Madison Digital Image Database April 5-6, 2005 Kevin Hegg, Andreas Knab, Christina Updike James Madison University New Media Consortium Online Conference on Visual Literacy

Agenda  Background  Current use  Main features  Product demo  Experiences  Future development  Conclusion

What is MDID?  The Madison Digital Image Database (MDID) is a freely distributed system for managing and integrating digital images into the teaching and learning process  Instructors search and browse MDID collections online to retrieve images for building “slideshows,” which can be organized, annotated and archived for future use  Students access instructor slideshows online to review for classes or conduct research  The ImageViewer is an application used in the classroom to project slideshows on a large screen

Project Impetus  In 1997, newly established general education guidelines resulted in a large increase in the number of art history survey classes taught at JMU  Became impractical to teach with 35 mm slides Difficult to find slides Difficult to share slides Expensive to acquire and maintain slide collection Quality of slides deteriorating over time  MDID was developed as a solution to expanding enrollment in the art history survey classes

Project History  1997: Initial development  1998: Implemented at JMU  2001: Made available for free download  2003: Mellon Foundation grant for MDID2 development  2004: Open source release of MDID2

MDID use at JMU  Slideshows created since Fall ,112 created by 84 instructors 581 available to students  Content 7 active collections, plus “My Images” (ranging from art and architecture to histology and landmines) 57,743 image records 209 video records  Usage Close to 140 logins per day on average (Spring 2005)  Personal images 2,187 added since Fall 2004

MDID Users in Higher Education  More than 20 known institutions use MDID 1  More than 15 known institutions use MDID 2  More than 260 participants on users mailing list

Institutions Who Report Using MDID2 American University Arizona State University Davidson College East Carolina University Grinnell College Illinois Institute of Technology James Madison University La Trobe University New Mexico State University Otis College of Art & Design Portland State University Temple University University of Manitoba University of Missouri University of Washington West Virginia University Wheaton College

MDID2 Features  Multiple collections  Custom catalog data structure  Search and browse functions  Cross-collection searching  Instructors’ personal images uploaded to and stored in MDID  Light table for slideshow preparation  Tools for creating and managing slideshows

MDID2 Features  Instructors may annotate images and slides  Web-based slideshow viewer  ImageViewer classroom application  Packaged slideshows for offline presentation  Students may access slideshows as PDF files to print study guides and flash cards  Open Source License, GNU GPL

Demonstration  JMU hosts a working MDID2 installation Open to the public Fully functional URL:  Please click this link to see the demonstration:

JMU Experience with MDID  Collaboration between many groups across campus was key to successful implementation Teaching faculty Visual collection curator or librarian Software developers System administrators Faculty development support Classroom technology support Digital production support Administrative support

MDID Survey  Survey conducted in Fall 2004  Approximately 300 students participated  5 survey art history courses  1 upper level ancient studies course

MDID Usefulness in and outside the classroom

How would you rate the quality of the digital images?

Student Reactions “Being able to print the image out for flashcards was a great help for studying.” “I always use the print view for taking notes in class.” “The overall quality is better than most website images and clearer than the slides.”

Faculty Reactions  We like the flexibility of creating image shows customizing with annotation adding personal images presentation features  Many instructors agree that students are more prepared!

Upcoming Features  Next major release scheduled for early Summer 2005  Faculty will be able to upload their own images to any collection  Curators can moderate image submissions targeted for inclusion in a collection  Institutions using MDID2 can share collections with each other

Involve Faculty in Collection Building  Curator allows faculty to upload their own images to a collection  Faculty optionally mark uploaded images for inclusion in the collection  Curator reviews each faculty-submitted image

Remote Collections  Allow MDID installations to access appropriate collections on other systems  To users, remote collections look like local collections Search for images Add images to slideshows Annotate images  When are remote collections useful? Universities with separate campuses and multiple MDID servers Institutions offering public domain content to others

Miscellaneous Development Plans  Improved search and browse capabilities  Support for other media types (e.g. video, QuickTime VR)  Image service for delivering larger images  Virtual galleries/exhibitions

Conclusion  Technology and user expectations will continue to evolve  More and better visual content is important to promote visual literacy  Digital image collections should support a variety of disciplines Among others, JMU hosts art, architecture, and histology collections and a humanities and science film collection  Sharing content between digital image databases is critical Digitizing existing analog materials is expensive, difficult and time-consuming Big overlap in content digitization across institutions Many institutions, including JMU, already have digital image collections that they are willing to share freely

Information Authors  Kevin Hegg Software Engineer  Andreas Knab Computer Systems Engineer  Christina Updike Visual Resources Specialist Further Information  Visit  Product and company names mentioned in this presentation may be the trademarks of their respective owners.