December 2015

The New Year is Just Around the Corner…

It’s hard to ignore the anxiety and nervous buzzing filling the halls and atrium at ITU right now. It is the first week of December and for students, this part of the semester is a blur, with exams, mandatory assignments, and projects orbiting haphazardly, at dizzying speeds, around their heads and demanding their attention at every turn.

At ETHOS, we too are keeping busy and homing in on our research: critically examining digital methods and their applications, and constructing cases to explore. In fact, just a few weeks ago our method of inquiry was decided upon. We don’t want to give too much away just yet but we are ready to announce that our research will focus on introducing the concept of “Datasprinting ” as method. We are incredibly excited about this project and each day we are moving closer and closer to identifying what exactly our contribution to this complex field might be.

This semester, ETHOS has focused primarily on building our identity, stabilizing our infrastructures and reaching out to potential partners. The work has been both taxing and exciting and we look forward to continuing it with even more fervor and rigor in the year to come.

Even though the holidays and a new year are right around the corner, most of us at ITU are so busy that we don’t have the time to look past the end our noses or beyond the screens of our laptops. Moments to stop and appreciate life, friends, and family at semester’s end can seem so fleeting.

We conclude this newsletter and this year with a word of thanks and gracious reflection. We here at ETHOS know that for all the progress we’ve made since our launch in April none of it would have been possible without the steadfast help and dedication of our most valued allies – our volunteers. Thank you for your time and your support. It means the world to us.

And although what 2016 will bring for ETHOS remains unknown, the lab – with the help of our fearless volunteers – is poised to confront any new challenges and leverage new opportunities as they arise. The newsletter will be back in time for next semester, so keep your eyes peeled for our first newsletter of 2016 in February.

Season’s Greetings & Happy Holidays

Yours truly,

ETHOS Lab

Teaching: Visiting Professor - Geoffrey C. Bowker

From Mid-March to June 2016, ITU will be hosting Professor Bowker who will be teaching a PhD course in Big Data and Ethics.

While in Copenhagen and spending time with us he will also hold several public lectures that will be announced via the ITU Notice Board closer to their dates. If you are interested in learning more about Bowker and his work check out his recent article on Temporality published as a part of the Infrastructure Toolbox series by Cultural Anthropology.

Research: OPEN PROJECT DATABASE

Registration for classes next semester is already open, and if you are a student in search of meaningful, interesting research check out our Project Database. There you will find a number of research projects in need of students. Or if you would like to conduct your own research in association with the lab, reach out to us and if possible we would be happy to add your project to our project base as well or connect you with a potential supervisor from our research group.

Services: DATA SPRINTING

ETHOS is proud to announce that within the lab’s first research paper we will be exploring the “datasprint” as a digital methodology and will examine a number of cases where we conduct “datasprints” as a means of gathering insights as a part of our Partner Services.

If you are a company with massive amounts of data that you are unsure what to do with, or would like to try and analyze using new approaches contact us directly.

Data Visualization in the Humanities and Social Sciences Theme Day

Tomorrow, Wednesday 2nd December, ETHOS Lab will host a theme day on Data Visualization in the Social Sciences and Humanities together with the Danish e-Infrastructure Cooperation and the University of Copenhagen’s Faculty of Humanities.

Brit Ross Winthereik & Marisa Cohn will present their argument for a feminist cartography of controversy and Jakob Bæk Kristensen will present his work on visualizing the Danish Facebook public. Researchers from the Faculty of Humanities will also present their work, and there will be a bazar with students showing off their visualization work and a chance to try out visualization tools such as Tableau, Gephi and ImageJ.

BECOME A VOLUNTEER

Are you looking for a fun and rewarding opportunity to make new friends and contribute to a budding field of research?

Then stop by ETHOS Lab at 1C05 and talk to us about volunteering your time at the lab. Find out more here! Our volunteers are very important to us and have the opportunity to choose the projects they work on and incorporate their own research within the lab if there is mutual interest.