This is an academic application created in part by/with great thanks to The Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl. The purpose of this web application is twofold:
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To establish a pedagogical space in which Digital Humanities scholars can educate one another in first steps toward the creation and use of higher level digital infrastructure in their research.
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To establish a meta-pedagogical focal point; An example of what a singular scholar can learn with gentle introductions as the entryway toward practical/computational tool creation.
While not traditionally a "humanities" tool, the G.I.R.'s intended audience is asked to share knowledge of prexisting Gentle Introductions or to create their own and share those with the community.
I define (I emphasize myself here, as there must surely be debate as to what a 'Gentle Introduction' objectively is...) Gentle Introductions as longform instruction sessions composed in such a way that readers with varying levels of familiarity can understand the foundations of a concept that they might have found completely foreign before reading the introduction.
Gentle Introductions are becoming increasingly important to the Digital Humanities scholar, as the number of computational/digital options & techniques for such an audience are experiencing exponential growth. Many such scholars are caught off guard when attempting to add increasingly important digital layers to their research. Many DH scholars are unnecessarily frustrated by the varied levels of difficulty and customization promised by digital tools, languages, and software (both commercial and open source). The intention of The G.I.R. is to lift certain barriers for experienced humanities academics that have limited to no experience with computer science based foundations.
Eventually there will be further documentation as to what can be placed in both the G.I.R. data stream and the G.I.R. Blog. The attempt is to create a more controlled community of credentialled administrators that can make use of a twitter-like web app built on Rails.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.