MATRIX - The Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online

PROJECTS

Projects

A Note about MATRIX's Approach to Developing & Designing Internet Projects: MATRIX uses its unique position in the communications revolution to pioneer ideas and innovations, as the heirs of the Internet develop into the 21st century. While we have a cautious view of the value of the communications revolution for teaching, we support experimentation and innovation in the classroom. In addition to developing a wide range of teaching tools, we are focusing at the present on two main challenges: the digitation of sound files so that they can best be utilized by teachers, students, and researchers, and the development of large-scale integrated research tools that can be developed by widely disparate repositories and freely accessed worldwide.

African e-Journals Project

The African e-Journals Project makes journals published in Africa and about Africa more available to scholars worldwide.

African Media Program

The African Media Program (AMP) offers an online, comprehensive databse of films, videos, and other audio-visual materials concerning Africa as well as education services about African media. The AMP is a project of from Michigan State University's African Studies Center, a Title VI National Resource Center in African Languages and Area Studies.

African On-Line Digital Library

MATRIX, working in cooperation with the African Studies Center at MSU and in partnership with premiere research institutions in Africa is pioneering a fully accessible online digital repository that is adopting the emerging best practices of the American digital library community and apply them in an African context.

AgBib: Agriculture and Rural Life in the United States

MSU/USAIN Grant PI is a centralized repository of bibliographic citations that is available and broadly searchable over the Web. The repository has a user interface for searching and resource display, additional dtools for Participating States to provide and manage data remotely, and administrative functions for managing Participating State access and information.

American Black Journal

American Black Journal , originally titled Colored People's Time , went on the air in 1968 as a televised public forum for black citizens during a historic moment of racial turmoil across the nation. This website is part of a long term collaboration between Detroit Public Television and Michigan State University to preserve and present the crucial and historic materials of the American Black Journal television program.

American Voices

An Historical Voices gallery The recorded voices of prominent Americans from every area of culture: politics, science, business, and the arts - spanning the entire sound recording era. This site will be useful for bringing the immediacy of the spoken voice to any course on American culture and history.

Artists Working with Teachers Working with Art

TeachArtMichigan.org is a web-based resource for higher education faculty who prepare K-12 art teachers for Michigan schools. TeachArtMichigan provides studio, art and design history, and visual art education faculty a one-stop website for resources and dialogue related to the preparation and support of visual arts teachers in Michigan.

Carriers of Culture

Through a festival, exhibition, and other related activities, Carriers of Culture: Living Native Basket Traditions will examine the ways in which Native baskets — and their makers — are literally and symbolically "carriers of culture."

Celebrity Lecture Series

The Celebrity Lecture Series was established at Michigan State University by the College of Arts and Letters under the leadership of Dean John W. Eadie and the Dean's Community Council in 1988. At its tenth anniversary in 1998 and in honor of his stewardship of the arts and humanities, the series was renamed in honor of Dean Eadie. The popularity of this series attracted students, faculty, and members of the community, and featured some of the most illustrious scholars, critics, novelists, poets, and creative artists of our time.

CLASS: Center for Learning & Application of Interdisciplinary Social Science

The Center for Learning & Application of Interdisciplinary Social Science (CLASS) focuses on the challenges of learning key ideas and advancing critical thinking in the Social Sciences.

Civics Online

This educational web site is a collaborative, online project providing a rich array of primary sources, professional development tools, and interactive activities to help in the teaching of civics and was created in collaboration with Matrix, MSU's <edtech.connect>, and many Michigan K-12 teachers.

CraftWORKS! Michigan

CraftWORKS! Michigan is an online resource center for visitors to Michigan and for Michigan artists, businesses, and communities.

Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages

The Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages at Michigan State University focuses on three areas: linguistics, cultural studies, and language acquisition and teaching, and is dedicated to quality teaching, research and outreach.

Destination Culture: Michigan

Destination Culture: Michigan is an on-line resource center designed to connect visitors with these resources.

Disaster Mitigation Planning Assistance

The Disaster Mitigation Planning Assistance Website is a joint project of Michigan State University Libraries, the Great Lakes Culture Program and the California Preservation Program. Part of disaster planning is knowing whom to call for help and where to obtain services and supplies

Diversity & Tolerance in the Islam of West Africa

Diversity and Tolerance in the Islam of West Africa will make accessible a wide array of currently unavailable materials from and about the countries of Senegal and Ghana, their Muslim communities, and the relations of those communities with the practitioners of other faiths.

Earliest Voices

An Historical Voices gallery designed a multimedia to present some of the most significant voices captured during the first fifty years of sound recording, 1877-1927.

