# HyperUniversity - Coffee Talk

## Final Mission Statement

Academia depends on the circulation and exchange of ideas, but the tools we currently use have not been made with the needs of researchers in mind. The lack of collaborative tools, tedious publishing processes and friction are just a few of the problems this entails. Tools to improve our scholarly workflows already exist, but remain opaque for many of us, as academic craftsmanship is no priority in most university curricula.

HYPERUNIVERSITY aims to bridge the incomplete digital turn in academia from solid analog techniques to digital ones, fit for the 21st century. HYPERUNIVERSITY provides curated resources for contemporary digital tools and training in computer skills to students and scholars in the humanities. HYPERUNIVERSITY delivers sustainable tool chains for scholarly work, from idea to publication, for authors and publishers. HYPERUNIVERSITY teaches note taking, text editing, reference management, layouting, and collaborative version control. HYPERUNIVERSITY contributes to public debates about research, editing, and digitized publishing practices.

The working group HYPERUNIVERSITY consists of researchers from the humanities, social, and computer sciences. We learned how to use the free resources that others have generously shared on the web in order to reap the benefits of contemporary tooling. We want to give back what we have learned and encourage you to join us in this lifelong endeavour for a better and open world.

## 2020-05-19 Minutes Jour Fixe

**Attendants**

- Moritz Mähr, ETH Zurich
- Anna Weichselbraun, University of Vienna
- Albert Krewinkel, Pandoc Project/TU Hamburg
- Giacomo Mercuriali, University of Milan
- Hendrik Erz, University of Hamburg [IFSH]

**Minute Taker**: Hendrik Erz

- **Introduction round**
- **Moritz** — Doesn’t like LaTeX very much, [lost internet connection afterwards]
- **Anna** — started with Scrivener, but faced the problem that it has no citation support, then stumbled upon Zettelkasten, Sublime/SublimeLess, then Atom, then Zettlr; Markdown is exactly what she needs
- **Albert**: That guy from pandoc, originally studied Biology but switched to Haskell/Software Engineering, now fully Open Source developer, currently employed in a project by TU Hamburg
- **Giacomo**: Same as Anna, aim: use PC as real workplace for academic work. Currently a PhD in Philosophy in Milan: map AI/neural network and generative algorithms, and what this can do in domain of creativity and also politics and communication; general problem: Private clouds, and theft of “mind property” → we need to “take back control” over our own thoughts and notes
- **Hendrik**: [I’m just adding this for completeness in case new people join later on] History, Political Theory, Sociology, stumbled upon Markdown in 2014, went through Zkn3, Atom, then long-time Ulysses user, afterwards decided to write an own app, Zettlr (since 2017) → since then mainly lead dev in Open Source, but also continuing attempts at starting a PhD in PolTheo
- **Source of Truth problem**
- Hendrik: Just noticed a huge problem that is likely going to get even worse over time: people send around Word files with reviews and comments up unto the point that there are several incompatible revisions circulating in a larger team; mainly with the current CoVid-blog series on the [Soziologiemagazin blog](http://soziologieblog.hypotheses.org); but also in other work-related contexts (basically whenever sending out files for review/comments to colleagues)
- Anna: In the editorial space there are already workflows, right?
- Albert: TU Hamburg is basically trying to do that
- Hendrik: Not necessarily editorial process, because there’s already [OpenJournal Systems](https://openjournalsystems.com/) or good other content management systems
- Moritz: Editorial processes are more or less covered, but there are small islands where there’s still room for improvement. Example: People know how to use Google Drive, but normally we have several revisions; but the most problematic thing: Messy citations, because everyone uses a different software for this (Endnotes, Zotero, Mendeley, Citavi)
- Giacomo: Output of this group should be: we should put our resources together in order to make something better, plus: We should get grants for this stuff from the European Union
- Anna: Two things we should separate in this train of thought: One, the editorial process and second, scholarly collaboration → what we really want is version control + citations and the two groups we want to address are our colleagues but also our students, of course
- Moritz: Really love this idea, had to teach a class for historians, and an important part they left out: the tools to write with. Perfect would be something like a twelve-week course or something like this that simply teaches people how to write and shows them the tools to do it; in our own writing class it was more about review processes
- Hendrik: Maybe not think about different groups, but about different levels of expertise with these tools?
- Anna: Good idea, but: We are all convinced that Markdown and the toolchain we’re using for this is great, but how can we get other people to adapt this as well? Question we need to be asking ourselves: Why should they use this?
- Moritz: I convinced my boss because I showed him Typora and how I can write completely distraction free, and this convinced him
- Hendrik: According to [a great video I watched today](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azcrPFhaY9k), it’s about not to teach people Markdown but instead identify problems and tell people why Markdown is better
- Moritz: You cannot tell people what tools to work; so instead, we need tools that fit into our _already existing workflows_ – e.g., take Pandoc and extract literature from a Word document (so better word-to-md-conversion)
- Anna: Also, we need to tell people how to correctly apply structural elements (headings, emphasis, italics)
- Moritz: Next problem: collaboration. Should we try something like Word (collab reviews), Critic Markdown or just import Word correctly with diff in Pandoc??
- Albert: Latter is not possible
- Hendrik: Problem is that Critic Markdown and other stuff is basically meta information that not really belongs to the document itself?
- Giacomo: Also a problem is that people are not easily convinced of using different tools, even for collab? But one good thing: Giacomo managed a group of eight people to use Zotero, and they are beginning to grasp the idea/concept
- **Conclusion**
- Albert sets up an Etherpad on HackMD where we can share all this stuff and work collaboratively
- GitHub for now dismissed to enable more people to participate
- Hendrik uploads first batch of minutes to this
- Giacomo will ask a friend to join us next week because she’s good at communication and can give great insight into how we might want to tackle this educational problem
- @anna-w will conduct a non-representative [did I get this right? ;)] survey amongst colleagues of why they stick to Word, and why they aren’t using different tools etc.
- **Next meeting: Tuesday, May 26th, 17:00 PM CEST; at [https://meet.jit.si/Coffeetalk](https://meet.jit.si/Coffeetalk)**

