teens is done) and under-served ones in the Global South. Educational ideas and media studies research from the Global North may translate very poorly for educators in South African classrooms who typically have minimal, if any, digital infrastructure, and may have to teach large class sizes. It is important to use educational sociology for scoping the many challenges involved when creatively appropriating digital literacies into the South African visual arts syllabus, as well as who benefits from such changes, or not.
It also important to understand how the digital media repertoires of young content producers mark new forms of social distinction (Noakes, 2018) or have even shifted to become commonplace. As part of 'Generation C'(ontent), elite groups of creatives in varied communities (Brake, 2013) enjoy the rare privilege (Schradie, 2011) of assuming roles with digital media that distinguish them from their peers. For example, presenting a qualified self (Humphreys, 2018) as a visual creative with an overall online identity spanning varied digital portfolios serves to mark social distinction (Noakes, 2018). In schools, art students' digital repertoires may signify distinction for both schools and students through requiring extraordinary development of technical cultural capital and access to resources for the development of digital personas and aesthetics. By contrast, such repertoires may seem unremarkable in creative industries where communicating via digital imagery is an everyday part of professionals' work in ephemeral screen culture (Grainge, 2011). At some tertiary institutions in Cape Town, digital portfolios are now required for evaluation before admission is granted (Noakes, 2018). This points to the changing status and use of digital repertoires over time {from rare to commonplace and expected for aspirant arts students after they leave school} in different fields {tertiary fine arts and design education} by particular groups. Assessment was not a key focus of my research, but it would be interesting for researchers to describe whether academic institutions have also shifted to screening students' overall online presences in evaluating admissions!
As introduced in my opening paragraph, the doxa of a highbrow Modernist taste in South African visual arts education contributes to its many blindspots. Foregrounding the institutionalised artist as its (only?) hero distances the school art genre from many learning opportunities. These span artistic media and genres (i.e. mobile phone photography for self-portraiture and perspective), creative processes (e.g. not handmade and crafted by others) and approaches to contemporary art (i.e pseudonyms) and creative industry (e.g. writing creative briefs). Educators could support students with considering decolonisation and its arguments against implicitly foregrounding only highbrow/high status cultural capital as "the legitimate one". Educators could also draw on indigenous repertoires {beadwork and other patterns} and the energy of African artists' identities as exemplified via the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa and Norval Foundation's Art Museum's collections. Multiple platform, creative entrepreneurs could also be positioned as heroes by visual art educators who choose to address the fields of creative industry, fandoms and craft.
How new content on this blogsite might help young visual creatives and their educators
Describing concerns related to cultural stratification and infrastructural resourcing (in that order!) are important in my role as a scholar. Challenges in these two areas suggest how difficult it would be for secondary school visual arts curricular advisers to promote systematic change. It is simply impossible that South Africa's visual arts syllabus and educators could support all visual arts students with becoming digitally enfranchised. For the foreseeable future, three major obstacles will remain in place: arts education will continue to be under-served with poor digital infrastructure (1); there will be a dearth of support for arts educators to develop their own digital media literacies, let alone teach them (2), the Modern aesthetic hierarchy will continue to be reproduced in art history lessons and via arts studio practices (3).
In my roles as design steward and techné mentor, I am interested in an ongoing contribution towards digital enfranchisement for emergent/young artists beyond the e-portfolio syllabus. I would like to support their informal andragogical / heutagogical experiences via this blogsite by continuing to develop its links to educational content. Below is a table that lists potential lessons that could support digital enfranchisement. Its content is ordered from closest links to the established literacies in the visual arts. Such content will be written for students and arts educators may repurpose the content with appropriate attribution.
Digital enfranchisement lesson ideas
Table 1. Lesson ideas that may be close to existing literacies in the visual arts syllabus
Developing these lessons should provide helpful content that creatives can use for developing new media literacies. Hopefully visual arts and design educators can explore how such lessons might be integrated into their syllabi. In developing these lessons, I will also be learning as I use different combinations of platforms (perhaps Slideshare for a local Trolls II Emojis syllabus, but wikiversity for a global version).
If you can suggest further inspiration, please make a comment, ta. Or to collaborate, get in touch.
References
Brake, D. R. (2013). Are We All Online Content Creators Now? Web 2.0 and Digital Divides. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 19(3), 609.
Brown, C., Czerniewicz, L., & Noakes, T. (2016). Online content creation: looking at students’ social media practices through a Connected Learning lens. Learning, Media and Technology, 41(1), 140-159. doi:10.1080/17439884.2015.1107097
Bruns, A. (2008). Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and beyond: From production to produsage (1st ed.). Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.
Coiro, J., Knobel, M., Lankshear, C., & Leu, D. J. (2014). Handbook of research on new literacies (1st ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Cronin, B., & Shaw, D. (2002). Banking (on) different forms of symbolic capital. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(14), 1267-1270.
Faucher, C. (2016). Informal youth cultural practices: Blurring the distinction between high and low. Visual Arts Research, 42(1), 56-70.
Gauntlett, D. (2000). Web. studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age. London, England, UK: Arnold, Edward.
Gauntlett, D. (2007). Creative Explorations: New approaches to identities and audiences. Oxon, England, UK: Routledge.
Gauntlett, D. (2011). Making is Connecting. The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0. Cambridge, England, UK: Polity.
Grainge, P. (2011). Ephemeral media: Transitory screen culture from television to YouTube (1st ed.). London, England, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Humphreys, L. (2018). The Qualified Self: Social Media and the Accounting of Everyday Life (1st ed.). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Ito et al. (2009). Living and Learning with New Media. Massachusettes, USA: Massachusettes Institute of Technology.
Ito et al. (2010). Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out. Massachusettes, USA: Massachusettes Institute of Technology.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide (1st ed.). New York, NY: NYU press.
Jenkins, H., & Ito, M. (2015). Participatory Culture in a Networked Era: A Conversation on Youth, Learning, Commerce, and Politics John Wiley & Sons.
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2006a). New literacies : changing knowledge and classroom learning (1st ed.). Berkshire, England, UK: Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education.
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2006b). New literacies: Everyday practices and classroom learning (2nd ed.). Berkshire, England, UK: Open University Press.
Noakes, T. (2018). Inequality in Digital Personas- e-portfolio curricula, cultural repertoires and social media, (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Cape Town, Cape Town, RSA.
Venter, M. A. (2018). Patchworked creative practice and mobile ecologies. (Doctoral dissertation). University of Cape Town, Cape Town, RSA. Retrieved from https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/28365/Venter_Patchworked_creative_2018.pdf?sequence=1.
