It’s not difficult to believe that John Ludwick is an animation guy – his colorful Hawaiian shirts and bountiful enthusiasm exude creativity and energy. Ludwick, who joined Ball State in Fall 2011 as an Emerging Media New Faculty Fellow in Electronic Art and Animation, has hit the ground running, working with colleague Andy Beane to expand and strengthen Ball State’s animation program, establishing collaborative relationships across campus, and advancing a unique film project that is already a year in the making.

Ludwick joined Ball State after serving as a lecturer in Media Arts & Sciences at IUPUI in Indianapolis. But the bulk of his career has been spent in industry, where he honed his expertise in storyboarding, 2-D and 3-D animation. He has directed animation televisions spots for Cartoon Network, PBS Kids and Toon Disney, and has consulted on a variety of animation projects for Adrenaline Motion Pictures, Mediasauce, Performance Engineering Services Inc., The Basement, Meysen Inc., and Big Grin Studios. He has also worked for the broadcast design firm Primal Screen in Atlanta, where he won the Gold Broadcast Design Award (BDA) for Best Television Website Promotion. John earned his B.FA in graphic design and M.FA in sequential art at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

This spring, John is teaching “Drawing for Animation,” employing a new teaching strategy to document students’ gradually increasing knowledge about life drawing. In traditional life drawing classes, static pieces are created for analysis to help the student progress in their observational and anatomical knowledge of the human figure. In Ludwick’s class, students will create a “wedge,” a short movie used by directors in the film industry to describe a progressing sequence or value. Students will create their life drawings in Photoshop documents containing a layer for every pose the model makes. The result will be a film showing the gradually increasing knowledge of the life drawing student over three months.

John is also making strides on his film project, Claire & The Keys, a unique animated short film that features a story assembled using Disney’s story method, a collaborative technique where the script indicates a general direction, and the storyboard artists flesh out the details. He plans to assemble Ball State talent in 2D animation, 3D animation, motion graphics and traditional background art, to produce a film that will be of a quality to garner international film festival recognition.

He has two additional projects on the horizon, consulting on storyboards for an asthma-related video game targeted at young children (in collaboration with Tonja McClain in Nursing) and a short animation video for local glass manufacturer St. Gobain (in collaboration with animation colleague Andy Beane.)

Ball State University students are playing a key role in a social media effort to assist visitors to Indianapolis before and during the 2012 Super Bowl.

Over the last several months, the students assisted in the development of the 2,800-square-foot social media command center — the first such facility specifically assembled for a Super Bowl. The facility was created by Raidious, an Indianapolis Internet marketing firm, in partnership with the 2012 Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee.

About a dozen Ball State journalism, telecommunications and information and communication sciences students are participating in the effort to offer the online concierge service, helping visitors around Indianapolis in the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. Nearly half the collegians working at the center are from Ball State with two other local universities supplying student employees.

John Strauss, a journalism instructor overseeing the Ball State group, said the service will operate on official Super Bowl social media channels including its Twitter feed. The service is designed to respond to questions from the public as well as relay questions and developing issues to the host committee, law enforcement and other organizations.

“We were invited by Raidious because of the university’s commitment to emerging media and media design research,” he said. “The students played a major role in helping Raidious test the system during the recent Big Ten Conference football championship game, providing feedback and suggesting workflow and other improvements.

“We have some of the best students the university has to offer working on this project. They are very excited about the opportunity.”

A second group of students, under the leadership of Michael Holmes, director of Insight and Research for Ball State’s Center for Media Design and a communication studies professor, will analyze the center’s strengths and weaknesses in the next two weeks.

Holmes said the command center is an example of the “the ubiquity of social media and the absolute necessity for companies, organizations and communities to use these tools to improve their relations with their customers, audiences and citizens.”

The center is operating out of Raidious’ downtown office on Meridian Street, a few blocks from the Lucas Oil Stadium and the Super Bowl Village.

As collaborators, professor Ron Morris (History) and associate professor Paul Gestwicki (Computer Science) have established a well-deserved reputation as the “dream team” for developing innovative, engaging video games that prioritize fun while immersing players in historically-accurate, compelling environments and storylines from Indiana’s history. In one of their latest projects, Morris and Gestwicki teamed with associate professor Mark Groover of Anthropology to lead Ball State students in the creation of a simulated archeology dig for Indiana fifth graders.

The simulated dig takes place at the Moore-Youse House in Muncie, Indiana, an anthropologically rich environment that housed four historically known households between the 1830s and 1980s, at least three of which were part of a female-centered lineal family. Archeology conducted by previous Ball State students has uncovered photographs, documents, bone, glass, metal and pottery collections that help to tell the story of four generations of occupants from two centuries.

