Thesis Update Number 3

My thesis is coming along strongly and I am feeling more and more confident about the project as a whole. I recently met with my primary adviser Michelle Finn and we figured out a time table for the rest of the project and this has helped me a lot. Knowing exactly what I need to get done by a certain point gives me a more precise goal and this has allowed me to focus more on certain aspects of the thesis. I have until next Friday to complete the process of artifact selection and then from there I can get started actually putting the exhibit together and writing text to go along with it, which I look forward to.

The only issue that I have come across is based on our expected timetable for the exhibit I am not entirely sure if the exhibit will be up and operational on the website by the time the thesis is completed but I should be able to put everything together and have the actual exhibit created by then s that is not a huge deal. All the same I was looking forward to being able to see the finished product by the time the thesis was over but you can't win them all.

3rd post update!

So time management has certainly helped in the process of writing and getting pages done, being sick did not. 

Thinking about breaking my thesis into chapters is also helping a lot. It's now down to two chapters though, but that has helped focus ideas a lot better. I'm still curious as to how to approach explicit content in regards to material in the thesis? But I'll try to discuss that more tomorrow. All in all, so far so good. 

As for the Poster, did anyone else make multiple designs to test out how colors would work or am I just being overly cautious by doing so? I've got a couple color schemes out but not using the white text is still bothering me. I can make do however. I'm excited to see how everyone elses projects are coming.

Third Update of the Semester

The last few weeks I have started developing the tour route and writing about the different historic houses and buildings along the route. Right now it is probably too long but I plan to talk to Denise about it next week and get feedback. Next step is to find out how I want to add information between the sites as we walk, and figure out what additional information I will need to research for that.

This week I have also started to develop my poster and I have a pretty good idea on how I want it set up and the images I'll want to use. I'll need to reach out to the the Seneca County Historical Society or see if the NPS has higher quality images I can use for my poster. 

Just Keep Swimming

This week I've been working toward completing the sections of my thesis that focus on the Smithsonian's visitor study "Hiding in Plain Sight" and the public programming for both the NPG and Brooklyn Museum presentations of Hide/Seek. These sections are key in developing my conclusion and future recommendations for museums. I also hope to finish developing my sections about the controversy as a whole and the importance of Hide/Seek and the works selected for the exhibition in museum history. I know these are key sections but I'm not too worried about completing them before our first full deadline. I know I need to revisit my literature review before submission but I'm not excited to begin reworking this section.

We have also been tasked with developing our initial layouts for our final presentation posters which has gone relatively smoothly, though it has been difficult trying to determine the size and placement of images on my poster. I am excited to receive feedback on my poster layout, specifically on the timeline I've included along the bottom to summarize important events in the Hide/Seek controversy.

Thesis Update #3

    I am making significant headway on my thesis paper. I aim to be finished with the entire first draft at the end of next week. Then over the RIT spring break, I will edit my rough draft into, hopefully, a proper thesis paper. The section I am currently writing is several revitalization projects around the city of Buffalo, New York. Admittedly, I have not gone back to correct/update the previous sections of my thesis. I am afraid if I shift my focus from writing to editing, I'll never finish my paper by the deadline. 

    As a class, we have started developing our poster to reflect our Thesis papers visually. I am pleased with my current design. However, I don’t think I fit more than three pictures onto the poster because my Buffalo skyline takes a significantly lower portion of my poster. But I would like to include a graph from my sports fan survey. Also, I am afraid I will not have enough room for my text or that the text will be too small to read. I'll attach my preliminary poster below, and suggestion are welcome!  

Exciting progress with app development and user testing

Since I last wrote, I've crossed the second major hurdle in my thesis project: the first round of user testing!!

For the first round of user testing, I visited Dr. Juilee Decker's Visitor Engagement class to gather feedback from a general audience. They evaluated the general design, general functionality, and general content of the app. I got a lot of positive feedback, as well as some helpful constructive criticism, and I'm excited to move forward with the next round of user testing.

My next round of user testing is scheduled for March 9-10, which is very exciting! So far, I only have one confirmed and scheduled volunteer, but I plan on putting out another invitation in the next day or so. I want to keep my user-testing pool small so as to get more in-depth, qualitative feedback, and I have a lot of people who have offered to help me recruit potential user testers, so I'm not too worried. 