Describing concerns related to cultural stratification and infrastructural resourcing (in that order!) are important in my role as a scholar. Challenges in these two areas suggest how difficult it would be for secondary school visual arts curricular advisers to promote systematic change. It is simply impossible that South Africa's visual arts syllabus and educators could support all visual arts students with becoming digitally enfranchised. For the foreseeable future, three major obstacles will remain in place: arts education will continue to be under-served with poor digital infrastructure (1); there will be a dearth of support for arts educators to develop their own digital media literacies, let alone teach them (2), the Modern aesthetic hierarchy will continue to be reproduced in art history lessons and via arts studio practices (3).
In my roles as design steward and techné mentor, I am interested in an ongoing contribution towards digital enfranchisement for emergent/young artists beyond the e-portfolio syllabus. I would like to support their informal andragogical / heutagogical experiences via this blogsite by continuing to develop its links to educational content. Below is a table that lists potential lessons that could support digital enfranchisement. Its content is ordered from closest links to the established literacies in the visual arts. Such content will be written for students and arts educators may repurpose the content with appropriate attribution.
Digital enfranchisement lesson ideas
Table 1. Lesson ideas that may be close to existing literacies in the visual arts syllabus
#
|
SUBJECT
|
INSPIRATION
|
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Folksonomies through social bookmarking | Independent school syllabus |
| 2 | Search engine syntax for researching art, etc. | (See this Google cheat sheet) |
| 3 | Using artists' blogs, portfolios and digital affinity space for visual creative learning | Online portfolios such as DeviantArt and Behance, online art galleries |
| 4 | How to curate your inspiration | Dr Potter and Ass Prof Gilje who propose digital curation to be a new literacy |
| 5 | Developing digital portfolios | Baron on developing a digital portfolio |
| 6 | E-portfolio: digital curation and self-presentation | Visual arts showase e-portfolio syllabus |
| 7 | Becoming an artist | Dr Hansson's research into university art students' online portfolios |
| 8 | Emojis II Trollz (designing pixel art) | Emojipedia and online trolls |
| 9 | Medias and mediums: expressive potentialities of modalities and media | Social semiotic researchers using multimodal an analysis for studying transduction |
| 10 | The creative brief | Writing numerous briefs as a brand manager |
| 11 | Protecting your work's copyright and selling your work online | Prof Haupt on creative copyright and Prof Gauntlett on Making is Connecting |
| 12 | Prosumption practices for online audience engagement | Lankshear and Knobel on New Literacies |
Developing these lessons should provide helpful content that creatives can use for developing new media literacies. Hopefully visual arts and design educators can explore how such lessons might be integrated into their syllabi. In developing these lessons, I will also be learning as I use different combinations of platforms (perhaps Slideshare for a local Trolls II Emojis syllabus, but wikiversity for a global version).
If you can suggest further inspiration, please make a comment, ta. Or to collaborate, get in touch.
References
Brake, D. R. (2013). Are We All Online Content Creators Now? Web 2.0 and Digital Divides. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 19(3), 609.
Brown, C., Czerniewicz, L., & Noakes, T. (2016). Online content creation: looking at students’ social media practices through a Connected Learning lens. Learning, Media and Technology, 41(1), 140-159. doi:10.1080/17439884.2015.1107097
Bruns, A. (2008). Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and beyond: From production to produsage (1st ed.). Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.
Coiro, J., Knobel, M., Lankshear, C., & Leu, D. J. (2014). Handbook of research on new literacies (1st ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Cronin, B., & Shaw, D. (2002). Banking (on) different forms of symbolic capital. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(14), 1267-1270.
Faucher, C. (2016). Informal youth cultural practices: Blurring the distinction between high and low. Visual Arts Research, 42(1), 56-70.
Gauntlett, D. (2000). Web. studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age. London, England, UK: Arnold, Edward.
Gauntlett, D. (2007). Creative Explorations: New approaches to identities and audiences. Oxon, England, UK: Routledge.
Gauntlett, D. (2011). Making is Connecting. The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0. Cambridge, England, UK: Polity.
Grainge, P. (2011). Ephemeral media: Transitory screen culture from television to YouTube (1st ed.). London, England, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Humphreys, L. (2018). The Qualified Self: Social Media and the Accounting of Everyday Life (1st ed.). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Ito et al. (2009). Living and Learning with New Media. Massachusettes, USA: Massachusettes Institute of Technology.
Ito et al. (2010). Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out. Massachusettes, USA: Massachusettes Institute of Technology.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide (1st ed.). New York, NY: NYU press.
Jenkins, H., & Ito, M. (2015). Participatory Culture in a Networked Era: A Conversation on Youth, Learning, Commerce, and Politics John Wiley & Sons.
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2006a). New literacies : changing knowledge and classroom learning (1st ed.). Berkshire, England, UK: Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education.
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2006b). New literacies: Everyday practices and classroom learning (2nd ed.). Berkshire, England, UK: Open University Press.
Noakes, T. (2018). Inequality in Digital Personas- e-portfolio curricula, cultural repertoires and social media, (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Cape Town, Cape Town, RSA.
Venter, M. A. (2018). Patchworked creative practice and mobile ecologies. (Doctoral dissertation). University of Cape Town, Cape Town, RSA. Retrieved from https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/28365/Venter_Patchworked_creative_2018.pdf?sequence=1.
Friday, 8 July 2016
Unexpected ethical challenges in using screen grabs of youths' #participatoryculture productions #visualresearch
Advances in online image and text search may pose unexpected ethical challenges to researchers in protecting the privacy of their participants while sharing visual productions. I mistakenly assumed that depersonalising screen grab imagery would be sufficient to conceal teenagers' identities. However, in testing "depersonalised" screenshots of my participants' online portfolio screen grabs, I learnt that the ever-growing accuracy of text-and/or-image searches (i.e. via Google Image, TinEye, Bing, Pinterest et al.) requires additional steps for dis-identification. Without these, sharing webpage screen grabs can potentially be used by undesirable audiences to locate young people's websites and contact details. Screen grabs may also pose reputation risks in potentially being shared long after participants might want them to be. Both types of risks will be weighed up against the benefits of sharing select students' e-portfolio productions in my thesis. These include visual representations making it easier for readers to become familiar with the online portfolio genre. Screen shots also provide visual support for research themes emerging from young people's choices.
Background to my visual research ethics challenge.
I had developed an original method for multimodal content analysis that used screen grabs to reverse-engineer the choices that 29 visual arts students made in using Carbonmade. To keep the rich nature of my visual data, I analysed these privately using NVivo. I then sought to de-identify select web page screenshots for sharing in conference presentations. I followed a process for visual anonymization, which was not extensive as I wanted to preserve most of the screen grab for accuracy. The anonymizing process involved Adobe Photoshop's blur function being used on several fields of every webpage. This ranged from the web address and portfolio name on every page to all mentions of their name on their profile pages and their contact details. It also involved checking that the e-portfolio's creator was not identifiable from their portrait picture and that no images disclosed their school's identity (i.e. school poster designs or uniforms). To further protect anonymity, image files were titled using pseudonyms.
