As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. My senior year has flown by, and I am unfortunately wrapping up my time as the backend web development intern for digital scholarship here at Carleton.
I’ve learned so much over the course of my internship, and given that this is my last post, I’d like to sign off by talking about what I have worked on this term as well as my thoughts on the internship.
This term, I worked on extending the map functionality of the website for one of Carleton’s off campus studies programs in Rome. While the updated version of the site is still in production, one of the website’s features offers a virtual tour of Rome: by clicking on various points on a map, this feature allows users to experience a walking tour of Rome, clicking on different points and learning about the various landmarks.
The map was developed with Leaflet (an open source JavaScript library), so the majority of my work consisted of writing JavaScript code to add functionality to the map. Although there is still some work to be done before this feature is finalized, I made two major contributions to the map. First, I added numbered markers to the tour, so that users can follow along the tour in a guided order as opposed to just clicking on random points. After that, I added walking routes between each point on the tours, so that users can see how someone would walk the city streets of Rome from point to point as they move along the tour.
Original map 
Updated map
I’ve learned so much this year as a digital scholarship intern; from learning how to develop plugins in Omeka and WordPress to reading insightful articles about modern day technology, and from furthering my JavaScript development skills to reviewing digital humanities projects, I couldn’t be happier with my internship experience. I’ve learned a lot about software development, gained confidence with my skills, and become more aware of ethical/security issues with regards to tech in our society. But best of all, I was able to experience this as part of a wonderful team: I’m incredibly grateful to my supervisor Austin, as well as the other supervisors Sarah, Wiebke, and Rachel who made this experience possible. I am also really grateful to have worked alongside a great group of interns Seth, Mike, and Armira, who made the work experience and group discussions lots of fun.
Given the nature of the internship, I’ve been fortunate to read and listen to a lot of interesting material. I’d like to document these as listed below:
Altshuler, Tehilla. “Privacy in a Digital World.” Tech Crunch, September 16, 2019. https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/26/privacy-queen-of-human-rights-in-a-digital-world/.
Auxier, Brooke, Lee Rainie, Monica Anderson, Andrew Perrin, Madhu Kumar, and Erica Turner. “Americans and Privacy: Concerned, Confused and Feeling Lack of Control Over Their Personal Information.” Think Tank. Pew Research Center, November 15, 2019. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-and-privacy-concerned-confused-and-feeling-lack-of-control-over-their-personal-information/.
Belmont, Veronica. Paid Attention. IRL, n.d. https://irlpodcast.org/season3/episode3/.
Diaz, Jaclyn. “Jack Dorsey Says Trump’s Twitter Ban Was ‘Right Decision’ But Worries About Precedent.” NPR, January 14, 2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/01/14/956664893/twitter-ceo-tweets-about-banning-trump-from-site.
Elias, Jennifer. “Google Will Try ‘Hybrid’ Work-from-Home Models, as Most Employees Don’t Want to Come in Every Day.” Business News. CNBC, September 23, 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/23/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-considering-hybrid-work-from-home-models.html.
Kay, Grace. “The History of Dogecoin, the Cryptocurrency That Surged after Elon Musk Tweeted about It but Started as a Joke on Reddit Years Ago.” Business Insider, February 9, 2021. https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/the-history-of-dogecoin-a-cryptocurrency-that-started-as-a-joke-on-reddit-years-ago-and-recently-surged-600-in-a-wall-street-bets-copycat-rally/articleshow/80592974.cms.
Lomas, Natasha. “Europe Seizes on Social Media’s Purging of Trump to Bang the Drum for Regulation.” TechCrunch, January 11, 2021. https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/11/europe-seizes-on-social-medias-purging-of-trump-to-bang-the-drum-for-regulation/.
Menand, Louis. “Why Do We Care So Much About Privacy?” The New Yorker, June 11, 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/18/why-do-we-care-so-much-about-privacy. nature.com. “Online Learning Cannot Just Be for Those Who Can Afford Its Technology.” Scientific Journal, September 23, 2020. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02709-3.
Potts, Jason. “The Rise Of Dogecoin And GameStop Shows Us How Memes Can Move Markets.” Kotaku Australia, March 1, 2021. https://www.kotaku.com.au/2021/03/the-rise-of-dogecoin-and-gamestop-shows-us-how-memes-can-move-markets/.
The Daily Hodl. “Quantum Computing Expert Warns Governments May Be First to Crack Algorithms Keeping Bitcoin and the Internet Secure,” November 1, 2020. https://dailyhodl.com/2020/11/01/quantum-computing-expert-warns-governments-may-be-first-to-crack-algorithms-keeping-bitcoin-and-the-internet-secure/.
Scott, Shavagne. “Review: Mapping Marronage.” Reviews in Digital Humanities 2, no. 5 (May 10, 2021). https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/mapping-marronage/release/3#project-overview.
Sherr, Ian. “GameStop Stock Crashed, but Reddit Still Wants to Send It to the Moon. How and What’s Next.” CNET, February 4, 2021. https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/gamestop-stock-crashed-but-reddit-still-wants-to-send-it-to-the-moon-how-and-whats-next/.
Shumway, Rebecca. “Review: Money and Exchange in West Africa.” Reviews in Digital Humanities 1, no. 4/5 (May 2, 2020). https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/money-exchange-west-africa/release/2.
Smith, Belinda. “Prime Numbers Keep Your Encrypted Messages Safe — Here’s How.” ABC News, January 19, 2018. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-01-20/how-prime-numbers-rsa-encryption-works/9338876.
Stevens, Pippa. “GameStop Shares Jump 68% on Friday, Bringing Gains for the Week to 400%.” CNBC, January 29, 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/robinhood-will-allow-limited-buying-of-restricted-securities-friday-gamestop-jumps-after-hours.html.
Stossel, John. “‘That System Is Being Used Against You’: Edward Snowden Makes the Case for Internet Privacy. Is He Right?” Reason, February 17, 2021. https://reason.com/2021/02/17/edward-snowden-online-privacy-social-media/.
Sui, Patrick. “Review: Distant Viewing Toolkit.” Reviews in Digital Humanities 2, no. 4 (April 12, 2021). https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/distant-viewing-toolkit/release/1. Tech Companies Ban Trump, but Not Other Problematic Leaders, 2021. https://www.cnn.com/videos/tech/2021/01/15/twitter-authoritarian-leaders-trump-ban-mclean-pkg-intl-hnk-vpx.cnn.
Walker, Shaun. “Poland Plans to Make Censoring of Social Media Accounts Illegal.” The Guardian, January 14, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/14/poland-plans-to-make-censoring-of-social-media-accounts.
Wham, Ethan. “Entertainment Evolution: What’s Happening to Content Due to COVID-19 (Part 2).” Disruptive Competition Project, September 4, 2020. https://www.project-disco.org/innovation/090420-entertainment-evolution-whats-happening-to-content-due-to-covid-19-part-2/.
Zeitchik, Steven. “The Pandemic Will Make Movies and TV Shows Look like Nothing We’ve Seen before.” The Washington Post, August 12, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/12/hollywood-pandemic-film-industry/.
Zuboff, Shoshana. “The Surveillance Threat Is Not What Orwell Imagined.” Time, June 6, 2019. https://time.com/5602363/george-orwell-1984-anniversary-surveillance-capitalism/.
