Post 1

Greeting. My first post is a day late because I suppose I am a digital immigrant. We can discuss more on that subject later.

My name is Diana Thrasher, and I am employed full-time in the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities (AAH) as the grants coordinator. I am also a part-time MAPC student. I have been in the MAPC program for five years taking one class a semester, and occasional summer course if my work schedule permits. If all goes as planned I will graduate in 37 days on August 8th.

My main reason for taking this course is that feel it will benefit me in my position as grants coordinator in assisting faculty and students that wish to pursue funded research opportunities by providing more information in a digital format on the AAH Research Website. Research in AAH has many definitions in our College because of the diversity of disciplines housed in under the AAH umbrella. Research defined by an English professor is very different than defined by an architect. Being able to appreciate these different ideologies that make up AAH is one thing, but providing information tailored to each community at times poses challenges. One of my goals as grants coordinator is to have information, as it pertains to research, for all of the discourse communities in our college, and how the Office of Research Support can assist each discipline in the areas that are needed. I hope the theoretical and practical knowledge I acquire in this course will enable me to provide more information in a digital format.

Today, I define digital publishing as integrating text, audio, video, and other media types into a new from that will take data from print to digital form that can be accessed via the web or computer. This being said, there are many factors we must keep in mind when developing a digital document. How will the document be read, by whom, for what purpose? Will it be published on the web, or for internal use? Depending on the manner it will be used will determine what design principals the designer will employ. Again, this is my definition as of July 2, 2009. I am sure my definition will change by the end of the course.