I also added select screen grab, two per A4 page, into my draft thesis's case study chapters. During their review, Associate Professor Marion Walton advised me to remove screen grabs that might expose its creators to ridicule and also to check the reverse search-ability of all images. She was concerned that these might not be truly anonymised. In checking, I learnt that the depersonalisation measures I took were insufficient. A 'visual specific dilemma' existed whereby my participants could still be traced through the following types of internet searches:
 |
"George", 'depersonalised' About page, 2012. A participant who gave permission for portfolio screen grabs to be shared. |
- An internet text search using text used in students’ self-descriptions under their About Us page;
- An internet text search using the folder titles shown by the screenshots (i.e., in Google, using <e-portfolio software name> + <folder title>);
- An internet search using the image titles shown in the screenshots (i.e. in Google, using <e-portfolio software name> + <image title>);
- An internet image search using the screen grabs (for example in 'Google Images');
- An internet image search of the images inside the screenshots;
- In addition, location information and other information in the case studies and school backgrounds could be used in narrowing image and text searches.
Testing the first four types revealed I had not successfully de-identified several screen grabs.
Ethical concerns and considerations.
This was concerning as it held ramifications for my future and past publications. It also had consequences for the ongoing e-portfolio pedagogy at the independent school research site:
I warned the e-portfolio educator, "Mr Proudfoot", that he should take additional steps to better protect student privacy via revising their e-portfolio pedagogy: my action research project found that teaching students to hide their contact details did provide a false sense of security, since teachers mistakenly believed that this made their students difficult to contact. Simply using students’ real names in online searches quickly served up their social network profiles. Some of these were public by default. Teachers must better support students with resources and examples of effective privacy protection that can at least minimise the dangers of ill-considered self-disclosure. This could include case studies of bad examples and in-depth advice on constructing pseudonymous personas. Schools should also provide support, such as policies and staff that young people can readily refer to in case of unsolicited online contact.
I recently asked an ethics expert about protecting students' privacy and his advice contrasted to the cautious visual research feedback that I expected. He advised that since the screen shots are of web pages they are in the public domain already, I actually do not need these students' permission. Despite it not being a legal or institutional requirement, I remain mindful of the assurances that I gave to schools and students on protecting the research participants' privacy. Such assurances helped me overcome one challenge in securing ethics approval from the Western Cape Education Department/Department of Education and my two research sites. I am also aware that only a few of my case study subjects responded to Facebook or emailed requests for retro-active permission to publish anonymised screenshots in my thesis.
My concerns around potential disclosure and lacking participants' explicit consent resonates with Prosser, Clark and Wiles' (2008) contention that concrete contextual issues and a researcher's individual moral framework must be added to legal and institutional requirements in making ethical visual research decisions. The risks to participants associated with disclosure may be small, but it does not sit well with my moral compass that the screen grabs in my thesis might provide visual evidence for subverting past assurances. Particularly now that the thesis itself is easy to source and search. In the past, the provision of UCT thesis hardcopies were mostly limited to its library. However, these are now automatically digitised for sharing post-graduation online via the library's website (and possibly Open UCT). Further, since I have already shared many screen grabs online in conference presentations, I must also explore reciprocal measures to protect my participants' privacy. For example, by replacing the screen grabs I shared in old presentations with properly anonymised ones.
To find out how other researchers have tackled the problem of depersonalising screen grabs, I did Google Scholar searches for guidance on anonymising 'screen grabs', 'screenshots' or 'screen captures'. I could not find relevant content, which seems to mirror the reality of screen capture techniques being mostly used for exemplars rather than in the research process itself. Lacking a matching example to follow in visual culture research, I found Dr Kirsty Young's discussion of her research experiences with young people's online spaces (2013) particularly informative. It highlights several ethical dilemmas posed by new forms of research enabled by the internet.
My research project is unusual in being human subject research focused on public texts. It is the former as I have been involved in developing a new syllabus and doing face-to-face research with youths throughout e-portfolio lessons. However, I am also researching public texts since all my participants Carbonmade portfolios have no privacy restrictions. Given its unusual position in straddling both methods, I cannot expect unanimous agreement in the academic community regarding how the ethical principles of consent and anonymity pertain to my study. The public text argument versus one for the more onerous rules governing human subject research could easily be argued in both cases. This may pose unexpected problems for the publication of my visual research data. If research data cannot be shared it becomes redundant, which itself is unethical in wasting participants' time (Young, 2013).
In response, I must be cautious and take steps to ensure that my project's ethics in sharing screengrabs cannot be faulted from a human subject research perspective. While all participants and their parents/guardians consented to my research, some were only asked after my fieldwork concluded for permission to re-publish their work. I had not considered the future need to use young people's webpages publicly in academic publications. Given that the webpages are the intellectual property of their authors and that their content would be displayed more widely than the youth possibly intended, I intend to secure written consent for their academic use. This consent will address the timespan that informed consent is given for and afford options for the level of anonymity required. I will show my case study subjects examples of their dis-identified webpages to assist their decision-making.
My research project is unusual in being human subject research focused on public texts. It is the former as I have been involved in developing a new syllabus and doing face-to-face research with youths throughout e-portfolio lessons. However, I am also researching public texts since all my participants Carbonmade portfolios have no privacy restrictions. Given its unusual position in straddling both methods, I cannot expect unanimous agreement in the academic community regarding how the ethical principles of consent and anonymity pertain to my study. The public text argument versus one for the more onerous rules governing human subject research could easily be argued in both cases. This may pose unexpected problems for the publication of my visual research data. If research data cannot be shared it becomes redundant, which itself is unethical in wasting participants' time (Young, 2013).
In response, I must be cautious and take steps to ensure that my project's ethics in sharing screengrabs cannot be faulted from a human subject research perspective. While all participants and their parents/guardians consented to my research, some were only asked after my fieldwork concluded for permission to re-publish their work. I had not considered the future need to use young people's webpages publicly in academic publications. Given that the webpages are the intellectual property of their authors and that their content would be displayed more widely than the youth possibly intended, I intend to secure written consent for their academic use. This consent will address the timespan that informed consent is given for and afford options for the level of anonymity required. I will show my case study subjects examples of their dis-identified webpages to assist their decision-making.
Additional steps for depersonalising or anonymising screen grab images
Given the ready availability of image search sites and image reverse search applications, it is important for researchers to take steps to fully depersonalise images for participants' anonymity. As web page design is multimodal, it is also important that researchers filter both images and text. For example in my research into students' e-portfolios, I had to avoid mentioning folder titles verbatim in my thesis. I also must try to avoid quoting students’ profile descriptions verbatim for longer than three words.
The two alternate options (A - B) I tested for depersonalising screen capture images were:
A. Black out all text and replace profile image with silhouette outline
 |
| Option A. "George" depersonalised About page with with all text blacked out and profile image in silhouette outline, 2012 |
All text is blacked out, making it impossible for viewers to copy text strings in their searches. The blurred outline image is replaced with an outline drawing to add some visual information.
