The Scout Report -- Volume 25, Number 38

The Open Syllabus Project (featured in the 7-15-2016 Scout Report) uses machine learning to analyze "a corpus of seven million English-language syllabi from over 80 countries." At the link above, readers will find the project's Co-Assignment Galaxy, a fascinating interactive visualization of more than 160,000 of the most commonly assigned texts in the Open Syllabus database. Upon arrival, visitors first see a concise yet detailed explanation of what the visualization shows and how it was created. The visualization itself is an intriguing, multicolored concoction that is well worth exploring. Each dot represents a text, with the more popular texts represented by larger dots. These are positioned such that "books that are close together in the layout are assigned in similar courses." Clicking a dot brings up a link to the text's profile page, where users can see more details like which other texts are frequently assigned alongside the selected item. A search bar in the upper left of the Galaxy enables readers to look for a particular title. Launched in 2016 and currently in its second database iteration, the Open Syllabus Project is directed by Joe Karaganis, who is also the vice president of the American Assembly, an independent nonprofit located at Columbia University. [JDC]

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Readers interested in learning about sustainable development may want to check out these free graduate-level MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) offered by SDG Academy, a program from the United Nations' Sustainable Development Solutions Network. These interactive online courses are designed to "cover the headline issues and a multitude of interdisciplinary topics related to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, a set of aims and targets adopted by member states of the United Nations in 2015," with each course aligning with one or more of these goals. For example, the course entitled "Macroeconomics for a Sustainable Planet" adheres to Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth, while the introductory course "The Age of Sustainable Development" is relevant to all 17 goals. The instructors for SDG Academy's courses are experts drawn from universities, institutes, and organizations around the world, such as New York University, the University of Oxford, and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Most of the courses are self-paced and can be completed anytime, while some are instructor-paced and have specific start and end dates. All of SDG Academy's courses can be accessed and completed for free via the edX platform, and learners also have the option to purchase certificates verifying course completion. [JDC]

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From the U.S. Census Bureau's Statistics in Schools (SIS) program comes this collection of classroom history and social studies activities intended to "supplement the standard curriculum while providing useful learning tools related to real life data." This collection features well-developed activity plans for K-12 students, each focused on a specific topic. Activities are broadly grouped into grade-level appropriate subjects: elementary grades (e.g. "Jamestown - Factors Affecting Population Change, 1630-1700"), middle school (e.g. "Where Should I Live? Using U.S. Census Bureau Data to Make Decisions"), and high school (e.g. "19th Century Immigration - Causes & Effects"). The webpage for each activity gives a description, states the time and materials required, and provides a list of learning objectives. Some activities also take advantage of the Census Bureau's interactive digital tools, such as QuickFacts. Each lesson includes attractively designed and downloadable PDFs of teacher and student versions of the activity. [JDC]

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For those with an interest in medieval manuscripts, the digital library e-codices will be a welcome boon. First launched in 2005, e-codices bills itself as the "Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland" and provides visitors with "free online access to medieval and early modern manuscripts from public and church-owned collections as well as from numerous private collections." Here, visitors will find more than 2,200 digitized manuscripts, totaling more than 800,000 pages, from approximately 100 participating libraries and collections. Several collections are highlighted on the main page, and the Browse & Search section allows visitors to filter the e-codices collections by numerous fields, such as the text language, document type, and whether it is illuminated. While few of the manuscripts were originally written in English, all static pages and basic metadata on the e-codices website are available in English, as well as German, French, and Italian. The e-codices project was founded by its director Christoph Flueler, a professor of Manuscript Studies and Medieval Latin at the University of Fribourg. Since 2013, e-codices has been part of the initiative "Scientific information: Access, processing and safeguarding," which is a national program of swissuniversities, the umbrella organization for universities in Switzerland. [JDC]

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Researchers, students, readers with an interest in particle physics, and librarians may appreciate the work of the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics, or SCOAP3 for short. Describing itself as "a one-of-its-kind partnership of over 3,000 libraries, key funding agencies and research centers in 44 countries and 3 intergovernmental organizations," SCOAP3 works with leading publishers like Elsevier and Springer to convert academic journals in the field of high energy physics to an open access model with no publication fees for authors. Since its launch in January 2014, SCOAP3 has funded more than 30,000 articles, with more than 5,000 articles funded in 2019 as of this write-up. Currently, there are 11 journals participating in SCOAP3, including Nuclear Physics B, Physical Review Letters, and Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics. Those interested in reading open-access articles from these and other journals can find them in the SCOAP3 Repository, while those interested in learning more about how SCOAP3 works will find helpful explanations in the FAQ section as well as several recorded webinars in the Resources section. [JDC]