## 2020-05-26: Minutes Jour Fixe

**Attendants**

- Anna Weichselbraun, University of Vienna
- Albert Krewinkel, Pandoc Project/TU Hamburg
- Hendrik Erz, University of Hamburg [IFSH]

**Minute Taker**: Anna Weichselbraun

Hendrik: Tutorial structure in blocks that are modular, people can add to, with goal of making material available nicely packaged on a website.

Anna suggests thinking about different modules, new modules based on what user's needs are. Come up with a few user stories, personas.

Hendrik suggests blocks to specific tools. How should each block look: come up with a markdown TEMPLATE, PPT optional.

Hendrik suggests starting git hub repository with draft template, how to structure the modules.

@anna-w will draw up some user stories and suggest potential modules.

Albert suggests [Open Science MOOC](https://opensciencemooc.eu/) as a cool and useful resource, especially their Slack channel. Beware not to duplicate, but perhaps pay attention to synergies.

Anna asks: What are we doing that is different from all existing open science projects?

Hendrik and Albert: don't want to invent news tools, rather pull together what already exists.

Anna asks how encrusted Word is among publishers.

Albert and Hendrik say it is very encrusted in all the workflows. Hendrik: use of styles is not very widespread because Word doesn't force you to do it (as LibreOffice does).

Hendrik: Integration of existing tools.

## 2020-06-09: Minutes Jour Fixe

Minute taker: Anna

Different levels to proceed:

* operational
* content
* marketing

Working plan:

Central Committee: (meets every two weeks)
Working groups:

Pandoc: the universal document converter, swiss knife

Toolbox for teachers: templates,
but also story behind it: to help people understand the open spirit

Narrative and Utility

---

## 2020-07-21: Minutes Jour Fixe

Idea: podcast in which we discuss ways of working and tools we use
Topics: taking notes
Guests: adversaries (people who handwrite their references)

everyone: come up with subtitle for website
- digital tools for scholars

---

## 2020-09-29: Minutes Jour Fixe

**Hendrik**: Reaching target audience, not only university people but also journalists; we have the "colleagues" of Programmin Historian but we are looking to a broader audience.