B. Only add depersonalised screen grabs at small thumbnail sizes, organised inside tables
Here the size of each image is reduced to a thumbnail size for making their recognition via reverse image search more difficult. I tested each option in reverse image search engines and neither options A nor B produced results linked to its creator, let alone Carbonmade.
While the process of dis-identifying over 80 images will be lengthy, I am pleased that I can use heavily anonymised imagery, rather than none. In addition to changing these thesis' images, I must also reciprocally update them in old presentations, which need then to be reloaded to Slideshare.
Request for comments... or turning this post into an academic paper.
This post was written to stimulate discussions on ethical issues related to the use of screen grabs.
It heeds the call to engage the general internet publishing publishing population in debates about the use of content for research purposes as this can ensure the ethical use of online content, (Young, 2013). Kindly add your thoughts by commenting below.
 |
| Option B. "George" de-personalised e-portfolio pages from 2012 reduced into thumbnail images in a table |
Here the size of each image is reduced to a thumbnail size for making their recognition via reverse image search more difficult. I tested each option in reverse image search engines and neither options A nor B produced results linked to its creator, let alone Carbonmade.
 |
| Google image search result for option A's image, 2016 |
 |
| Google image search result for option B's image, 2016 |
Both options enabled sufficient levels of anonymity in their results being linked to generic software entries. I then tested what would happen if a thumbnail image of student's work was selected from the table of thumbnail images. At such a small size, the highly-pixelated image results did not link back to their creator or Carbonmade during a reverse image search.
 |
| Google Images result for "George" depersonalised thumbnail painting crop 2016 |
Request for comments... or turning this post into an academic paper.
This post was written to stimulate discussions on ethical issues related to the use of screen grabs.
It heeds the call to engage the general internet publishing publishing population in debates about the use of content for research purposes as this can ensure the ethical use of online content, (Young, 2013). Kindly add your thoughts by commenting below.
There is also a gap in the literature concerning ethical issues related to sharing screen grabs of young people's participatory culture as research evidence. If you would like this post to be upgraded into an article for helping close the gap, please get in touch. For updates on my research, follow this site or @travisnoakes.
Thursday, 25 June 2015
Introducing the portfolio genre to first-timers from under-resourced schools and homes
Written for educators in minimally resourced environments that are interested in teaching novices about the role of digital portfolios; particularly to help justify tertiary education access to visual creative disciplines and bridging courses.
Although online portfolios are increasingly used to secure educational and vocational opportunities, anecdotal evidence from South African secondary schools suggests that electronic learning portfolio (e-portfolio) production is rarely taught. The costly infrastructures required to support e-portfolio syllabi most likely restrict these those schools with high levels of economic and cultural capital.
Although such schools may readily support young people's participation in visual arts and/or design subjects, such facilities support a mere one percent of young South Africans. Ninety nine percent do not have formal opportunities to study; visual art, graphic design and/or computer studies. The vast majority of young people are thus excluded from formal opportunities for developing digital or analog portfolios and self-presentations related to their creative productions.
However, it is possible for educators at minimally resourced sites to expose students to three important portfolio uses, namely:
- applications for select tertiary disciplines (in particular; architecture, design, fine art and media production);
- supporting access to bridging courses (such as the Cape Peninsula University of Technology's or Michaelis' School of Fine Art's portfolio workshops);
- and for creative professionals' and amateurs' digital self-presentation, curation and sharing practices.
I covered these using specific examples in a two hour lesson with Creative Code students at Ikamva Youth's Makhaza computer lab in Khayelitsha last year. Associate Professor Marion Walton had invited me to speak at her educational outreach project, which introduces dedicated teenagers to computer coding. Marion's lessons aim to make coding and visual design more accessible through youth media, gaming and mobile phones. She asked me to do a short introductory workshop that introduced newcomers to the portfolio genre's use, particularly in education.
Like most Capetonian teenagers, her volunteers have never formally been exposed to portfolios. I chose to start with its use in professions delivering visual creative work. To orient learners, I first provided an overview of the types of careers in which portfolios are important. I took students through the Wanna Have a Designer Future? design careers booklet by the Cape Craft and Design Institute. These volunteers were shown a typical art student's analogue portfolio, before being introduced to how visual creatives specialising in different genres use Carbonmade to present themselves and their creative work. In discussing important differences between online portfolio services for visual creatives, Deviantart and Behance were briefly introduced. The former offers additional social networking functionality, while the latter is integrated with Adobe's varied software subscriptions.
Portfolios may also be very important outside visual creative domains; I showed a Cape Times headline concerning my father, Professor Noakes', recommendation that eating animal organs is better for impoverished children than sugary, high-carbohydrate alternatives. As an academic whose scientific contribution spanned over forty years, I showed how his research contributions to sports medicine and science (in Challenging Beliefs) ranged across many media formats (video, articles, publication lists and other resources). To further buttress his reputation online, it was helpful that a consolidated resource be created with links to the Prof's varied intellectual contributions.
Each learner then completed a brief self-reflection on portfolios questionnaire, which aimed to stimulate individual reflection on what they had just learnt and catalyse contemplation on applying this knowledge in developing one portfolio, or perhaps more. These might range from; hobby showcases to school and co-curricular portfolios intended to support tertiary study and workplace applications.
I hoped that using an open approach focused on the resources that teenagers access in school and outside it could encourage this audience to appreciate that showcase portfolios are worth pursuing for sharing one's vocational and/or leisure interests. Feedback from these students suggested they had many. I trust that they will leverage their emergent coding, design and photographic skills for creating portfolios that serve the important uses introduced by the workshop.
Tuesday, 9 September 2014
Phone to Photoshop: Mobile workarounds in young people’s visual self-presentation strategies
Dr Marion Walton, Anja Venter, Prof Johannes Cronje and I co-authored an article for the Design Development and Research Conference 2014; "Phone to Photoshop: Mobile workarounds in young people’s visual self-presentation strategies". I gave the related presentation, today.
For background, the Cape Town Design Capital 2014 initiative provides an important platform for showcasing the wide range of design projects that support social, cultural and economic development in our city. Marion's mobile phone research, her Creative Code project, Anja's research into new design students' software use and mine into Visual Arts learners' e-portfolio choices and contexts, all contribute in small ways to the digital enfranchisement of young Capetonians.
However, with Professor Cronje we share the concern that a systemic approach is lacking that might support a more representative group of young South Africans (especially from working class backgrounds) in becoming involved with creative industries. Twenty years into a democratic South Africa, learners facing income and class barriers are seldom able to access tertiary education opportunities that could support them with securing careers in design, film and other creative industries. Access to such occupations requires a combination of economic, social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1984:2010) that mostly limits participation to young people from middle and upper class backgrounds, reproducing their privilege and guaranteeing future opportunities (Burawoy and Von Holdt, 2012).