Educonsult: [Re]envisioning the Classroom in the Digital Age

A site dedicated to exploring the best practices in humanities computing pedagogy and helping scholars more easily and efficiently integrate information technologies into the classroom.

Exploring Africa

This site is a collaborative endeavor with MSU's Office of International Studies and Programs (ISP), the African Studies Center and Matrix and with invaluable input from external educational consultants and teachers from throughout Michigan and the United States.

Explore PA History

Gateway to Pennsylvania, Past and Present. Come explore, visit and teach a rich heritage of the people and events that strengthened America and brought new ideas to light.

The Flint Sit-Down Strike

An Historical Voices gallery designed to provide an audio and historical introduction to the sit-down strike for those students or members of the general public who are unaware of the history of this momentous event in American history.

Global Literary & Cultural Studies (GLCS)

This organization fosters interdepartmental research collaborations that focus on literature, film, and other forms of cultural production in light of the critical approaches that have emerged out of the literary disciplines. Through the analysis of literary and cultural texts, regardless of medium (print, digital, film, etc.), GLCS seeks to integrate historical knowledge and current questions, global perspectives and local concerns, established scholarship and timely experimentation.

Great Lakes Culture Program

The Center will expand the understanding of the history, people, traditions and customs of the Great Lakes region and is one of 16 regional centers across the country to receive partial funding by the Initiative for Regional Humanities Centers, a new program developed by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The Great Michigan Read

The Great Michigan Read features Earnest Hemingway’s The Nick Adams Stories as the first book in the program that promotes reading in Michigan. The website is filled with resources to find ways to discuss the book and to help readers discover the places that connects Hemingway with Michigan. Other resources on the website include, suggestions for local tours of Hemingway's past haunts, program possibilities for the reader to launch in their community, a readers guide to The Nick Adams Stories, and events relating to The Great Michigan Read.

HCCP: Humanities Computing Certificate Program

Designed for graduate students in the College of Arts & Letters at MSU, the program is designed to develop a theoretical foundation and set of best practices for incorporating computing technologies into humanities courses.

Historical Voices

This project is part of the Digital Library Initiative II funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Historical Voices is one of the first fully functional, multi-media, interoperable digital libraries available online.

H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online

Matrix hosts H-Net; An international consortium of scholars and teachers, H-Net creates and coordinates over 100 Internet networks with the common objective of advancing teaching and research in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

H-Net Online Reviews

Matrix hosts H-Net Reviews that is one of the largest online scholarly review resources in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

The Internet and Women's Democratic Organizing

This project sought to facilitate women's social and political activism and regional networking through Internet technologies during two three-week workshops took place in May 2000 and 2001 with participants attending from the West African countries of Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, and Mali; the project is supported by Michigan State University and the US Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs with funds from the Education for Development and Democracy Initiative (EDDI). IWDO is part of the African Internet Collaborations initiative undertaken by MATRIX and the African Studies Center.

The John Snow Archive and Research Companion

This Web site contains an archive of searchable texts of Snow's published writings—most appearing in medical journals—and recorded presentations and comments at medical society meetings between 1838 and his death in 1858. The archive will also include selections from writings by some of Snow's contemporaries, whether supporters, skeptics, or outright antagonists.

Knight Center for Enviromental Journalism

The Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University's School of Journalism trains student and professional journalists to cover the environment.The program offers numerous classes and professional workshops for the study and practice of environmental journalism.

Latin American School and Educational Resources

A web site for middle and high school teachers and students who are learning about Latin America in social sciences and humanities classes; the site was designed by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), International Studies and Programs at Michigan State University and MATRIX.

Michigana

As part of the development of Michiganculture.net, an online network connecting Michigan schools, cultural organizations, colleges/universities, and the public, Michigan Humanities Council and H-Net: The Humanities and Social Sciences On-line at Michigan State University, together with educational and cultural partners throughout Michigan , are creating an online "cultural encyclopedia" of Michigan culture.

Michigan Alliance for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage

The Michigan Alliance for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage is a statewide 501(c)(3) organization composed of libraries, archives, museums, historical societies and preservation networks that was founded in October 1988 with the support of the Michigan Humanities Council. The purpose is to promote the protection and preservation of Michigan's cultural and humanities resources for the enjoyment, education and benefit of present and future generations.

Michigan Arts and Humanitites Touring Directory

In conjunction with the Michigan Humanities Council, Matrix designed and hosts a directory that represents some of our state's most talented performing and visual artists and humanities interpreters.