We brainstormed about collecting materials already published that can be used to create educational session.

https://github.com/nathanlesage/tooling-semester

The Tooling Semester, twelve sessions, you have 90mins blocks one can stack together according to the needs. Is there an overlap between the Tooling semester and the self-teaching materials we want to collect?

**Anna**: Do not hang up to the perfect words. Start the youtube coffee table.

**Axel**: Material from Axel

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J86Pm62XM_Q

• https://themes.gohugo.io/theme/dot-hugo-documentation-theme/

• https://github.com/writing-resources/awesome-scientific-writing

• https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome

Can we envision a space where people can post questions?

**Fabian**: There is a lack of modular resources. There are a lot of personal workflows which are cool but not easily reproducable. We should get a selection of things to pick and stack.

Do not wait until everything is "set" and move online with the mission statement!

### Next meeting: 13 October 2020

===

## 2020-10-13 MISSION STATEMENT DRAFT and DISCUSSION

### Mission Statement DRAFT

- tools we use not made for academic work
- results in much friction during work
- solution is to remove friction --> better tools
- what we do: Show you these

Academia depends on the circulation and exchange of ideas, but the tools we currently use have not been made with the needs of researchers in mind. Missing collaborative tools, tedious publishing processes and friction are just a few of the problems this entails. Tools to improve our scholarly workflows already exist, but remain opaque for many of us, as academic craftsmanship is no priority in most university curricula.

HYPERUNIVERSITY aims to bridge the incomplete digital turn in academia from solid analog techniques to digital ones, fit for the 21st century. HYPERUNIVERSITY provides curated resources for contemporary digital tools and training in computer skills to students and scholars in the humanities. HYPERUNIVERSITY delivers sustainable tool chains for scholarly work, from idea to publication, for authors and publishers. HYPERUNIVERSITY teaches note taking, text editing, reference management, layouting, and collaborative version control. HYPERUNIVERSITY contributes to public debates about research, editing, and publishing digital practices.

The working group HYPERUNIVERSITY consists of researchers from the humanities, social, and computer sciences. We learned how to use the free resources that others have generously shared on the web in order to reap the benefits of contemporary tooling. We want to give back what we have learned and encourage you to join us in this lifelong endeavour for a better and open world.

### Statements for another piece

HYPERUNIVERSITY features curated tool chains for common academic workflows.

Sustainability requires the implementation of practices which involve plain text writing, open-source software, and the abandon of proprietary programs such as Microsoft Word.

Contemporary standards of open and reproducible research require open and reproducible tools. While the hard sciences community has developed and normalized sustainable electronic editorial processes, nowadays the majority of humanists have yet to familiarize with both the creative possibilties and alienating dangers of computer-based workflows.

## MISSION DRAFTS
**ANNA**
To introduce students and scholars (in the humanities and humanistic social sciences) to better (more sustainable) tools and ways of working for all stages of the academic (scholarly) workflow.

**FABIAN**
Tools shape research. Open and reproducible research - in the sciences, the humanities, and even the arts - requires open and reproducible tools. But today, even researchers engaging in critical and emancipatory projects still depend on proprietary, closed-source software. HYPERUNIVERSITY aims to change that by promoting open-source tool chains for scholarly work, from idea to camera-ready paper. HYPERUNIVERSITY teaches note taking, text editing, reference management, layouting, and version control, using open-source tools. HYPERUNIVERSITY features curated tool chains for common academic workflows. HYPERUNIVERSITY facilitates access to "expert" knowledge on scholarly tools

**HENDRIK**
The working group HYPERUNIVERSITY consists of researchers from the arts & humanities that wants to bring the technological advances of the last fourty years to the desks of university researchers, students, and professors. This includes, but is not limited to,text processing tools, methods on collaboration, and workflows to automate recurring and boring tasks.