“Elementary students need knowledge and skills from the disciplines of archeology and history to prepare them for the 5th grade ISTEP test in social studies.” said Morris. “Skills like looking at primary sources, examining similarities and differences, evaluating evidence and drawing conclusions. Yet students are rarely exposed to archeological methods, other than a paragraph on prehistoric archeology in a social studies textbook. In our simulation, fifth graders will ‘dig’ for artifacts, but will also be challenged to engage in additional analysis.”

Last May, the faculty team, working with the Building Better Communities Fellows program, recruited students from anthropology, computer science, digital animation, elementary education, history and telecommunications to begin work on the simulation during Summer 2011. Students collected primary sources and artifacts and began laying out the archeological test site, incorporating significant ideas and skills linked to Indiana’s academic standards for elementary social studies. The computer science students were responsible for selecting an appropriate simulation platform and develop graphics and code to make the simulation work. After the summer, the team enlisted Ball State’s Emerging Technologies department to create a playable digital prototype to prepare it for field testing this spring and summer in selected elementary schools across Indiana.

Groover noted that the summer seminar students were extremely dedicated to the project and should be commended for their great efforts. This hard work was on display in December at the Building Better Communities Project Showcase, where the students the initial prototype and talked about their work with industry partners and the campus community, including Ball State President Jo Ann Gora.

“It is the interactivity of games that makes them such powerful learning tools,” explained Gestwicki. “When engaged in a game, the player is learning from the mechanics of the game: the game provides a safe environment for the player to explore new ideas and patterns that he or she can then apply outside the game. In the case of the Digital Archaeology project, we designed a game whose core game mechanics were constructed from a deep analysis of the historical archaeology process, thereby inculcating in the player a tacit knowledge of this fascinating and important domain.”

Muncie, once a thriving manufacturing city, has faced significant economic and cultural challenges over the last ten years as factories have closed their doors and jobs have moved out of the area. Similar to many cities across the nation’s “rust belt,” Muncie is struggling to gain a new identity and vision for the future.

The Ball State team leading the immersive learning project, “Historic Muncie: Preserving Middletown’s Historic Neighborhoods,” believes that a key to moving forward is re-establishing pride in Muncie’s nationally-recognized historical districts, which symbolize the city’s connections with cultural and architectural historical trends.

Chris Flook, telecommunications instructor and lead project organizer, assembled a team of telecommunications students and additional faculty in Fall 2011 to visually preserve two of Muncie’s ten historic neighborhoods, creating and/or archiving videos, images, maps, interviews, and other materials for an interactive, web-based museum that highlights each district’s specific historical significance, its architectural and structural styles and insights into life before and during the Industrial Revolution.

“The majority of the structures within these districts were built between 1880 and 1930, a period of intense industrialization in Muncie,” explained Flook. “The structure of these neighborhoods, the buildings that have been preserved – they display the overall impact of the introduction of industrialization to agricultural communities.”

Students in Flook’s upper-division TCOM course were split into production teams to research and produce short form documentaries, graphics and textual narratives about the Westwood and Kimbrough Historical Districts. Ron Morris, professor of history, provided expertise with public history, cultural institutions and immersive learning instruction. Suzy Smith, assistant professor of telecommunications, instructed each student team on documentary production, and Ashley Donnelly, assistant professor of telecommunication, helped students shape textual narratives to accompany videos, images and graphics.

The team also worked in partnership with a number of Ball State and local organizations, including Ball State’s Center for Middletown Studies, the Muncie Historic Preservation and Rehabilitation Commission, City of Muncie, Indiana Historical Society, Delaware County Historical Society, Minnetrista, ecoREHAB of Muncie, East Central Neighborhood Association, and the Division of Historic Preservation & Archeology, Department of Natural Resources.

A large number of assets have been collected or developed, and work continues on constructing the web interface. Flook plans to pursue future federal, state, and local grants that will provide resources to develop materials for the remaining eight districts. The team hopes that the interactive museum will serve as a rich resource for local historians, educators, city officials, researchers on the Midwest’s industrialization process and, perhaps most importantly, Muncie’s current and future generations of residents.

Immersive learning project aims to preserve Historic Muncie

by Erin Moore, Emerging Media Initiative and Chris Flook, Telecommunication; video by Ben Reckelhoff, Center for Media Design

The Ball State team leading the immersive learning project, “Historic Muncie: Preserving Middletown’s Historic Neighborhoods,” believes that a key to moving forward is re-establishing pride in Muncie’s nationally-recognized historical districts, which symbolize the city’s connections with cultural and architectural historical trends.