The last notable update I have is that I've been awarded a COLA Student Research Fund Scholarship to help compensate my partner and app developer Peter! I'm very excited to finally be able to give him something beyond simple credit for all the hard work he has done for me and my thesis. 

I'm excited to keep moving forward both with my user testing and with the development of my thesis.

Visitor Studies Completed!

Since the last blog post update, I have not only been able to create a final print of my visors, but have also conducted three days worth of visitor observations!  After printing my first version of the visor, I made adjustments to the shape of the nose hole and the size, but my second ended up being a little too small.  I ended up reprinting it for a third time using brown filament, and this time the size was almost perfect.  I sanded and then airbrush painted this version of the visor, which made it look more like the original and also changed the texture to feel less like a 3D print.
The next part of my project was to actually conduct the visitor survey.  I went to the RMSC on Monday 2/18, Friday 2/22, and Saturday 2/23, and was able to collect a total of 71 survey responses.  I also tracked on paper how many children and adults stopped to look at the setup, handled the visor, and tried it on.  These numbers aren't as exact and don't say anything about the desire of the visitors, but since not all the visitors took the survey it gives me a sense of how many people interacted with the visor. 
I haven't gotten to go through the data in-depth yet, but from a preliminary glance it seems that people enjoyed their experience with the visor, and found it satisfying to touch.  I might go back to the RMSC to try and collect more data, but I have to talk to my advisers and see if 71 responses is enough.  I'm excited to go through the data more and see what conclusions I can draw, and to keep working on my project! 

Spring Semester Update #3

Thesis research is going pretty well. We're at the point in the semester where things are moving very quickly, so it feels like I've accomplished a lot yet have so much left to do. I know for certain that there are two more sections I need to research and write. One is on the National Museums Scotland because I felt I needed to discuss at least one more cultural institution in addition to the National Library of Scotland. The second will be about about what community/grassroots organizations are doing to revitalize Scottish Gaelic. My idea there is to compare and contrast their efforts to the public policies, government initiatives, and national institutions. What are local and national entities doing similarly? Differently? Are they yielding different results? Are smaller, community-oriented groups better poised to engage with the surrounding public and the language?

After completing these sections, I'm hoping to step back and look at everything as a comprehensive whole. Right now, I dive in deep into each section and focus solely on that. As a result, the suggestions and recommendations I'll be giving in my conclusion aren't anything concrete yet. I'm worried about the hypothetical nature of my ideas/suggestions and I keep wondering if it will be enough. But, as I've said, my plan is to re-read everything once each section is finished and then synthesize all of the questions and new ideas I've been coming up with, gather them all together, and discuss them in the conclusion. Moving forward I just need to remember to be confident in my work and that it's exciting to be working with a relatively new topic area that has its unknowns.

Lastly, I'm working on the preliminary poster draft. The biggest challenge for me is actually the images because I'm not physically producing anything or visiting any places that I can photograph. My images will probably be screenshots of relevant sites, like the Library's digital collections, and charts/maps. I was thinking it would be fun to put in a little picture or snippet of my family's crest or tartan but I don't know if that's too irrelevant. You have to balance personal interest/passion with a certain level of objective detachment when it comes to research.

Update #3

Some days I feel like I have everything on track and under control, and other days I feel like I'm terribly behind and will never finish in time.
I look at the deadline for the final draft and it feels like it's tomorrow!
I know I'll get everything done, and some days it doesn't bother me as much, but other days I wake up in a cold sweat thinking I've forgotten a deadline or a huge section of writing that I forgot needs to be included.
The writing for our last deadline went well, and I already have 5 pages of the next section done, but I still have to finish that section and get at least three more sections done. I think this is what is making me anxious because I keep thinking that all of the sections need to be as lengthy as the first two, but they don't.
It will get done, and I'll be fine. In the meantime, I just keep plugging away.
At least my preliminary poster PowerPoint is finished and submitted. One more thing checked off the list.
On to the next!

Update 2

I've kept working on research and writing. I got in contact with Mason and will be looking through his sources, and I got some suggestions from Dr. Brown for some additional resources as well. I plan on continuing to research and write and then in early March, Denise and I will start discussing tours and interpretation at the park in more detail. This Friday, Sunday, and Monday should be productive thesis days for me. The first few weeks I had a pretty good schedule going for working on thesis, but have fallen out of that as other assignments have come up. So during the next few weeks a goal of mine is to get back into a more established schedule.