The non-technical academia outside of STEM has missed many conveniences of the last decades. While engineers and mathematicians have already largely switched to automated publishing platforms, LaTeX, and other automation tools, text-centered academics still live in the word processing age. This needs to change.

This portal will give you the power of emancipation from the Microsoft overlords, and will help you free your own writing, teaching, and publishing from the fetters of proprietary software. Because we have nothing left to lose except our chains.

===

NB: some meetings in between that we didn't take notes for

===

## 2020-12-01: Minutes Jour Fixe

#### DEAL and website
Giacomo is taking a break; somebody needs to be in touch with DEAL: @anna-w will do that

#### Content: how to go about gathering/hosting content?

* @Fabian suggests just links to stuff (that is hosted elsewhere) from Hyperuniversity homepage
* @Hendrik Github pages to gather content and present in MKdocs
* @Fabian: start small, decide on a format, collect a few things, keep them in github, wait for the website to be ready and then move them over

--> Github repository to gather content

#### Next steps

EXISTING CONTENT
@everyone: gather LINKS to tutorials and resources that already exist

Deadline: 15 December 2020

ORIGINAL CONTENT
@Fabian: ImageMagick tutorial
@anna-w: Zotero set up for annotating and taking notes

FORMAT
1 link + 1 sentence (that asks a question "How do I"?)

Deadline: 31 December 2020

====

# Resources, Suggestions, Sandbox

## Proposal OER Course

Idea: Don't create x courses or completely loose material, but instead create _blocks_ of courses.

Assumption: Each session approximately takes 90 minutes, so if we split up the work in blocks that can take these 90 minutes, we have modularity, extendability, and customizability.

An envisioned GitHub repository could have the following directory structure:

root
|
+-- Introduction
|
+-- Computer 101
|   |
|   +-- Fundamentals of a Computer
|   |
|   +-- Command-Line Interfaces
|   |
|   +-- Bash vs. PowerShell
|
+-- Scientific Writing
|   |
|   +-- Word Processors vs. Markdown
|   |
|   +-- Note-Taking
|   |
|   +-- Maintaining folder structures
|
+-- Academic Publishing
|   |
|   +-- Collaboration with Google Drive
|   |
|   +-- "Source of Truth" for collaborative Papers
|   |
|   +-- Introduction to OJS and enterprise journal CMS
|
+-- Reference Management
|   |
|   +-- Automate the Boring stuff with Zotero
|   |
|   +-- CSL versus BibTex: Which to choose?
|   |
|   +-- Sharing databases
|
+-- Tooling
    |
    +-- Pandoc
    |
    +-- LaTeX
    |
    +-- AutoHotKey (Windows only)

With this structure, we have the following benefits:

1. Beginning is super easy, because every one of us can create slides + supplementary stuff for at least one 90 minutes session from scratch without research
2. It is extendable — other people can help by creating blocks themselves
3. We do not pre-assume the level of knowledge of the people who are going to be taught
4. The teachers themselves can decide what to teach and when

Example:

1. Teacher gets a course, needs to plan
2. Has 12 sessions over the course of the semester -> needs 12 blocks
3. Chooses one introductory block which simply sets the agenda with an introduction specific to either tooling, academic publishing (etc.)
4. Choose 11 other blocks from the available material until the course is ready
5. Adapts a little bit
6. If one of the blocks the teacher needs is missing, they can simply do this and add it as a block for others to use

For us this means:

- Not much work
- We could even create a super simple frontend where people can simply download a ZIP of blocks by drag and drop
- Other people can contribute easily (each folder just includes, e.g., a PPTX, some notes, ideas, alternatives, maybe even tasks for the students to do)
- We can just begin this and let things go their way.

## Proposal: Personas and user stories

As a < type of user >, I want < some goal > so that < some reason >.