Chris Flook, telecommunications instructor and lead project organizer, assembled a team of telecommunications students and additional faculty in Fall 2011 to visually preserve two of Muncie’s ten historic neighborhoods, creating and/or archiving videos, images, maps, interviews, and other materials for an interactive, web-based museum that highlights each district’s specific historical significance, its architectural and structural styles and insights into life before and during the Industrial Revolution.

“The majority of the structures within these districts were built between 1880 and 1930, a period of intense industrialization in Muncie,” explained Flook. “The structure of these neighborhoods, the buildings that have been preserved – they display the overall impact of the introduction of industrialization to agricultural communities.”

Students in Flook’s upper-division TCOM course were split into production teams to research and produce short form documentaries, graphics and textual narratives about the Westwood and Kimbrough Historical Districts. Ron Morris, professor of history, provided expertise with public history, cultural institutions and immersive learning instruction. Suzy Smith, assistant professor of telecommunications, instructed each student team on documentary production, and Ashley Donnelly, assistant professor of telecommunication, helped students shape textual narratives to accompany videos, images and graphics.

The team also worked in partnership with a number of Ball State and local organizations, including Ball State’s Center for Middletown Studies, the Muncie Historic Preservation and Rehabilitation Commission, City of Muncie, Indiana Historical Society, Delaware County Historical Society, Minnetrista, ecoREHAB of Muncie, East Central Neighborhood Association, and the Division of Historic Preservation & Archeology, Department of Natural Resources.

A large number of assets have been collected or developed, and work continues on constructing the web interface. Flook plans to pursue future federal, state, and local grants that will provide resources to develop materials for the remaining eight districts. The team hopes that the interactive museum will serve as a rich resource for local historians, educators, city officials, researchers on the Midwest’s industrialization process and, perhaps most importantly, Muncie’s current and future generations of residents.

Faculty and student team develop historical archeology simulation for fifth graders

by Erin Moore, Emerging Media Initiative; video by Ben Reckelhoff, Center for Media Design

The simulated dig takes place at the Moore-Youse House in Muncie, Indiana, an anthropologically rich environment that housed four historically known households between the 1830s and 1980s, at least three of which were part of a female-centered lineal family. Archeology conducted by previous Ball State students has uncovered photographs, documents, bone, glass, metal and pottery collections that help to tell the story of four generations of occupants from two centuries.

“Elementary students need knowledge and skills from the disciplines of archeology and history to prepare them for the 5th grade ISTEP test in social studies.” said Morris. “Skills like looking at primary sources, examining similarities and differences, evaluating evidence and drawing conclusions. Yet students are rarely exposed to archeological methods, other than a paragraph on prehistoric archeology in a social studies textbook. In our simulation, fifth graders will ‘dig’ for artifacts, but will also be challenged to engage in additional analysis.”

Last May, the faculty team, working with the Building Better Communities Fellows program, recruited students from anthropology, computer science, digital animation, elementary education, history and telecommunications to begin work on the simulation during Summer 2011. Students collected primary sources and artifacts and began laying out the archeological test site, incorporating significant ideas and skills linked to Indiana’s academic standards for elementary social studies. The computer science students were responsible for selecting an appropriate simulation platform and develop graphics and code to make the simulation work. After the summer, the team enlisted Ball State’s Emerging Technologies department to create a playable digital prototype to prepare it for field testing this spring and summer in selected elementary schools across Indiana.

Groover noted that the summer seminar students were extremely dedicated to the project and should be commended for their great efforts. This hard work was on display in December at the Building Better Communities Project Showcase, where the students the initial prototype and talked about their work with industry partners and the campus community, including Ball State President Jo Ann Gora.

“It is the interactivity of games that makes them such powerful learning tools,” explained Gestwicki. “When engaged in a game, the player is learning from the mechanics of the game: the game provides a safe environment for the player to explore new ideas and patterns that he or she can then apply outside the game. In the case of the Digital Archaeology project, we designed a game whose core game mechanics were constructed from a deep analysis of the historical archaeology process, thereby inculcating in the player a tacit knowledge of this fascinating and important domain.”

College students help design, run first social media center for Super Bowl

by Marc Ransford, University Marketing and Communications

Ball State University students are playing a key role in a social media effort to assist visitors to Indianapolis before and during the 2012 Super Bowl.

Over the last several months, the students assisted in the development of the 2,800-square-foot social media command center — the first such facility specifically assembled for a Super Bowl. The facility was created by Raidious, an Indianapolis Internet marketing firm, in partnership with the 2012 Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee.

About a dozen Ball State journalism, telecommunications and information and communication sciences students are participating in the effort to offer the online concierge service, helping visitors around Indianapolis in the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. Nearly half the collegians working at the center are from Ball State with two other local universities supplying student employees.

