DataCamp continues to be an online, hands-on, practical training resource, that faculty can take advantage of to learn how to use the open source statistical environment of R, as well as how to code in Python and forge beautiful data … Continue reading What’s new with DataCamp
Liberal arts colleges are under increased scrutiny of their institutional approach for ensuring accessibility of web and other digital communication methods. While the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) have issued guidance regarding institutional obligations for ensuring access for students with disabilities, colleges still struggle with how to best address such obligations within the context of policy, procedure, and implementation. The challenge of accessibility is systemic in nature and requires an organizational approach. Being reactive to DOJ and OCR investigations can be resource-intensive and may not always promote the most sustainable solutions. … Continue reading Early steps to building a CLAC accessibility community
Building interactive VR objects and environments for course materials or as course assignments has gotten much easier with the development of web frameworks such as A-Frame. This framework leverages WebVR and WebGL APIs using a markup language that should be … Continue reading A-Frame, the WebVR framework for creating 3D visualizations
Learning Together On June 6th & 7th group of ten faculty, five staff and five student research assistants all participated together in a two-day workshop on “R.” R is an open source integrated suite of software facilities for data manipulation, calculation … Continue reading R, R Studio and DataCamp
We are pleased to announce that Information Technology Services has just acquired a new 3D printer! And with this new printer, we hope to make 3D printing available to more folks here at Swarthmore. With the arrival of the new … Continue reading New Ultimaker 3 3D Printer!
A recent article appearing in The New York Times highlights progress in the open-source textbook movement by Connexions, “a dynamic digital educational ecosystem” based at Rice University in Houston. Over the next few months, Connexions, via OpenStax College, will provide an initial offering of freely available textbooks covering physics, sociology, introductory biology, anatomy, and physiology. Connexions’ director, Richard Baraniuk, said, “if we capture just 10 percent of the market with these first five textbooks” students in the United States could save $90 million over the next five years. The content, provided using an open license, will allow faculty to freely customize … Continue reading Open-Source Textbooks Aim to Curb Education Costs