Our paper frames this highly unequal context and introduces an emergent gatekeeper to students' access to creative fields; the increasing use of digital portfolios for professional self-presentation in visually creative fields. Given the local context of unequal access to digital technologies, this has become a new hurdle to tertiary studies at elite institutions (for example, the University of Cape Town's Michaelis School of Fine Arts requires prospective students to submit a digitised portfolio on CD). Not having an online portfolio of high-quality can also be an obstacle to securing freelance employment.
Our paper's two case studies were drawn from my long-term Critical Action Research (Carr and Kemmis, 1986:2003) project exploring the use of digital media for young people studying Visual Art in two quite different high schools in Cape Town. In the first site, twelve volunteer students at a specialised co-ed state school (six males and six females) attended extra classes to develop digital skills and to construct electronic learning portfolios (e-portfolios). In the second site, seventeen male students enrolled at a private boys’ school were required to create e-portfolios as a compulsory component of the Visual Arts syllabus.
My PhD explores the digital self-presentation and portfolio organisation choices of 29 learners and how contextual enablers and constraints were manifested in their e-portfolio significations. Our paper explores the latter in connection with mobile phone use. Although these are the most accessible form of digital media in a South African context, their use in e-portfolio production necessitated extensive resourcefulness for mobile-centric, government school students. We explore how mobile technologies are implicated in digital self-presentation and in the creation of e-portfolios, which involve both specific forms of cultural capital and specialised infrastructure. Similarly, digital portfolio creation requires infrastructure which exceeds the capacities of most South African schools.
The barriers and opportunities presented by digital networking for two young Visual Arts students are described: they attended very different secondary schools and had dissimilar home environments which necessitated contrasting workarounds. In overcoming these obstacles, the two learners developed very different professional self-presentation strategies and portfolio showcases. The visual strategies they adopted as they negotiated an unequal education system in two different parts of Cape Town are described.
Their experiences suggest that educators should be open to accommodating the mobile practices and genres that young people already use as they help them assume and challenge ‘disciplined’ identities in the visual culture.
For background, the Cape Town Design Capital 2014 initiative provides an important platform for showcasing the wide range of design projects that support social, cultural and economic development in our city. Marion's mobile phone research, her Creative Code project, Anja's research into new design students' software use and mine into Visual Arts learners' e-portfolio choices and contexts, all contribute in small ways to the digital enfranchisement of young Capetonians.
However, with Professor Cronje we share the concern that a systemic approach is lacking that might support a more representative group of young South Africans (especially from working class backgrounds) in becoming involved with creative industries. Twenty years into a democratic South Africa, learners facing income and class barriers are seldom able to access tertiary education opportunities that could support them with securing careers in design, film and other creative industries. Access to such occupations requires a combination of economic, social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1984:2010) that mostly limits participation to young people from middle and upper class backgrounds, reproducing their privilege and guaranteeing future opportunities (Burawoy and Von Holdt, 2012).
Our paper frames this highly unequal context and introduces an emergent gatekeeper to students' access to creative fields; the increasing use of digital portfolios for professional self-presentation in visually creative fields. Given the local context of unequal access to digital technologies, this has become a new hurdle to tertiary studies at elite institutions (for example, the University of Cape Town's Michaelis School of Fine Arts requires prospective students to submit a digitised portfolio on CD). Not having an online portfolio of high-quality can also be an obstacle to securing freelance employment.
Our paper's two case studies were drawn from my long-term Critical Action Research (Carr and Kemmis, 1986:2003) project exploring the use of digital media for young people studying Visual Art in two quite different high schools in Cape Town. In the first site, twelve volunteer students at a specialised co-ed state school (six males and six females) attended extra classes to develop digital skills and to construct electronic learning portfolios (e-portfolios). In the second site, seventeen male students enrolled at a private boys’ school were required to create e-portfolios as a compulsory component of the Visual Arts syllabus.
My PhD explores the digital self-presentation and portfolio organisation choices of 29 learners and how contextual enablers and constraints were manifested in their e-portfolio significations. Our paper explores the latter in connection with mobile phone use. Although these are the most accessible form of digital media in a South African context, their use in e-portfolio production necessitated extensive resourcefulness for mobile-centric, government school students. We explore how mobile technologies are implicated in digital self-presentation and in the creation of e-portfolios, which involve both specific forms of cultural capital and specialised infrastructure. Similarly, digital portfolio creation requires infrastructure which exceeds the capacities of most South African schools.
The barriers and opportunities presented by digital networking for two young Visual Arts students are described: they attended very different secondary schools and had dissimilar home environments which necessitated contrasting workarounds. In overcoming these obstacles, the two learners developed very different professional self-presentation strategies and portfolio showcases. The visual strategies they adopted as they negotiated an unequal education system in two different parts of Cape Town are described.
Their experiences suggest that educators should be open to accommodating the mobile practices and genres that young people already use as they help them assume and challenge ‘disciplined’ identities in the visual culture.
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Online portfolio users new to computers must get familiar with these new terms and processes.
Written for Visual Arts or Design learners new to online portfolio page creation and computers.
As a learner who wants to create one online portfolio (or more), but has not been taught computer courses and may have limited access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in school and home, you need to learn about the new terms and processes involved in working digitally. This post was written to help you better prepare for these:
1. Getting familiar with new words, acronyms, symbols and signs in online portfolio creation.
If you are used to working on paper and canvas, the move to working on a computer screen involves learning new words (such as 'screen resolution'), acronyms (like DPI), symbols (i.e. ©) and signs (e.g. @) and new processes (such as 'file editing and saving'). It is useful to ask your educator to provide definitions if you do not understand what he or she is talking about to avoid misunderstanding what is being taught. You can also research almost any word, acronym, symbol or sign's definition using Google and other search engines:
1.1 New words
It is important to understand the words used for online portfolio page design elements (such as uniform resource locator, title, header, body, footer, et al.) as your educator is likely to provide you with guidelines for each choice. If you don't know the terms he or she refers to in lessons, you may struggle to understand the reasoning behind the guidelines. Please ask your educator if you need further help or you can find out what new words mean by using a search engine; simply type in the word you want to know, a plus (+) sign, then the word definition straight after (i.e. type 'uniform+resource+locator definition' into www.google.co.za). If you can spare the time, it's best to read through several results to gain a broader understanding of the word's definitions and usage. {You should also read my post on 'Online portfolio page design element questions to help you in creating a better one', as it lists these elements with important questions on your use of them}.
1.2 New acronyms
Acronyms are heavily used in ICT and those you will encounter when creating your online portfolio will fall under the categories including: imagery digitization (DPI, OCR); file format selection (JPG, GIF, PNG); internet-use (WWW, HTTP, .COM) and screen display sizes (W, H). Please ask your educator to explain the acronyms you do not know, or search for them (for example, type 'JPG+definition into google.com and click to its top results).