The Michigan Association of Community Arts Agencies (MCAA)

Matrix designed and hosts the online arts and cultural directory for MACAA. This directory of over 3,000 arts and cultural organizations located in all parts of Michigan is the most comprehensive source of information about Michigan arts and cultural organizations available. The directory lists organizations by name, city, county, discipline, programs/services, and allows users to search for organizations matching their interests in specific areas of the state.

Michigan Association for Deaf and Hard of Hearing

MADHH provides advocacy for Deaf and hard of hearing individuals.

Michigan Humanities Council

Matrix hosts the web presence for the Michigan Humanities Council. The Michigan Humanities Council connects people and communities by fostering and creating quality cultural programs.

Michigan Voices

Michigan Voices is a pioneering online education guide that provides rich teaching resources on Michigan folk and traditional arts and culture while integrating the Michigan Education Content Standards.

Michigan Writers Network

Funded by a grant from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, and sponsored by MATRIX, this endeavor is part of a larger initiative to support literature and creative writing within the state.

MSU Department of History

The History Department is the primary unit at Michigan State University with responsibility for instruction, research, and public service in the matters of historical knowledge. The specific mission of the History Department at Michigan State University is to provide an environment conducive to the teaching and learning of history, the pursuit of historical research and the application of the fruits of that research in the public domain.

MSU Faculty of Computing and Information

MSU's Faculty and computing Information website serves as a portal to a wide variety of innovative teaching, research, and outreach, all emanating from the common epicenter of computing and information.

MSU College of Music Department Web Site

Matrix designed a new College of Music web site that allows for easy administration and combine the College of Music admission process with MSU admission process.

The Mystery of Lamqua: Medical Portraiture in China, 1836-1855

Matrix designed and implemented the site using repos and a new gallery design. "The Mysteries of Lam Qua" is primarily a digital gallery of oil paintings by the nineteenth-century Cantonese artist known as Lam Qua. The heart of the gallery consists of images of Chinese patients of a leading medical missionary Reverend Dr. Peter Parker, an American Presbyterian minister and physician who, in 1835, opened a hospital in Canton and soon acquired such a reputation as a surgeon that brought him thousands of cases.

National Barn Alliance

The National Barn Alliance works to save and protect America's historic barns.

National Gallery of the Spoken Word (NGSW)

An ongoing 5 year project that is creating a significant, fully searchable online database of spoken word collections spanning the 20th century-the first large-scale repository of its kind. NGSW provides storage for these digital holdings and public exhibit "space" for the most evocative collections. A Library Initiative II funded by the National Science Foundation.

Oral History Tutorial

A set of comprehensive tutorials for doing modern oral history in the digital era. The site includes detailed, interactive tutorials in audio technology, video technology, metadata, and online presentation/delivery.

Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa

Matrix's Partnership web site facilitates the management of membership and the workings of committees. The Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa was founded in early 2000 to mobilize public and private support in the United States for increased levels of assistance to Africa.

Partnership for Food Industry Development F&V

The Partnerships for Food Industry Development—Fruits and Vegetables (PFID-F&V) project collaborates with public and private partners to increase the competitiveness of small and medium scale producers in local, regional, and international markets.

Path to the Present

AAn Path to the Present is a Teaching American History Project of the Okemos Public School District funded by the US Department of Education in partnership with Michigan State University, Michigan Historical Center and State Archives, and the Michigan Department of Education. The project will train Mid Michigan high school History teachers at intensive 2-week summer history teaching academies. The teachers will create model curricula and attend follow-up school-based workshops.

Perceptions of Multimedia Content in the Modern Classroom

A study done in collaboration with The MSU Department of Audiology and Speech Science to investigate how the perception and memory retention of educational multimedia resources in the classroom. We are interested in whether or not students' perception of humanities content is aided by use of time-aligned transcripts and/or related still and motion images.

Personal Site of Karin Wurst

Karin Wurst is working in the area of seventeenth and eighteenth century literature and culture and literary and cultural theory. She is president of the Society for German Renaissance and Baroque Literautre and Professor of German at Michigan State University.

Polish Civics Online

Polish Civics Online Funded by a grant from the United States Information Agency Civitas: Internet Civic Education for Poland is a collaborative bi-lingual effort between H-Net, Humanities and Social Sciences Online, and the Center for Citizenship Education (CEO) in Warsaw , to provide online civics materials for Polish teachers and students (no longer available online).

Quantitative Biology and Modeling

The initiative focuses on developing innovative quantitative experimental and modeling approaches to understand structure/function relationships in biological molecules, evolutionary processes, and biological networks of molecules and populations.

