Experimental Reading Workshop

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The Experimental Reading Workshop is an ongoing, open-ended research and design project collectively run by students and staff at the University of Alberta. Its members meet bi-weekly to discuss innovations in the analysis, display, and reception of text and graphics through technology. Membership is open, and new members may bring existing projects, or ideas for projects, into the Workshop for comment and support. The ERW was founded in 2003, and currently operates under the umbrella of the Text Analysis Portal for Research.

Who We Are:

• Stan Ruecker is an associate professor of Humanities Computing whose interdisciplinary dissertation dealt with the affordances of prospect in interfaces.
• Zachary Devereaux is an MA Candidate in Political Science at the University of Alberta whose research interests focus on the intersection of design, new media and international relations.
• Scott Sharplin is a student of Humanities Computing with interests in literature, drama, and new media.

Projects:

• HyperPo is a web-based text analysis and reading tool on which usability tests are being conducted.
• Text Document Prospect is a system that provides tools for understanding a document by highlighting and displaying portions of an overview of an entire document, a passage view and a reading view.
• Watching the Script allows readers to visualize the blocking of a script in real time, by animating the movement of lines on a stage.
• Sonnet Sequence Marquee simultaneously scrolls an entire sonnet sequence past the reader to demonstrate the cognitive and affective qualities of text movement.

ERW Minutes:

The ERW meets monthly or bi-weekly in the TAPoR Workshop at the University of Alberta. The following links open PDF files of the minutes from some of our recent meetings.

November 1, 2004
November 15, 2004
November 29, 2004
February 3, 2005
February 17, 2005