Thesis Update 2

Over the past few weeks I have been putting an enormous focus on continuing to build my list of artifacts to use in the exhibit. I have gone through every digitized resource that the Library has to offer and have started going through many of their physical artifacts. I have built up a good list of about 50 items thus far that I think would work in the exhibit. It has been good to actually work on the project portion of the thesis and I feel prepared to finish this project. I hope to be done with the selection of artifacts by early March so that I can get started on crafting a narrative and building the exhibit itself. I have set up a schedule for myself where I will be going to Rundel to meet with my primary adviser on Wednesday and Fridays so we can make sure that the project is moving at a good pace.

Coming up over the next few weeks I want to finish going through the artifacts that are on site and start to craft a basic narrative for the exhibit. I also want to start writing more pages for the thesis paper so that I can keep good track of what my thought process has been while going through the process of putting this exhibit together. Finally, I want to reach out to some people at different institutions to see if they might have some artifacts that could help to bring the exhibit together.

Post 2

So things are going along, slowly but surely. Incorporating the feedback from my pages last week, setting some specific times to write this paper, writing those pages down, and shout out to my advisors who had some things to take a look at, it got me to look at certain aspects from a different angle. Talked about various roadblocks and potential solutions last week concerning the people looking at it, now I'm getting into the root of the... I don't want to say "problem", but it's an obstacle, I guess. Not really any gigantic roadblocks to speak of, but nothing really knocking my socks off. Not sure what more to say.

Getting closer to user testing!

These past few weeks have been very productive for me, but not necessarily because I got a lot written for the body of my thesis.

Next Tuesday, I'll be conducting my first round of user testing! I'll be visiting Dr. Decker's visitor engagement class and people will be able to download and use the app so they can provide feedback on the content and functionality of mine and Peter's prototype. To get prepared, I've collaborated with Peter and Dr. Decker to develop a user testing survey and met with them to discuss how we are going to conduct the user testing. We are hoping for some good responses and feedback regarding the app, so wish us luck! Even if they hate it, at least we have feedback on what we should do to improve the user experience.

As far as additional updates, I've decided to narrow my focus for user testing with my contacts at Autism Up. Rather than getting as many families as possible to participate, I'm hoping to get 3-4 families to test the app. With a smaller focus group, it expands my opportunity for more in-depth feedback beyond the initial user testing survey. Since the success of my app is based on improving the quality of visitor experiences at a museum, I should be better able to assess that quality by conducting longer-term, more in-depth interviews.

I'm excited for my first round of user testing, and I can't wait to update you all on the progress!

Developing Thesis Content

This week has been a slow push through the 500+ archival photographs I took of the collections I reviewed over winter break. I have been working through finding documents that contain relevant information that will help me develop the factual content of my case study. I have been attempting to figure out the timeline of the controversy to develop a better understanding of when various community organized symposia and protests were and how they played in to the larger story. Knowing that there was a community response to the controversy I want to evaluate what was done to address community concerns outside of the museum space. This is key because it will inform my understanding of where the Smithsonian fell short and what the non-Smithsonian programming did, either, wrong or right.

I also began developing my section about the programming utilized by the Brooklyn Museum. The problem I am facing is that I do not have access to visitor responses or feedback for any of the programming. Though I can discuss how each of the programs address a unique aspect of the exhibitions topic or conceptual message, I won't be able to discuss how effective the programming actually was. This is a relatively large shortcoming but I hope that I may be able to contact the Brooklyn Museum to see if they have any visitor studies on the programming they did for Hide/Seek.

I'm hoping to keep writing before going back and revising, simply because some of the content I still need to find through my research. For now I feel confident moving forward, I have begun formulating my introduction and all of the sections I believe I will need to address in the body of the text.

Progress Report #2

I was able to get in touch with my primary advisor and receive feedback on my first draft of my thesis. Of course, I am still finding new resources to add to my current ones. For example, my primary advisor gave me an article on sports psychology. I am continuing to expand on my previous eight pages of my rough draft. I have finished describing the background history of Buffalo and the professional sports teams. Now I am working on the section that describes the downfall of Buffalo and the recent revitalization practice.  