### The Professor

* was professionalized in a moment when digital tools became mainstream
* learned by doing as they could
* not aware of the computer as something that should serve
* not aware that there is a better way

### Postdoc

* has developed certain writing and research routines
* knowledge of certain tools (Citavi, Zotero, Word, etc.)
* self-knowledge of what works and what doesn't
* desire to overhaul their existing practices but worried about timesuck, failure

### Graduate Student

* real and present need for information management and knowledge development infrastructure
* motivated, because can start from scratch

### Zach Turmoil

Zach is 21 years old and is in his fifth semester of journalism and ethnology. He lives in a dormitory. During the holidays he returns to his parents and his younger sister, who live several hours away from the university by car. He plays Fortnite and Minecraft on his computer, enjoys watching Peaky Blinders on Netflix and spends a lot of time on Instagram. When he watches videos or reads a PDF on his laptop, he has his smartphone at hand to chat with his friends and look up unfamiliar terms. He rides a mountain bike and enjoys going to the movies. He goes to the polls (also in the student council) and sympathises with the Fridays for Future movement, but is not politically active. He does not yet have a concrete plan what he wants to do after his Bachelor's degree. He is considering an interdisciplinary course of studies, but would also like to work in a communications agency. He is a skilled computer user, but has no experience in programming and command line environments.

## Discussion

_Your thoughts?_

### @anna-w
Thanks for this beginning, which looks like a very promising start to a structure. I wonder if it would help if we could be more explicit about what *problem* each of the blocks wants to solve.

After some of my preliminary non-representative "research" about why people stick with Word, I think it might be useful to identify types of users (as designers and product managers would) and their stories, which might help us to customize blocks of content for specific user types.

For example, for the 50 year old professor who does not use Word's styles nor a citation manager, the first step might just be a module on Word's styles and Zotero. (That would be the basic step toward less tedious collaboration because you have more easy document conversion and the possibility for shared libraries).

For the Word power user, or Scrivener user, the module on markdown (and why it's superior to Word) might be appropriate.

For me, one of the most compelling arguments for plain text is actually also the possibility of a Zettelkasten and having my ideas and my writing in one place...perhaps full-blown knowledge management could be a module too (the crowning achievement!).

## Suggestions Name

**the tooling semester**

* the missing semester
* the practical semester
* digital tricks of the trade
* stories and tools (how to use your computer as a humanists?)
* become an open science humanist

## Classes / Compelling Stories

Stories convey values. That is why we have packed all the things we consider central to a free science into stories. On the way you learn to do interesting things with your computer. But that's just an added bonus.

### Aaron Swartz, John Gruber and Markdown

* The original specs of Markdown <https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/>
* Aarons notes on md <http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001189>
* Some writeups <http://aaronbeveridge.com/markdown/history.html> and
* Worthwile biopic of Aaron Swartz <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy> or <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvcc9C8SbM>

### More stories (and topics)

* Sci-Hub / Alexandra Elbakyan
* [Paywall Movie](https://paywallthemovie.com/)
* Apache Foundation
* <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUt2nb0mgwg>
* [Electronic Frontier Foundation](https://www.eff.org/)
* Zotero/Jabref
* Donald Knuth, TeX and typography
* [Tex for beginners (1981)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbrMBOF61e0&list=PL94E35692EB9D36F3)
* [Writing process (2020)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG0D-kKTF1g)
* Free software, GPL License and Free Software Foundation
* [Revolution OS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjMZssWMweA)
* [The Cathedral and the Bazaar](http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/)
* Linus Torvalds and git (unfortunately an asshole)
* [Linus Google Talk (2007)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8)
* John MacFarlane and Pandoc
* [Lo and behold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo_and_Behold,_Reveries_of_the_Connected_World)

### Literature

* Brügger, Niels. The Archived Web: Doing History in the Digital Age. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2018.
* Gitelman, Lisa. Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014.
* Hicks, Mar. Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing. History of Computing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017.
* Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016.
* Rankin, Joy Lisi. A People’s History of Computing in the United States. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2018.
* Rosenzweig, Roy. "Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past." The Journal of American History 93, no. 1 (2006): 117-46. Accessed June 11, 2020. doi:10.2307/4486062.