John Strauss, a journalism instructor overseeing the Ball State group, said the service will operate on official Super Bowl social media channels including its Twitter feed. The service is designed to respond to questions from the public as well as relay questions and developing issues to the host committee, law enforcement and other organizations.

“We were invited by Raidious because of the university’s commitment to emerging media and media design research,” he said. “The students played a major role in helping Raidious test the system during the recent Big Ten Conference football championship game, providing feedback and suggesting workflow and other improvements.

“We have some of the best students the university has to offer working on this project. They are very excited about the opportunity.”

A second group of students, under the leadership of Michael Holmes, director of Insight and Research for Ball State’s Center for Media Design and a communication studies professor, will analyze the center’s strengths and weaknesses in the next two weeks.

Holmes said the command center is an example of the “the ubiquity of social media and the absolute necessity for companies, organizations and communities to use these tools to improve their relations with their customers, audiences and citizens.”

The center is operating out of Raidious’ downtown office on Meridian Street, a few blocks from the Lucas Oil Stadium and the Super Bowl Village.

Bott named assistant provost for learning initiatives

by Ball State’s Provost Office, video by Ben Reckelhoff, Center for Media Design

This January, Jennifer Bott, associate professor of management, was named the university’s assistant provost for learning initiatives. After this position was created last summer, she served on a temporary basis during the fall semester.

After an assessment of the university’s online education capabilities, Bott proposed an implemented an administrative structure that accommodates online classes for on- and off-campus students, as well as a financial framework to support those expanded offerings. Under Professor Bott’s leadership in the last six months, the Integrated Learning Institute (iLearn) was developed and staffed (see Summer 2011 EMI Update), and it is now serving the instructional design and technology-mediated learning needs of faculty members across our campus. Professor Bott conducted an analysis of several areas of online courses, creating operational targets for success. In the coming months, several revisions to current policy and practice will result, with significant input from various stakeholders.

Professor Bott is uniquely suited for leading Ball State’s efforts to expand learning initiatives at the university. She chaired our Growing Online Education task force last year (see May 2011 EMI Update), which identified barriers to online education growth and recommended solutions, while examining business models and strategic growth opportunities for online delivery. She also is a member of our strategic plan task force, which has been meeting regularly over the last few months to establish the university’s vision for the next five years. Ball State continues to put resources in place for our faculty to succeed in implementing that strategic plan’s objectives, and Professor Bott already has been successful in leading our efforts to expand our use of technology in various learning initiatives.

Professor Bott, who earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Akron, has served in a variety of roles at Ball State, most recently as the executive director of the master of business administration and certificate programs at the university’s Miller College of Business. Since coming to Ball State in 2004, she has been a research fellow at the Center for Business and Economic Research and a faculty fellow with the Sponsored Programs Office, and she earned the Junior Faculty of the Year Award in 2009.

Online education programs recognized by U.S. News & World Report

by Nancy Prater, Director of Marketing and Communication, Extended Education

Ball State University was recognized with four top 20 rankings in U.S. News & World Report’s 2012 Top Online Education Program rankings – more than any other Indiana college or university (public or private).

According to this inaugural edition of online program rankings by U.S. News, Ball State is:

• No. 7 in student services and technology for online bachelor’s degree programs
• No. 8 in faculty credentials and training for online graduate programs in business
• No. 13 in admission selectivity for online graduate programs in nursing
• No. 17 in student services and technology for online graduate programs in education (teacher and administrator preparation)

“It is so encouraging to see that U.S. News has recognized so many of Ball State’s strengths in online education,” says Jennifer Bott, assistant provost of learning initiatives. “Of the four categories that Ball State competes in, we were recognized in all four. This really speaks volumes about the expertise and energy that our faculty bring in delivering student-focused, rigorous online programs.”

Online programs were ranked in categories (rather than the traditional summative rankings for institutions) and rankings included non-profit and for-profit schools. More about the rankings can be found at www.usnews.com/education/online-education.

Ball State offers more than 60 online degrees and certificates and serves nearly 8,000 students each year who are enrolled in online courses or programs. Many of these programs, including those in business, educational leadership, nursing, and public relations are nationally ranked or recognized.

Architecture professor receives 2011-12 ACSA Distinguished Professor Award

Chanel Richards, University Marketing and Communications Student Media Team

Ball State University professor [and former Emerging Media Faculty Fellow] Mahesh Daas has been named a 2011-12 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Distinguished Professor. The award is one of the highest national recognitions for an architectural educator. As chair of the Department of Architecture, Daas is recognized for sustained creative achievement in the advancement of architectural education through teaching, design, scholarship, research and service.

The award jury praised Daas for “a significant record of academic leadership in interdisciplinary research at the University of Texas San Antonio and Ball State University.” One of the nominators said, “Professor Daas is an influential scholar and international leader in the field of innovation for extreme affordability.”