1.3 New symbols
The symbols you are most likely to encounter in online portfolio use are © for copyright, ™ for trademark and ® for registered trademark. If you encounter others, ask your teacher for help. It is also useful to get help with sourcing special symbols when typing in your computer's word processing software and via your browser. You can then also ask to be shown how to cut-and-paste these into your online portfolio.
1.4 New signs
A sign you will definitely use is the at sign (@) in creating your email address (i.e. @gmail.com). You may want to experiment with signs for emoticon creation {i.e. listening to music d(-_-)b}, too}!
2 New processes
If you are new to working with a computer, you should sit close to a more knowledgeable peer or your teacher to get help with; using its keyboard, editing and saving files, using relevant software, accessing your lab's network and installing drivers for your own device(s):
2.1 Working with a keyboard
Be sure you get help if you are struggling to type what you intended to. Pressing a "wrong" button just once on your keyboard can create very irritating results: 'Caps lock' will capitalize all your text; 'Num lock' can prevent you entering numbers; and 'Ins' can lead to you typing over content you didn't intend to. You may also need to be shown by your educator or peers how to select alternate keys (such as the symbols above your numeric keyboard) using the relevant key combinations for your operating system and its software.
2.2 Editing and saving files
As a learner who wants to create one online portfolio (or more), but has not been taught computer courses and may have limited access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in school and home, you need to learn about the new terms and processes involved in working digitally. This post was written to help you better prepare for these:
1. Getting familiar with new words, acronyms, symbols and signs in online portfolio creation.
If you are used to working on paper and canvas, the move to working on a computer screen involves learning new words (such as 'screen resolution'), acronyms (like DPI), symbols (i.e. ©) and signs (e.g. @) and new processes (such as 'file editing and saving'). It is useful to ask your educator to provide definitions if you do not understand what he or she is talking about to avoid misunderstanding what is being taught. You can also research almost any word, acronym, symbol or sign's definition using Google and other search engines:
1.1 New words
It is important to understand the words used for online portfolio page design elements (such as uniform resource locator, title, header, body, footer, et al.) as your educator is likely to provide you with guidelines for each choice. If you don't know the terms he or she refers to in lessons, you may struggle to understand the reasoning behind the guidelines. Please ask your educator if you need further help or you can find out what new words mean by using a search engine; simply type in the word you want to know, a plus (+) sign, then the word definition straight after (i.e. type 'uniform+resource+locator definition' into www.google.co.za). If you can spare the time, it's best to read through several results to gain a broader understanding of the word's definitions and usage. {You should also read my post on 'Online portfolio page design element questions to help you in creating a better one', as it lists these elements with important questions on your use of them}.
1.2 New acronyms
Acronyms are heavily used in ICT and those you will encounter when creating your online portfolio will fall under the categories including: imagery digitization (DPI, OCR); file format selection (JPG, GIF, PNG); internet-use (WWW, HTTP, .COM) and screen display sizes (W, H). Please ask your educator to explain the acronyms you do not know, or search for them (for example, type 'JPG+definition into google.com and click to its top results).
1.3 New symbols
The symbols you are most likely to encounter in online portfolio use are © for copyright, ™ for trademark and ® for registered trademark. If you encounter others, ask your teacher for help. It is also useful to get help with sourcing special symbols when typing in your computer's word processing software and via your browser. You can then also ask to be shown how to cut-and-paste these into your online portfolio.
1.4 New signs
A sign you will definitely use is the at sign (@) in creating your email address (i.e. @gmail.com). You may want to experiment with signs for emoticon creation {i.e. listening to music d(-_-)b}, too}!
2 New processes
If you are new to working with a computer, you should sit close to a more knowledgeable peer or your teacher to get help with; using its keyboard, editing and saving files, using relevant software, accessing your lab's network and installing drivers for your own device(s):
2.1 Working with a keyboard
Be sure you get help if you are struggling to type what you intended to. Pressing a "wrong" button just once on your keyboard can create very irritating results: 'Caps lock' will capitalize all your text; 'Num lock' can prevent you entering numbers; and 'Ins' can lead to you typing over content you didn't intend to. You may also need to be shown by your educator or peers how to select alternate keys (such as the symbols above your numeric keyboard) using the relevant key combinations for your operating system and its software.
2.2 Editing and saving files
You probably have already used a mobile phone to edit and save pictures and search through these. But on moving to a shared computer in a lab, saving, editing and accessing these files often becomes more complicated, because your lab's computer is setup for many users with more complicated file paths. Your educator should show you how to setup and access a folder on the desktop where you can save your online portfolio-related work securely.
2.3 Using your computer's relevant software
2.3 Using your computer's relevant software
In digitizing imagery, you may need to edit its size, colour balance and resolution. Ask your educator or computer lab's manager to show you which software is available for this; your computer may have a basic image editing and management software (like Microsoft Picture Manager) pre-installed or more advanced software like Graphic Image Manipulation Program, Corel Photo Paint or Adobe Photoshop.
2.4 Accessing your lab's computer network
If you are scanning imagery at a different computer from the one you normally use and wish to copy it across, you should ask your educator or lab manager to show you how to access the lab's network and copy your scanned image(s) across. This is also useful if you have to use a different computer from the one you normally have access to.
2.4 Accessing your lab's computer network
If you are scanning imagery at a different computer from the one you normally use and wish to copy it across, you should ask your educator or lab manager to show you how to access the lab's network and copy your scanned image(s) across. This is also useful if you have to use a different computer from the one you normally have access to.
2.5 Installing drivers for your own devices
If you bringing your own device to class, you should bring the device's software drivers and a storage device (like a USB flash drive), too. Hopefully, your school lab's computers are up-to-date enough to install the driver and link to your device. If not, you should ask to be given access to the lastest computer at your school, so that you can install the relevant driver, download your files, save them to your storage device and transfer them to your personal folder.
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Digitizing one's art and designs for an online portfolio
Written for those Visual Arts and Design learners (and their educators) interested in digitizing artwork for upload to their online portfolios.
2. Organize access to digitization tools.
Once you've collated the artworks you want to digitize, you must organize access and help with the appropriate tools. The type you need to digitize your artworks should depend on their size and dimensions:
If you are at a well-resourced school with a computer lab and
library, you should be able to organize scanner assistance with either
your Visual Arts or Design educator, your computer lab's IT manager or a librarian. You may also be able to ask your Visual Arts or Design educator to setup a well-lit area for you and your classmates to take pictures or video-record your bigger works, too.