### Examples of stuff Moritz can build:

* <https://maehr.github.io/pc101/> (Still very much WIP)
* <https://maehr.github.io/2020FS-UZH-600-009a-Schreibuebung/#/>
* <https://moritzmaehr.ch/macos-10-15-basic-configuration/>
* <https://maehr.github.io/awesome-digital-history/>
* <https://writing-resources.github.io/awesome-scientific-writing/>

### Resources, References, Other people's efforts

* [Zotero Workshop for PhD students](https://formadoct.doctorat-bretagneloire.fr/zotero_workshop)
* [Horrifying but useful Twitter thread that brought all the hand-referencers out of the woodwork](https://twitter.com/doctormoffett/status/1271932109465280515) [This is such an amazing read!]
* [Joint Roadmap for Open Science Tools: seems to not have activity since fall 2019](https://jrost.org/)
* https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WqejSsItTDykM3qsPxJnbHnlNSLL2bnsqv2bLwShVX0/edit?usp=sharing
* [Investigating Git Academia](https://investigating-archiving-git.gitlab.io/)

## "RESEARCH"

[Twitter thread of people who insist on writing references by hand](https://twitter.com/doctormoffett/status/1271932109465280515?s=20)

## FUNDING POSSIBILITIES
* [Horizon 2020 Europe](https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-search;freeTextSearchKeyword=;typeCodes=1;statusCodes=31094501,31094502;programCode=H2020;programDivisionCode=null;focusAreaCode=null;crossCuttingPriorityCode=null;callCode=Default;sortQuery=openingDate;orderBy=asc;onlyTenders=false;topicListKey=topicSearchTablePageState)

## Website name brainstorm
* HyperUniversity; I came up with this and googled... look what one founds! [book ref.](https://books.google.it/books?id=CaL-aLSQ-agC&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=hyperuniversity&source=bl&ots=DqMNbr-Px0&sig=ACfU3U39Pg70iZDIiDF9YW4awc3t8W6cIw&hl=it&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjwibC1rJ3qAhWCi8MKHY0XDjQQ6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=hyperuniversity&f=false) domain: .eu, .org,

How about HyperVersity (just for … brevity's sake? But I do confess that this does get rid of the rigid university-connection …) … or UniHyperVersity? Or UniversityHyper?


***

And, concerning the **Æ S T H E T I C S** we talked about:


***

[D-E-A-L Bruxelles](http://d-e-a-l.eu/#) design and research firm from Bruxelles, would help with the aesthetics!

--- --- --- ---

# THE CONTROL ROOM:

#### TITLE: HyperUniversity
#### WEB DOMAIN: hyperuniversity.org
#### HACKMD PAD: https://hackmd.io/b3onRwvEQKCLlMWGxLbvoA?both

## MISSION:
**To be written**: _Upgrade humanists as so they (and the rest of society) do not become slaves of engineers and machines._

## PROJECT MANAGEMENT:
### Short-term:
1. curate a repository of projects / materials / courses / classes which one can use as self-teaching tools for open-source/free/horizontal digital methods in the humanities, both research and praxis.
2. start a youtube channel / podcast of short (20min) conversations / interviews with practitioners / players involved into liberating software and digital practices ex. Henrik for Zettlr, the CSL guy, someone from TheProgrammingHistorian project ecc
### Mid-term:
mixing our resources, envision one ore more classes / workshop on the basics: Zotero + Word, Zotero + Zettlr, reveal.js ecc...
build one class / workshop
### Long-term
apply the class to test-subjects 🧪; feedback on the class / workshop to steer it
envision a class template / rythm that can be applied to the next classes
### Super-long-term
look after European fundings for international collaboration between research institutions

## PEOPLE

#### Anna
#### Albert
pandoc core dev
#### Axel
#### Fabian
#### Giacomo: [e-mail]
#### Giulia
#### Hendrik
#### Moritz

Computer History, Migrations Studies & Digital History at the chair for History of Technology at ETH Zurich. [web](https://moritzmaehr.ch) [mail]([e-mail])

## FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

https://prototypefund.de/en/