Technology

Apply Creative Commons Licenses to Your Work with These Tools

Next time you’re writing a paper, putting together a presentation, uploading a video to YouTube, or updating your website, why not tell your audience that you’ve decided to expand access to your work? With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify.

If you have a PC and use Microsoft Office products like Word and PowerPoint, you can get a free add-in that makes it easy to include a Creative Commons license. Read more about it and download the add-in here: To include CC licenses elsewhere (anywhere!), the Creative Commons license chooser offers the ability to select the criteria you want your license to include and then provides you with the relevant text and an image to use (including HTML for use on the web). In addition, Creative Commons offers best practices for marking your work as CC-licensed in a variety of formats, including images and video. Sites like YouTube and Flickr also offer the option of applying a Creative Commons license when you upload your stuff. For even more info about Creative Commons, check out their website.

Snell gets a permanent upgrade!

In addition to the already available group study rooms located throughout Snell, four new media:scape tables were recently installed on the first floor for all members of the University to use. These high-tech tables are an efficient, modern approach to increase effective group interaction by allowing all students to engage in the project and freely share their ideas. So how exactly do these media:scape tables work? Each station is equipped with one or two monitors which students can use to display their laptop screens by simply plugging it into a central outlet. With a stylish layout of tables and chairs, students can both relax and communicate with one another while their group work is projected on the large monitor. Through these new media:scape tables, information is now easier to convey and display to group mates all while students are sitting in one of the comfortable ergonomic seats. What is so unique about the new media:scape tables is that they are a direct result of what Northeastern students requested! Last fall, Snell sampled a table for about three months to observe how often students used it, if at all. The feedback that Snell Library received was overwhelmingly positive, confirming that the media:scape tables would definitely be a worthwhile investment. These new media:scape tables offer students an innovative, learning environment, which is what the Library aspires to create. Currently, the Library and University is eager to explore more ways to utilize its study space and equipment, but these permanent stations have definitely put us on the right path to do so. If you’ve used one of our tables, let us know about your experience by filling out our data collection survey! Click here to fill it out. For more information about the media:scape stations, please visit here!

You could have your own TED talk! Here’s how…

TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and is known for their fantastic talks by remarkable people, has announced its plans to audition speakers for the chance to have their own TED talk. On May 24th, TED will hold its first ever public audition for TED Talks in New York in front of a live audience. All you have to do is submit a one-minute video by April 25 at 11:59 p.m. indicating your idea and how you would present it. Some of the topic suggestions include  “a talk given in front of a custom-animated movie”,  “intense campfire-style storytelling”, and  “a rant delivered at blitzkrieg pace.”  Of course, other ideas are welcome. Once you upload your video to YouTube or Vimeo, complete the online submission form and see if you’re a winner. Check out the full details on the audition site.

Snell On Your Cell

As usual, Snell is keeping up with the times and mobile technology is an area we wouldn’t want to miss out on. So don’t be surprised if you start seeing some of these little numbers popping up around Snell or elsewhere on campus. If you have a barcode scanner on your smartphone, try this QR code out and let us know what you think! (Of course, you can also access our mobile website at this address: http://www.lib.neu.edu/m)

New KnowledgeBase

Campus Information Systems at NU has created a knowledgeBase of all kinds of technical support information.  It’s going to be available to faculty, staff, and students through the myNEU portal.  It’s developed from third party software called “Right Answers.” The Knowledgebase has some canned information about the commercial software we have at NU, like Microsoft Office and Lotus Notes, plus some additional customized help that’s been created by our local IS people, like how to change your myNEU password.  There isn’t much there for the library yet, but we can send our own help, like how to log in to NuCat, Endnote stuff, and so on, and they will add it to the knowledgebase.  We can also supply them with links to our existing help, and then we don’t have to update information in two places when it changes.  So if a user typed in “article alerts” they would either see some instructions or a link to our page where we have instructions already (or both).   IS is still tweaking it, look for an NU announcement when it’s ready to roll out to the campus.