“I am deeply honored that the jury felt strongly about the relevance and sustained merit of my teaching, design, research and leadership,” Daas said. “I have always liked to step in the intersections between disciplines and build bridges between silos. The award reaffirms my belief that, to paraphrase W.B. Yates, education is not about filling a bucket, but about lighting a fire that leads to self-discovery and civil society.”

A medallion and certificate will be presented by the president of ACSA at a special Career Awards Ceremony during the 100th ACSA annual meeting in Boston later this year. Recipients become Fellows of the College of Distinguished Professors of Architecture and may use the title ACSA Distinguished Professor, DPACSA in perpetuity.

TCOM student selected as first Ball State Orr Fellow

by Erin Moore, Emerging Media Initiative

TCOM major and senior Stephanie Bristow has become the first Ball State student to be awarded a Governor Bob Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship, a coveted opportunity for top undergraduate students to work with Indiana’s most dynamic, high-growth companies in a two-year paid position following graduation.

Thousands of students apply each year for the Orr Fellowships from a wide variety of backgrounds and schools across Indiana. Stephanie was selected as one of twenty-five 2012 Fellows who have demonstrated leadership potential, strong interest in entrepreneurial business or organizational leadership and a cumulative 3.5 GPA or higher.

During her two-year fellowship, Stephanie will work for BidPal Network, an up-and-coming Indianapolis company that helps nonprofits use technology for charitable fundraising events. As an event consultant, she will travel nationwide and work with clients to set up events. In addition, she will receive executive-level mentorship at BidPal and develop high-level professional relationships through monthly Orr Fellow Business Leader Meetings.

Information Technology pilots e-textbooks for selected courses

by Erin Moore, Emerging Media Initiative and Yasemin Tunc, New Learning Technologies

This semester, Ball State University’s Office of Information Technology (IT) has launched a one-year pilot study program to assess the quality, accessibility and usability of e-textbooks as alternatives to traditional print versions. Working with Barnes & Noble, Courseload, Inc., and Flat World Knowledge, IT is providing e-textbooks in two sections of MATHS 125, one section of PSYCH 100, and a section of TCOM 384 classes for the first phase of the pilot program.

“This program is a first step in helping reduce the cost of attending college for students and giving ‘digital natives’ an alternative way to access course materials,” said Yasemin Tunc, Senior Director of New Learning Technologies.

In addition to reduced costs, many e-textbooks are offered in a variety of formats, from printable versions to versions optimized for mobile and tablet devices. E-textbooks also integrate features such as social bookmarking and annotating, study aid resources and more seamless integration into Ball State’s Blackboard environment. At the end of the semester, faculty and students will evaluate the technologies, and additional classes will be selected summer and fall 2012 semesters to round out the pilot year.

EM Faculty Fellow Spotlight: John Ludwick

by Erin Moore, Emerging Media Initiative; video by Ben Reckelhoff, Center for Media Design
It’s not difficult to believe that John Ludwick is an animation guy – his colorful Hawaiian shirts and bountiful enthusiasm exude creativity and energy. Ludwick, who joined Ball State in Fall 2011 as an Emerging Media New Faculty Fellow in Electronic Art and Animation, has hit the ground running, working with colleague Andy Beane to expand and strengthen Ball State’s animation program, establishing collaborative relationships across campus, and advancing a unique film project that is already a year in the making.

Ludwick joined Ball State after serving as a lecturer in Media Arts & Sciences at IUPUI in Indianapolis. But the bulk of his career has been spent in industry, where he honed his expertise in storyboarding, 2-D and 3-D animation. He has directed animation televisions spots for Cartoon Network, PBS Kids and Toon Disney, and has consulted on a variety of animation projects for Adrenaline Motion Pictures, Mediasauce, Performance Engineering Services Inc., The Basement, Meysen Inc., and Big Grin Studios. He has also worked for the broadcast design firm Primal Screen in Atlanta, where he won the Gold Broadcast Design Award (BDA) for Best Television Website Promotion. John earned his B.FA in graphic design and M.FA in sequential art at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

This spring, John is teaching “Drawing for Animation,” employing a new teaching strategy to document students’ gradually increasing knowledge about life drawing. In traditional life drawing classes, static pieces are created for analysis to help the student progress in their observational and anatomical knowledge of the human figure. In Ludwick’s class, students will create a “wedge,” a short movie used by directors in the film industry to describe a progressing sequence or value. Students will create their life drawings in Photoshop documents containing a layer for every pose the model makes. The result will be a film showing the gradually increasing knowledge of the life drawing student over three months.