    So far I have received 60 responses to my Buffalo sports survey that I posted on Facebook. I asked my boyfriend to help me create a Twitter account to increase my number of responses. I hope that utilizing another social media platform such as Twitter, will help me reach more people. My goal is to get at least 100 responses.

    I have adjusted my schedule, so I have more time to write during the week since my weekends are booked with hockey games. I plan to write all day on Mondays and Wednesdays. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish my paper by the end of this month. 

Project continuation

The last few weeks for me have been more about progressing on my project rather than writing.  Two weeks ago, I was able to complete the first test print of my visor, which was good for a first try but had some serious flaws.  It was way too big, and the nose hole was nowhere near the shape of a nose.  Last week I worked with my friend to fix the model, and I reprinted it this weekend.  It looks way better but now it's a little too small, so I'll probably do one final print later this week, and then use that model for my study.
I'm planning on going to the RMSC for visitor observations next Monday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Hopefully this will give me enough data to use for my study, so this week is full of preparations to go next week.  If it's not enough, I'll add additional days, but I'm starting with three and seeing what happens.  To prepare for my study, I'm writing label text, gathering my supplies, creating a sign to attract visitors to the galleries, and communicating with RMSC to make everything is all set.
However, I have been working a little bit on writing.  Mainly, I've been editing based on the (very helpful!) feedback I got on my first eight pages.  I'm also planning on writing my next eight later this week, but I'm a little worried about running out of things to write.  The next big bulk of writing I have to do is about my study, and since I haven't completed it yet I don't want to write a bunch of fluff and then fill in information later.  So for now I'm focused on my visitor observations next week.  Fingers crossed that it goes well!

Blog Update #2

Paper writing is going much better now that I've gotten myself on a more strict schedule of when the best times to write are. I still struggle a bit with focusing on what to write about and how to best explain what I need to talk about. Also writing the paper from the view of a fan of the music and culture and looking at it with a critical lens has led to some conflicting feelings.
Bands and music I grew up with and loved (still to love) have been essential to a lot of problems and problematic to women in the Metal community. So writing about some of these albums and bands have been tough. I have two sections fleshed out a lot more with ideas and direction in regards to writing them. So I suppose its safe to say, so far so good.

Spring Semester Update #2

As always, I'm still moving forward with my research. For our first deadline of eight pages, I decided to research and write about important Scottish Gaelic policies given that I'll be referencing them throughout my paper. In addition, I included some useful statistics from a study that examined how many people know/speak Gaelic, their public perception of it, and its ties to cultural identity. Next, I began writing on the National Library of Scotland for my first case study because I was interested in their digitization efforts that are making rare Gaelic text and literature available online.

Currently, I'm looking into preservation and revitalization efforts in school and in community organizations. For example, I'm reading about Gaelic Medium Education, which allows children as early as preschool age all the way up to secondary school to learn in Gaelic. In terms of community organizations, there are quite a few that offer online resources to families and parents. As I research more about this, I feel like it's a nice tie-in to the Library's digitization efforts. With all of this combined, I might include a section just dedicated to the digital and how modern preservation and revitalization efforts can be undertaken through online means. For instance, besides the Library, are other museums and cultural institutions connecting with their audiences online? Are they doing things such as bilingual social media posts? For our next deadline, I also want to finish my introduction. Hopefully by that point I'll have most of my research done so I can have a better idea of how to summarize my paper and pinpoint the thesis statement.

Peer review last week was very helpful. It's always nice to have a fresh pair of eyes to catch weird wording/typos. It was also helpful just to see how my group members decided to go about organizing their ideas. It's exciting seeing everyone's progress!

490 post 2: Revise, revise, and revise again

Now that I have the first few pages written, I'm trying to revise them to a point that I'm happy with before I have to start adding to the other sections of my thesis. I'm hoping that getting one section that I'm satisfied with will let me use it as sort of an example for how I want to format the rest of the thesis.  Getting feedback from not only my advisors and Dr. Lent, but from my peer review group has definitely helped. I knew that my writing was far from where I want it to be at the end of the semester, but seeing that I'm not as behind as I thought I was when I first submitted the first draft was extremely reassuring. Seeing that the three of us in my peer review group have taken three different approaches to our writing style has also helped me feel more confident that not everyone's thesis will be set up the same and it's fine if we have different styles, formats, and/or contents.