If you do not have access to a scanner, camera or video-recorder at school, you should investigate alternatives. These could include:
8. Backup your archive.
Finally, there are two types of computer users on earth; those who have lost data through computer hard-drive failure, and those who are about to! Rather than regretting that you didn't backup your digital artwork archive, you should schedule regular backups and do them to at least three different sources (i.e. external hard-drive, CD and USB memory stick). To find out more about backing up, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_backup and to take you backup practices to the level of best practice, check out www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1847364,00.asp.
I trust that this post provides learners and their educators with the background they need to digitize their art and designs for the online portfolio services they use. I would like to thank the independant Visual Arts Head of Department and IT curriculum integration specialist, whose curricula, 'Digitising, Presenting and Publishing', was sourced in preparing a few sections of this post.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions on improving it in the comments box, below?
Making good digital copies of artwork is a core competence in creating an online portfolio that does justice to your originals. This post was written for novices wanting to achieve this through sufficiently understanding the process and key concepts of digitization. Links to other website articles and online videos have also been provided for more in-depth assistance.
The digitization process
There is a eight-step process you must follow in digitizing your art:
- Collate your best artworks and designs;
- Organize access to digitization tools;
- Get your work ready for digitization;
- Digitize your works with a scanner or camera;
- Save each work to your digital archive with an appropriate filename and format;
- Edit your files to get them upload-ready;
- Upload your files;
- Backup your archive.
1. Collate your best artworks and designs.
You online portfolio should showcase your best art to viewers. So, it is important to keep your digital up-to-date by digitizing your latest (and best) artwork and design projects. It is helpful to review your curricular tasks and sketchbooks to check what you have done, and should these creative works are at different sites (such as home, school studio, boarding house, art center, government exhibitions, etc.), you must plan a schedule for collating them. You should also consider diarising a digization session on a regular basis; this will prompt you to set the time aside for updating your personal digital archives and online portfolio.
2. Organize access to digitization tools.
Once you've collated the artworks you want to digitize, you must organize access and help with the appropriate tools. The type you need to digitize your artworks should depend on their size and dimensions:
- For very small (21.5cm x 35.5cm), two-dimensional (2D) works and small, relatively flat three-dimensional (3D) ones use an A4 flatbed image scanner;
- For small (297 × 420) 2D and flat 3D works, use an A3 flatbed scanner;
- For medium and large 2D works use a tripod-mounted camera (or mobile phone camera) in well-lit studio;
- For medium and large 3D works use a tripod-mounted camera, video-recorder or mobile phone video camera.
If you do not have access to a scanner, camera or video-recorder at school, you should investigate alternatives. These could include:
- Getting help from family and or friends at home or at their work;
- Receiving support at an Arts Center or your local library;
- Or paying for assistance at your local photocopying shop or internet cafe.
3. Get your work ready for digitization.
Once you have defined where and when you can digitize your images, you should order your collated artworks and designs in descending order; from your best, downwards. This will ensure that should you run out of time, you at least have digitized your best works first.
Checkpoints
4.1 Useful online resources for scanning or photographing your works:
A4 or A3 scanning introduction
Search for other resources
If you are having problems digitizing works, use a search engine like Google or Bing to see if there is helpful content on the relevant terms: i.e. If glossy surfaces are posing a problem, search using 'How to photograph shiny surface',
N.B. To cut down on editing time, please ensure the layout of your artwork matches that you want to see in your online portfolio when your (ie. with minimal or no background showing, nor upside down or at an unusual angle!)
5. Save each work to your digital archive with an appropriate filename and format.
Checkpoints
- Any small drawings in smudge-able media (like charcoal or pastel) should be sprayed with fixative, so that they do not change whilst marking the scanner!
- All glass-framed work should be removed from its framing, since photographing or scanning a glass surface without reflections is more complex.
- Check that any fragile work is safely stored for transport to the digitization venue.
4. Digitize your artworks with a scanner or a camera.
Working with digitization tools means learning some new terminology: you will use these tools to create 'raster images' made up of 'pixels'. Designers and digital artists distinguish between 'vector' and 'raster' images; vector images are images based on mathematical primitives, whose expressions are used to create computer graphic images, and are generally used for typesetting and graphic design. Raster images, or 'bitmaps', are going to be used when you create your photographs and scans. These images are made up of tiny colour squares. These colour squares
are pixels (there is a parallel between the pixels and the tiles in
mosaics).
Raster graphics are resolution dependent and cannot scale up to an arbitrary resolution without loss of apparent quality (unlike vector graphics, which easily scale up to the quality of the device rendering them). Before digitizing work, it is important to decide what you may want to use your digitized artworks for in the future. For example, you may have two objectives: in addition to using reduced images for your online portfolio website, you may want to print your digitized works on A4 paper.
Defining your objectives are vitally important; they should determine the initial resolution in 'dots per inch' and image size settings you choose when scanning or photographing imagery.
'Dots per inch' (dpi) refers to the number of dots of colour a colour printer creates when printing work, while 'pixels per linear inch' (ppi) refers to the number of pixels per linear inch in a raster image. For example, you would choose a high resolution, like 20,000-ppi, and a large format if you wanted to reprint your artwork at the same size. Or you would convert imagery to a small size for speedy display on a webpage (and at a low resolution, though this need not be a low, 72 dpi!) N.B. Please note that if you are only able to gain access to a mobile phone camera, its sizing is generally much higher than that used in internet imagery, so you can readily create online portfolios imagery with it.
Raster graphics are resolution dependent and cannot scale up to an arbitrary resolution without loss of apparent quality (unlike vector graphics, which easily scale up to the quality of the device rendering them). Before digitizing work, it is important to decide what you may want to use your digitized artworks for in the future. For example, you may have two objectives: in addition to using reduced images for your online portfolio website, you may want to print your digitized works on A4 paper.
Defining your objectives are vitally important; they should determine the initial resolution in 'dots per inch' and image size settings you choose when scanning or photographing imagery.
'Dots per inch' (dpi) refers to the number of dots of colour a colour printer creates when printing work, while 'pixels per linear inch' (ppi) refers to the number of pixels per linear inch in a raster image. For example, you would choose a high resolution, like 20,000-ppi, and a large format if you wanted to reprint your artwork at the same size. Or you would convert imagery to a small size for speedy display on a webpage (and at a low resolution, though this need not be a low, 72 dpi!) N.B. Please note that if you are only able to gain access to a mobile phone camera, its sizing is generally much higher than that used in internet imagery, so you can readily create online portfolios imagery with it.
Given the wide variety of scanners and cameras (including video and mobile) available, this post cannot possibly address techniques for specific equipment. It's up to you to take the initiative and either find help at your school, at home, outside or 'Do-It-Yourself' by referring to the online resources below (and/or finding the relevant equipment's manual(s)!).
4.1 Useful online resources for scanning or photographing your works:
A4 or A3 scanning introduction
Scantip's beginner guide at www.scantips.com/begin.html by Wayne Fulton is a great resource that will help you no matter what type of scanner you use.