John is also making strides on his film project, Claire & The Keys, a unique animated short film that features a story assembled using Disney’s story method, a collaborative technique where the script indicates a general direction, and the storyboard artists flesh out the details. He plans to assemble Ball State talent in 2D animation, 3D animation, motion graphics and traditional background art, to produce a film that will be of a quality to garner international film festival recognition.

He has two additional projects on the horizon, consulting on storyboards for an asthma-related video game targeted at young children (in collaboration with Tonja McClain in Nursing) and a short animation video for local glass manufacturer St. Gobain (in collaboration with animation colleague Andy Beane.)

In the News

On Campus

On the Road

Up Next

• Super Bowl First: Social media command center (msnbc.com)
  Excerpt:

  It’s the first time any facility like this has been built to manage social media for such a large event,” Jackson said. “We were outgrowing our second office in 18 months at the same time the Host Committee asked for our help, so we designed and built the space with the express intention of using it as the Super Bowl Social Media Command Center, then taking over the space afterwards.”

  The team — which includes about 50 people, led by Raidious’ staff of 16 and students and journalism/telecommunications students from Ball State University, Butler University and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis — will work in the command center 15 hours a day. (Not all at once!)

  One team will focus on social media management and moderation, while the other (most likely the students) will work on content development for posts on all the events and activities that surround the game, as well as things to do in Indianapolis since a big part of the team’s mandate will be promoting the city to newcomers. “It’s Hoosier hospitality for the 21st century,” Jackson said.

• Super Bowl gets social media command center (CNN Tech/Mashable)
  Excerpt:

  Researchers from nearby Ball State University’s Center for Media Design will conduct a study of the command center, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses. Michael Holmes, director of the center’s Insight & Research Unit, wrote in an email that the command center is an example of the “the ubiquity of social media and the absolute necessity for companies, organizations and communities to use these tools to improve their relations with their customer, audiences and citizens.”

  Both Holmes and Jackson said they would not be surprised if the Super Bowl’s first designated social-media war room sets a precedent for other major events.

Additional mentions:

• Social media to play big role in Super Bowl (IBJ News)
• Super Bowl 46 gets its own Social Media Command Center (Fox59.com)

On Campus

• January 27: Emerging Media Digital Feed, hosted by the Emerging Media Initiative, featured presentations by Deborah Middleton (Architecture) and Junfeng Jiao (EM Faculty Fellow, Urban Planning).
• January 27: Miller College of Business Research Colloquium, featured the presentation, “Self-Disclosure at Social Networking Sites: An Exploration through Relational Capitals” by Sushil Sharma, chair of the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management and Rui Chen, Assistant Professor of Information Systems.
• January 30: University Libraries offered the half-hour workshop, “Mobile Technology: Library Research in the Cloud,” demonstrating how the campus community can utilize the Libraries’ mobile services and applications such as Dropbox, Evernote, and Google Docs. Also offered on February 2, 11:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., Bracken Library 009. Registration is available online.

On the Road

• December: Rich Edwards (Integrated Learning Institute) had two publications in December. His book, The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism (co-written by Shannon Clute) was published by University Press of New England/Dartmouth University Press. His chapter, “Flip the Script: Political Mashups as Transgressive Texts” was published in Ted Gournelos and David Gunkel’s Transgression 2.0: Media, Culture, and the Politics of a Digital Age.
• December: Michael Hanley (Institute for Mobile Media Research) was lead author of the article, “How the Smartphone is Changing College Student Mobile Content Usage and Advertising Acceptance: An IMC Perspective,” published in the Fall 2011 issues of the International Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications.
• December 5: Ronald Morris (History) and Paul Gestwicki (Computer Science) were presented with the Outstanding Project of the Year award at the Indiana Historical Society’s Annual Founders Day Dinner and Awards celebration for their historical video game, Morgan’s Raid. Dean Michael Maggiotto from the College of Sciences and Humanities also attended the event. The project was funded by Provost Initiative for Immersive Learning and supported by the departments of History and Computer Science and the Honors College. According to Gestwicki, the faculty members received the award on behalf of their “awesome student team.”
• December 20: Paul Gestwicki presented “Fun, Learning, Games and Responsible Design (in under 20 minutes) at the Indianapolis International Game Developers Association’s fundraiser for Riley and Manning Children’s Hospitals.
• January: Morgan Higby-Flower’s (Art) computer-assisted digital imagery is featured in the exhibition, “Flowers – Tom, Mark, Morgan: Three Generations of Art,” at the Pickens County Museum of Art & History, South Carolina. The exhibition runs through February 9.
• January 6-8: IDIA/HDT showcased dis|PLACE, a Kinect-based interactive installation at the Indian Institute of Technology’s 14th annual TechFest in Bombay, India. The international festival is the largest of its kind in Asia with over 70,000 attendees and past emerging technology showcases by CERN, Oxford, Nissan, Airbus and Google.
• January 28: Brandon Waite (Political Science) gave a presentation about social media at the Political Campaigns Workshop hosted by the Bowen Center for Public Affairs at the Kennedy Branch of the Muncie Public Library. Participants learned the best practices in campaign management including tips on advertising, social networking, filing the proper paperwork, and public polling.
• February 1: Digital Learning Day, hosted by Ball State’s Teacher’s College. The event featured the presentation “Teaching in a Virtual School” by teachers and administrators from the Hoosier Academies Virtual School. Special guest panelists also included Dr. John Keller, assistant superintendent for technology, Indiana Department of Education and Monica Cougan, former teacher and K-12 outreach, Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration; 3:00-5:00 p.m in AJ 175.
• February 1: Unified Technology Support (UTS) hosted the Tech Center Open House, 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., Bracken Library 101. The event included refreshments, technology demos and giveaways.

