Merge pull request #6 from o-date/gh-pages

merging upstream changes

0.00-about-the-authors.rmd

@@ -46,9 +46,13 @@ It'll be ok.
 
 We take a pedagogical perspective that focuses on the learning that happens when we make things, when we experiment or otherwise play around with materials and computing, and especially, when/if things break. It's a perspective that finds value in 'failing gloriously', in trying to push ourselves beyond our comfort level. The only thing that you will need therefore to be successful in learning some of the basic issues around digital archaeology is a willingness to consider why things didn't work the way they ought to have, and a web browser. We built this textbook with its very own digital archaeology computer built right in! There's nothing you can break on your own machine, nor does your machine have to be very powerful.
 
-## How to use this text {-}
+## Students: How to use this text {-}
 
-Each section in this book is broken down into an overview or discussion of the main concepts, and then followed up with skill-building exercises. The computational environment is running on someone else's servers. When you close the browser, it shuts down. Your work can be saved to your own machine and reloaded into the environment later, or you can 'push' your changes to your own online repository of work. In which case you really ought to work through the sections on [Github & Version Control] and [Open Notebook Research & Scholarly Communication] so you'll be able to get your work and data out of the Jupyter Notebooks and onto space that you control. The best way to use this book is to make sure you have at least one hour blocked out to read through a section, and then two hours to go through the section again if you're working on the exercises. We find that the work goes better if those blocks are interspersed with breaks every twenty minutes or so.
+Each section in this book is broken down into an overview or discussion of the main concepts, and then followed up with skill-building exercises. The computational environment - provided via a Jupyter notebook- is running on someone else's servers. When you close the browser, it shuts down. 
+
+**Warning!** The computational notebooks that we provide that are running in the [binder][http://mybinder.org] environment _will time out_ after **ten** minutes' inactivity. 
+
+Your work can be saved to your own machine and reloaded into the environment later, or you can 'push' your changes to your own online repository of work (to learn how to push work to a Github repository, see the sections on [Github & Version Control] and [Open Notebook Research & Scholarly Communication] so you'll be able to get your work and data out of the Jupyter Notebooks and onto space that you control). The best way to use this book is to make sure you have at least one hour blocked out to read through a section, and then two hours to go through the section again if you're working on the exercises. We find that the work goes better if those blocks are interspersed with breaks every twenty minutes or so.
 
 Do you notice that stripe down the side of the screen at the right? That's a tool-bar for annotating the text, using a tool called `Hypothes.is`. If you highlight any text (go ahead, highlight that phrase right now by right-clicking and dragging your mouse!) a little pop-up will ask you if you want to annotate or highlight the text. If you choose annotate, a writing pane will open on the right. Using the Hypothesis tool requires a reader to create a login and account with Hypothesis, which is managed by the Hypothesis site, not us.
 

01-introduction.rmd

@@ -2,8 +2,10 @@
 
 Digital archaeology as a field rests upon the creative use of primarily open-source and/or open-access materials to archive, reuse, visualize, analyze and communicate archaeological data. This reliance on open-source and open-access is a political stance that emerges in opposition to archaeology’s past complicity in colonial enterprises and scholarship; digital archaeology resists the digital neo-colonialism of Google, Facebook, and similar tech giants that typically promote disciplinary silos and closed data repositories. Specifically, digital archaeology encourages innovative, reflective, and critical use of open access data and the development of digital tools that facilitate linkages and analysis across varied digital sources.  
 
-To that end, this document you are reading is integrated with a cloud-based digital exploratory laboratory of multiple cloud-computing tools with teaching materials that instructors will be able to use 'out-of-the-box' with a single click, or to remix as circumstances dictate.  Part of our inspiration comes from the ‘DHBox’ project from CUNY (City University of New York, [(link)](http://dhbox.org), a project that is creating a ‘digital humanities laboratory’ in the cloud. While the tools of the digital humanities are congruent with those of digital archaeology, they are typically configured to work with texts rather than material culture in which archaeologists specialise. The second inspiration is the open-access guide ‘The Programming Historian’, which is a series of how-tos and tutorials [(link)](http://programminghistorian.org) pitched at historians confronting digital sources for the first time. A key challenge scholars face in carrying out novel digital analysis is how to install or configure software; each 'Programming Historian' tutorial therefore explains in length and in detail how to configure software. The present e-textbook merges the best of both approaches to create a singular experience for instructors and students: a one-click digital laboratory approach, where installation of materials is not an issue, and with carefully designed tutorials and lessons on theory and practice in digital archaeology.
+To that end, this document you are reading is integrated with live open code notebooks that can be re-used, altered, or extended. Part of our inspiration comes from the ‘DHBox’ project from CUNY (City University of New York, [(link)](http://dhbox.org), a project that is creating a ‘digital humanities laboratory’ in the cloud. While the tools of the digital humanities are congruent with those of digital archaeology, they are typically configured to work with texts rather than material culture in which archaeologists specialise. The second inspiration is the open-access guide ‘The Programming Historian’, which is a series of how-tos and tutorials [(link)](http://programminghistorian.org) pitched at historians confronting digital sources for the first time. A key challenge scholars face in carrying out novel digital analysis is how to install or configure software; each 'Programming Historian' tutorial therefore explains in length and in detail how to configure software. The present e-textbook merges the best of both approaches to create a singular experience for instructors and students: a one-click digital laboratory approach, where installation of materials is not an issue, and with carefully designed tutorials and lessons on theory and practice in digital archaeology.
 
-This is not a textbook about learning how to code. Rather, it is about instilling the habits of thought that will enable success when confronted with digital novelty, the habits of thought that will enable you to determine how to work with digital materials, and the habits of thought that permit you to see where and when digital approaches will make the difference in your research. Skills change; techniques evolve; new tools emerge. Habits of thought are hard to cultivate but have staying power! 
+This is not a textbook about learning how to code. Rather, it is about instilling the habits of thought that will enable success when confronted with digital novelty, the habits of thought that will enable you to determine how to work with digital materials, and the habits of thought that permit you to see where and when digital approaches will make the difference in your research. Skills change; techniques evolve; new tools emerge. Habits of thought are hard to cultivate but have staying power!
 
-Through this textbook, we aim to offer a learners'-perspective-view on digital methods in archaeology, that is, how we might think with, and through, digital sources of information, digital tools and technologies and their relationship with society.  We are deeply aware of how rapidly both digital sources and technologies can change, particularly on the Web; we therefore present this e-textbook and open-learning environment as a guide to best practices when working with available digital data and digital tools, what kinds of analysis are possible, how to perform these analytical techniques, and how you might publish your data, making them re-usable for another scholar and ethics and ethical issues in doing digital archaeology. 
+Through this textbook, we aim to offer a learners'-perspective-view on digital methods in archaeology, that is, how we might think with, and through, digital sources of information, digital tools and technologies and their relationship with society.  We are deeply aware of how rapidly both digital sources and technologies can change, particularly on the Web; we therefore present this e-textbook and open-learning environment as a guide to best practices when working with available digital data and digital tools, what kinds of analysis are possible, how to perform these analytical techniques, and how you might publish your data, making them re-usable for another scholar and ethics and ethical issues in doing digital archaeology.
+
+We have not elected to try to _cover_ every possible topic. By design, this book is meant to grow, branch, and change with time. It is meant to foster _uncoverage_ and be used to supplement or complement an instructor's own situated approach.  Annotate the text using the [Hypothes.is](http://hypothes.is). Take it to bits. Use and adapt the parts that make most sense in your own particular learning context.