Photographing your painting
Photographing your painting
Tyler Stalman's introduction at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpj28da03JQ&feature=g-like is a useful guide.
Photographing your sculpture
Chris Warner shows at www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jNbVdNKaBo how to use artificial and natural light to photograph sculptures.
Same size imagery from scanning or photography
If you want to create same size imagery from your scans or photographs, read Lar Matré's article at http://matre.com/731/print-prep/ to learn how complex this is.
Video screenshots
You can use a video camera to take still photos of your work or your can take lower-resolution screenshots of video with a screenshot (on PC see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGG-58qnsnk {with your volume low} or on Mac, watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKNfjrFsO3E).
Photographing your sculpture
Chris Warner shows at www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jNbVdNKaBo how to use artificial and natural light to photograph sculptures.
Same size imagery from scanning or photography
If you want to create same size imagery from your scans or photographs, read Lar Matré's article at http://matre.com/731/print-prep/ to learn how complex this is.
Video screenshots
You can use a video camera to take still photos of your work or your can take lower-resolution screenshots of video with a screenshot (on PC see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGG-58qnsnk {with your volume low} or on Mac, watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKNfjrFsO3E).
Search for other resources
If you are having problems digitizing works, use a search engine like Google or Bing to see if there is helpful content on the relevant terms: i.e. If glossy surfaces are posing a problem, search using 'How to photograph shiny surface',
N.B. To cut down on editing time, please ensure the layout of your artwork matches that you want to see in your online portfolio when your (ie. with minimal or no background showing, nor upside down or at an unusual angle!)
5. Save each work to your digital archive with an appropriate filename and format.
Based on my design experience, I would recommend that you should first
capture your imagery in a high resolution (at 300 dots per inch, or greater) TIF image file format and then export this as a small size JPG format. The reasoning for this is that you can keep your TIF files in reserve (for larger image work, like poster creation, for example), than you would be required when using small JPG files for Carbonmade uploads.
Check that your scanner or scanner is set to scan TIF files at high resolution after the image preview is shown. You should save the source TIF scans in a folder, and create a sub-folder within it for the JPG exports. You should also give your exported files different names to ensure its easier to spot the difference between the large and small versions. For example, 'table mountain sketch 17 July 2012.bmp' is exported as 'table mountain sketch small 17 July 2012.jpg'.
6. Edit your files to get them upload-ready.
Check that your scanner or scanner is set to scan TIF files at high resolution after the image preview is shown. You should save the source TIF scans in a folder, and create a sub-folder within it for the JPG exports. You should also give your exported files different names to ensure its easier to spot the difference between the large and small versions. For example, 'table mountain sketch 17 July 2012.bmp' is exported as 'table mountain sketch small 17 July 2012.jpg'.
6. Edit your files to get them upload-ready.
You set your scanner or camera's software to edit and export imagery in JPG format. Alternatively, you can use Microsoft Picture Manager on PC, Preview on Mac, or GIMP on Ubuntu. Simply click on the appropriate link for a tutorial.
Open the jpg file(s), then focus on learning how to get the appropriate image dimension, cropping technique, colour-balance and size:
6.1 Try out different image dimensions
You will need to experiment with the dimensions that work best for you, but it should not be smaller than 448 by 336 pixels, as you will see on the 'appropriate image sizes for uploading to web/adding to documents/sending by e-mail' listed below:
A. 1024 x 768 ppi Large document
B. 800 x 600 ppi Small document
C. 640 x 480 ppi Large webpage image
D. 448 x 336 ppi Small webpage image (unsuitable– too small, low quality)
E. 314 x 235 ppi Large email (unsuitable)
F. 160 x 160 ppi Small email (unsuitable)(N.B. These may vary to some extent depending of original dimensions of image captured).
Please check that the sizing you use for digitised imagery is consistent for your portrait and landscape formats, respectively; if these sizes vary significantly it will create a jarring visual effect for the viewer scrolling through your works. That's fine if it's deliberate, but a poor show, if not!
6.2 Cropping
An important aspect of presentation is to ensure that the digitised images of your artworks are cropped neatly to the edge and no extraneous background should be visible, unless this is consistently done. For example, including the wireframe of your sketchbook may be an interesting touch when done in all sketch scans, but odd if done just for one.
Open the jpg file(s), then focus on learning how to get the appropriate image dimension, cropping technique, colour-balance and size:
6.1 Try out different image dimensions
You will need to experiment with the dimensions that work best for you, but it should not be smaller than 448 by 336 pixels, as you will see on the 'appropriate image sizes for uploading to web/adding to documents/sending by e-mail' listed below:
A. 1024 x 768 ppi Large document
B. 800 x 600 ppi Small document
C. 640 x 480 ppi Large webpage image
D. 448 x 336 ppi Small webpage image (unsuitable– too small, low quality)
E. 314 x 235 ppi Large email (unsuitable)
F. 160 x 160 ppi Small email (unsuitable)(N.B. These may vary to some extent depending of original dimensions of image captured).
Please check that the sizing you use for digitised imagery is consistent for your portrait and landscape formats, respectively; if these sizes vary significantly it will create a jarring visual effect for the viewer scrolling through your works. That's fine if it's deliberate, but a poor show, if not!
6.2 Cropping
An important aspect of presentation is to ensure that the digitised images of your artworks are cropped neatly to the edge and no extraneous background should be visible, unless this is consistently done. For example, including the wireframe of your sketchbook may be an interesting touch when done in all sketch scans, but odd if done just for one.
6.3 Colour balance
You can also try out the different colour-scheme in the editor, as listed on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_scheme. Once you have defined a scheme, you can also explore how changing an image's colour balance settings enhances (or degrades) your image's appeal.
6.4 Image size
Once you are happy with how your image looks, you need to check its file size. If you have followed the dimensions guide (6.1) it should be less than 1 Megabyte. If not, you need to be aware that a
large file size may take a while to upload and the download-time for your viewers will also be slow if they are on slow connections.
7. Upload your files.
Log into your online portfolio service and upload your files. If you have a slow connection, it is safest to upload your files one at a time since batch upoads may time out when your school's broadband is being heavily used by other learners.8. Backup your archive.
Finally, there are two types of computer users on earth; those who have lost data through computer hard-drive failure, and those who are about to! Rather than regretting that you didn't backup your digital artwork archive, you should schedule regular backups and do them to at least three different sources (i.e. external hard-drive, CD and USB memory stick). To find out more about backing up, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_backup and to take you backup practices to the level of best practice, check out www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1847364,00.asp.
I trust that this post provides learners and their educators with the background they need to digitize their art and designs for the online portfolio services they use. I would like to thank the independant Visual Arts Head of Department and IT curriculum integration specialist, whose curricula, 'Digitising, Presenting and Publishing', was sourced in preparing a few sections of this post.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions on improving it in the comments box, below?
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