Up Next

• February 9: “Highway Coda,” a lit-digital interface combining the poetry and images of Matt Mullins (Former EM Faculty Fellow, English) and the music of Michael Pounds (Music Technology), will be presented in a concert at the national conference of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the US.
• February 24: Emerging Media Digital Feed, hosted by the Emerging Media Initiative, will feature presentations on the topic of simulation by Bo Chang (EM Faculty Fellow, Educational Studies) and Kay Hodson-Carlton (Nursing); 12:15 – 1:30 p.m., Schwartz Complex. RSVP with Erin Moore.
• March 1: Ball State’s Electronic Art and Animation program will host a special presentation by Mark Kennedy, long-time Disney animator and storyboard artist. 7:30 – 9:30 pm, AJ 225. RSVP on Facebook.
• March 12-13: John Fillwalk (IDIA/HDT) will be a keynote presenter at the Blur 2012 Conference on human-computer interaction in Orlando, FL.
• March 26-29: John Fillwalk (IDIA/HDT) will co-present, “The Digital Hadrian’s Villa Project: Virtual World Technology as an Aid to Finding Alignments between Built and Celestial Features” at the “Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology Roundtable hosted by the Archaeological Computing Research Group at the University of Southampton, UK.
• May 10-12: Bo Chang (EM Faculty Fellow, Educational Studies) will present her project, Integrating the “Tool of Simulation into the Teaching of Adult Education” at the Fifth Living Learning Knowledge conference in Bonn, Germany.

By Energy Systems Network and Erin Moore, Emerging Media Initiative. Video by Ben Reckelhoff, Center for Media Design

Auto racing is about the thrill of competition, about who can coax the best performance out of finely-tuned race machines. A proposed new racing series aims to complement internal combustion engine racing traditions with the advanced technologies quickly emerging in electric vehicles (EVs).

In early October, the Energy Systems Network (ESN) brought together an “all-star” collection of motorsports teams, sanctioning bodies, engineering and design firms, Fortune 500 sponsors and EV pioneers to explore an electric vehicle (EV) racing series that could take the track within the next three years.

The “Motorsports 2.0″ EV Racing Design Summit was hosted by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on October 4-6 and sponsored by Duke Energy, Siemens, Eaton Corporation, Remy International, and Verizon. Ball State faculty members John Matlock and Scott Truex of the Department of Urban Planning were invited to participate in the event, and the Center for Media Design’s Ben Reckelhoff was asked by ESN to document the event and create video assets for promotion. He recruited, Tremaine Taylor-Tillery, telecommunications sophomore and member of Ball State’s National Association of Black Journalists to assist with video and photography.

Over the course of three days, the group participated in a series of brainstorming and working sessions aimed at several key goals: creating specifications for an all-electric record-setting racecar, developing design plans for the technical infrastructure required to support fully electric race vehicles, and drafting preliminary business and marketing plans for the EV racing series.

The EV racing initiative is spearheaded by ESN, the non-profit, industry-driven initiative focused on clean technologies and energy innovation. ESN also manages Project Plug-IN, among the nation’s largest deployment projects for plug-in electric vehicles and “smart grid” technologies based in Central Indiana.

Discussions have continued since the Summit, focusing on continued technical and business planning and the logistics of staging EV racing demonstrations within the next year, towards the ultimate goal of launching a full-fledged EV racing series in the next 2-3 years.

by Erin Moore, Emerging Media Initiative. Video by Ben Reckelhoff, Center for Media Design

Telecommunications graduate students and Insight and Research (I&R) assistants Josh Schweigert, Junliang Wu and Jeffrey Hendrix believe that the future of television involves a combination of unlimited content with artificial intelligence. In their view, users will be in control of the content, not restricted by it.