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Social studies and humanities educators at a variety of levels should check out this teacher's guide assembled by the folks at EDSITEment to help celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15). This guide puts together numerous high-quality resources created for EDSITEment and other National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) projects, in addition to resources from around the web. Organized thematically, the guide opens with summaries and links to plentiful resources exploring the roots and influences of Hispanic culture, as well as its rich literary heritage. The Lessons from the Chihuahuan Desert section, which highlights teaching materials exploring themes of borders and borderlands, may be of particular interest to educators of grades 6-12. This section is followed by one containing links to more than a dozen of EDSITEment's other excellent lesson plans and curriculum units related to Hispanic history and culture, helpfully organized by academic subject. The guide closes with a selection of links to additional relevant online resources, some of which are available in both English and Spanish. While EDSITEment's resources are generally crafted with K-12 educators in mind, others interested in learning more about Latin American history and culture can also find something to interest them in this guide. [JDC]

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Readers interested in contemporary Latin American culture should check out Remezcla. This independent media brand began in 2006 "as a grassroots project among writers and creatives," who noted that "there were so many great stories about new Latin music, culture, and events that no one was covering." Since then, Remezcla has firmly established itself as an influential English-language media outlet for Latinx Millennials, with an audience of millions hailing from the US, Latin America, and Spain. Visitors to Remezcla's website will find ample content to explore, such as discussions of films, music, and art that engage with Latin American culture, as well as announcements and write-ups of live events. Remezcla also publishes commentaries on the bicultural experience of young Latinx people in the U.S. and even articles on sports and food. A handy menu at the top allows readers to view articles in the category of their choice, and the site is searchable as well. Based in Brooklyn with offices in Los Angeles and Mexico City, Remezcla was founded by Andrew Herrera. [JDC]

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!Latinos STEM Up! was a panel discussion hosted by NASA's Hispanic Outreach and Leadership Alliance (HOLA) on October 12, 2017, as part of HOLA's Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations. This discussion focused on "the contributions of Hispanics to NASA's mission and the importance of Hispanic representation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and careers." It featured six panelists representing a range of backgrounds and perspectives from within the Latinx STEM community, with panelists hailing from leadership at NASA, as well as other organizations. Participants included (for example): Dr. Yaireska Collado-Vega, a physical scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Marile Colon Robles, the education outreach coordinator for NASA's Langley Research Center, and Jose Antonio Tijerino, the president and CEO of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation. In addition to these and other panelists, the discussion was moderated by Elvis Cordova, a former deputy under secretary at the US Department of Agriculture under the Obama administration. Those interested can watch the entire 90-minute panel discussion on YouTube at the link above, where they will also find a link to download the video from NASA's Image and Video Library. [JDC]

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The digital publication Latin America Reports describes itself as "an ambitious editorial project that aims [...] to illustrate the importance of Latin America for a global audience by explaining current events, analyzing diverse perspectives, and seeking out the human story." Launched in early 2019, this site offers readers English-language articles covering news stories from Central and South America. From the home page, visitors can browse the most recently published articles, as well as a selection of featured articles from each category. Readers can also access the categories on offer -- as of this write-up, these are Economy, Politics, Society, and Technology -- via the menu at the top of the website. This section also houses shortcuts to view stories by country, for the 11 Latin American countries currently covered. For readers who are interested in Latin American news and analysis beyond the coverage available in mainstream English-language news outlets, but who lack Spanish or Portuguese knowledge, Latin America Reports may be a helpful resource to bookmark. Latin America Reports is a project of Espacio Media Incubator, a digital media company based in Medellin, Colombia. [JDC]

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Baker-Berry Library at Dartmouth College is one of a small number of public buildings in the US with works by Mexican painter and muralist Jose Clemente Orozco, who specialized in political murals. The Epic of American Civilization mural at Dartmouth, painted between 1932 and 1934, is certainly one of the largest and most complex. The mural features 24 panels representing overarching themes like migration and ancient human sacrifice. Visitors can navigate the mural using the interactive compass in the upper left corner of the site, as well as by left clicking and dragging in the direction they would like to move. For additional tips, select the question mark icon above the compass. In addition to the mural itself, Dartmouth owns more than two hundred preparatory drawings and historical photographs, which visitors to the Digital Orozco site can explore by clicking on various panels of the mural. For example, "The Pre-Columbian Golden Age" (panel 6) can be viewed along with over a dozen preparatory studies for the figures and layout in the mural, as well as a student research about the mural. [DS]

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We last featured this oral history project in the 12-01-2017 Scout Report. It continues to offer visitors valuable insight into Latin American history and heritage.

New Roots: Voices from Carolina del Norte is a collaborative oral history project from the Latino Migration Project, the Southern Oral History Project (housed in Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), and UNC Chapel Hill University Libraries. This collection features over 160 interviews with North Carolinians who immigrated to the state from Latin America. This collection includes interviews conducted in English and Spanish. Visitors can browse this collection by North Carolina county, the interviewee's country of origin, year of the interview (2011- present), or theme. Tagged themes include adult education, DREAMers and DACA, identity, migratory experience, and receiving communities, to name just a few. For social studies, Spanish, and ELL instructors, these interviews offer a rich classroom resource. As of this write-up, this project also includes three lesson plans designed to facilitate student exploration of and reflection on some of these interviews.

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