Quilt Index

MATRIX has built upon the strengths of Michigan State University to develop a series of collaborations with the local and national quilt community including quilt scholars, archives and museums. Based upon our continuing partnership with MSU Museum through Folk Arts curator and quilt scholar Marsha MacDowell, MATRIX has worked with quilt experts across the nation to develop H-Quilts, a national forum for debate and discussion among quilt scholars, and the Quilt Index, a national on-line archive of quilt resources. In addition, MATRIX hosts websites for the Alliance for American Quilts and the Center for the Quilt On-Line.

Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories

The Quilters' S.O.S. provides texts of over 300 interviews with quilters as they share what inspires them, how they choose their projects, and how the quilting tradition has been passed down through generations.

Quilt Treasures

The Quilt Treasures Project was conceived by The Alliance for American Quilts to document the stories of a limited number of notable individuals - quilt makers, designers, business people, collectors, scholars, publishers - who were instrumental in moving the 20th century quilt revival forward in some significant way. Quilt Treasures seeks to make this documentation available in a variety of media.

Repertory Études™ Educational Project

In efforts to preserve the legacy of historical, contemporary, and future dance choreographers, a series of études are currently being documented and collected from various artists under the auspices of The American Dance Legacy Institute (http://www.adli.us/). Each condensed study captures the signature essence of a memorable dance-maker, allowing his or her work and technique to be accessible in a never-before compiled repertory Dance Études resource library.

SANCH

Andrew W. Mellon and Ford Foundations are supporting a multi-faceted, three-year, collaborative training program to identify and train a cadre of archivists, curators, scholars and students to work in South Africa on cultural heritage projects; the project is sponsored at MSU through MSU Museum , the African Studies Center , and MATRIX.

Seventeen Moments in Soviet History

This site was developed in collaboration with MATRIX, and has been funded by a generous educational development grant from the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH). The project has been directed and created by James von Geldern (Macalester College) and Lewis Siegelbaum (Michigan State University), and the principal designer of the site is Krzystof Karski.

Society for German Renaissance and Baroque Literature (SGRABL)

The Society for German Renaissance and Baroque Literature serves scholars and teachers by providing a forum for discussion, exchange, presentation of research (and teaching initiatives) for mostly college and university professors in North America.

Spartan Consulting

Spartan Consulting is two things: a student consulting organization and a fee-based consulting firm. As a student organization, Spartan Consulting is dedicated to helping members prepare for their careers by learning about consulting as a profession, and by gaining skills and experiences that will be valuable in their job searches and beyond. As a fee-based consulting firm, Spartan Consulting is dedicated to providing quality solutions at a competitive price to clients by drawing on membership's wide array of experience, knowledge and skills.

The Spoken Word: New Resources to Transform Teaching and Learning

Michigan State University, in collaboration with Northwestern University and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and Glasgow Caledonian University, in collaboration with the BBC - Information & Archives, will develop and implement this vision. Starting with a rich collection of digitized audio resources, associated texts and images and a set of integrated online annotation tools, this work will promote the usability and integration of digital spoken word repositories to improve undergraduate teaching. The project will test whether and with what effect the integration of digital audio resources into university courses achieves four major project outcomes: (1) improving student learning and retention, (2) developing aural literacy in our students, (3) augmenting student competence to write on --and for -- the Internet, and, (4) enhancing digital libraries through a focus on learning.

Studs Terkel: Conversations with America

An Historical Voices gallery is dedicated to making the works of Studs Terkel accessible to diverse set of users: researchers, students, teachers, and the general public.

Teachart.msu.edu

The project involves several short term residencies, by Hispanic artists, working in the media of theater, music painting, photography, and poetry, in its pilot form, as its focal point. Artists will interact with students and provide workshops for them and for teachers (K-12). The workshops will demonstrate how to use Creative activity and creative works in conjunction with other curricular activity. Web resources and software that can be used for creative projects will be introduced to teachers (and media specialists), and used to extend the interaction between the artists and the teachers and students, as well as between students in two schools.

Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access Conference

The purpose of Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access (TICFIA) Program is to support projects that will develop innovative techniques or programs using new electronic technologies to collect information from foreign sources.

USAID Mali: Program to Further Educational Exchange with the University of Bamako

Matrix worked with faculty and staff from the University of Bamako to train them in maintaining web sites, in using the internet for teaching and research, and focused specifically on creating pilot projects linking ongoing University of Bamako research with internet technologies.

Yesterday's Tomorrows

Matrix designed a site for the Smithsonian about a traveling exhibition that explores the history of the future - people's expectations and beliefs about things to come.