For their vision of the future, the I&R team won the Grand Prize in the Cable Mavericks Student Technology Challenge and accepted the award in New York City at the Cable Mavericks Masters Forum, sponsored by Motorola Mobility in partnership with the AMC Network. Eighty universities participated in the Masters Forum, including Arizona State University, Columbia University, Duke University, Parsons School of Design, Stanford University, The New School and Yale University.

The team presented their video and ideas to an elite panel of industry executives live during the event. Their winning video can be viewed online.

Just a day earlier across the country, I&R was recognized for their new prototype ScreenShots, a “second screen” application that creates a highly social environment for viewers to connect and compete for fan supremacy. I&R’s student team developed the application using new software provided to Ball State by Intrasonics which allows audio signals contained within a television broadcast to be detected and synched to tablet and mobile devices.

A team of students from the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business selected the prototype and developed a launch plan around the application as part of the Daniels Interactive Case Study Competition at The Cable Center in Denver. The student team won first place in the competition, which was featured at a Cable Interacts industry event facilitated by Leddy and hosted by CTAM Rocky Mountains (now the Rocky Mountain Cable Association).

Denver students Joshua Gentry and Xiaopan Zhang applied Ball State’s ScreenShots to a fictional Snack Food Channel and proposed business returns through deeper audience engagement, user-generated content, and advanced advertising. Competition judges included former Time Warner Cable executive Tom Feige; Clayton Banks, president, Ember Media; Stewart Schley, principal, Stewart Schley Content; and Mike Losier, senior VP, marketing and product development, Liberty Global.

by Vinayak Tanksale, Computer Science. Video by Ben Reckelhoff, Center for Media Design

Over the years, new interfaces – such as command line, graphical user, touch-based and zoomable – have drastically changed the way that human beings interact with computers, screens and mobile devices. The latest developments have focused on natural user interfaces (NUIs) that allow users to control a computing device through natural gestures, such as simple hand motions, and voice commands.

Microsoft’s Kinect, first launched in November 2010 as an Xbox gaming controller, was one of the very first systems to support NUI development. The Kinect system uses a webcam-like device to read and respond to players’ gestures within an Xbox video game. In the summer of 2011, Microsoft released software development resources that allow developers to build new applications for Windows 7 computers, extending the Kinect system beyond the Xbox. Since the summer, many creative ideas have been generated and implemented, as evidenced online at http://kinectforwindows.org.

Vinayak Tanksale, faculty in Ball State’s Department of Computer Science, and computer science majors Ryan Thompson and Joshua Hurst, have been developing two Kinect applications this fall. The team has spent the last few months learning the new software development kit, studying samples and designing and building two applications. The first application gives users the ability to control a PowerPoint slide show using hand gestures and voice commands (“previous” and “next”). The second application, a media browser intended for an interactive kiosk, allows users to navigate a three-level menu using hand gestures. The application will be used to provide information about Ball State initiatives, projects and faculty members via video, audio, graphics and text.

Junfeng Jiao, Emerging Media New Faculty Fellow in the department of Urban Planning, hasn’t wasted much time in establishing research partnerships across Ball State. Since arriving to campus in August from the University of Washington, Junfeng has developed collaborative projects with faculty in Geography and the Center for Media Design’s Insight and Research (I&R) unit to further explore his interests around the intersection of geographical location and digital media consumption.

Junfeng earned his M.S. in transportation engineering and Ph.D. in social statistics at the University of Washington, and his M.Eng in architectural design at Wuhan University in China. He comes to Ball State with a rich background in geographic information systems (GIS), spatial analysis, 3D visualization and urban development modeling, and has been the recipient of grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Health.

Today, he is the principle investigator in collaboration with I&R’s director, Michael Holmes, on a follow-up study to the groundbreaking Video Consumer Mapping Study completed by I&R in 2009 for the Council for Research Excellence and the Nielsen Company. During the original study, media usage of 375 randomly-sampled respondents from six U.S. metropolitan areas (Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Seattle) were observed and documented in ten-second intervals for two entire days (spring and winter). The study resulted in more than three-quarters of a million minutes of observation as well as geo-location codes and land-use patterns around the sampled areas. Junfeng and Michael will be using this data to test their hypothesis that while controlling for socioeconomic status, the spatial characteristics around the respondents’ homes or workplaces affects their daily media usage in terms of total watching time and platform selection.

Junfeng is also collaborating with Steven Radil, Emerging Media New Faculty Fellow in Geography. This semester, Steven has collected 200 cognitive maps of the city of Muncie from Ball State students and local residents (see story in October EMI Update). Junfeng will be involved in geo-referencing the maps to a GIS database and analyzing perceptions about the city. The results will be used to develop an immersive learning course for Spring 2012.