If I am being honest, I have not done much in regards to the project this week, but I do plan to look at the final report later today that I know other group members have been devoting time to. Let me explain why.

I have become increasingly involved with the University of Maryland Autism Research Consortium (UMARC) this semester and a couple of months ago co-director Kathy Dow-Burger invited me to lead a meeting of their college transition program called Social Interaction Group Network for UMD students with Autism (SIGNA). They are in the middle of a unit on self-advocacy and disclosure and it is important for autistics to have mentors and role models, so it makes sense for them to be introduced to a self-advocate, and it is a way for me to get practice doing this sort of activity. I am excited for the opportunity, but preparing for it has taken up a lot of my time since my last blog post. I am okay with that, though, because a person has to be able to rank tasks by priority level and this one is a high priority for me for multiple reasons.

I gave a presentation to SIGNA staff yesterday and tomorrow I will be doing so to SIGNA members. After that, my life will calm down some, but for the iSchool Symposium on Tuesday, May 1st, I have organized and will be sitting on a panel that is designed to serve as an introduction to neurodiversity. The difference with that is that I will not be alone and it is only 40 minutes instead of 1.5 hours. I hope to see some of my classmates and professors there at 4:15 in the Nanticoke Room in Stamp.

As Andy already stated, I popped over to Joe’s this afternoon since I live so close to it and knew that he was going to be there. I have no experience with Adobe Bridge, so I wanted to see him import the keyword taxonomy. We ended up being there for around 1.5 hours and covered such topics as the taxonomy, our proposed folder structure, and our desire for a presentation to Joe’s staff about the progress that has been made, ideas for the future, and how they can help.

One of goals from the start has been to empower Sierra to make decisions related to past and future digital assets. She is the staff member who works the closest with them, but she has not been there for very long. When we first met her, we could tell that she was feeling overwhelmed by the chaos and that she did not feel empowered to take charge (for example, no one specifically tasked her with cleaning the mess up or directed her towards resources to show her how she might). However, we could also tell that newer files generated since her arrival were in better order than previous ones, so she was capable.

It was so nice to feel her genuine excitement as we were wrapping up today. You can tell that her head is above water and that she is enjoying being able to breathe easier (at least before whatever problems this new branch location might bring). It reminded me of being a teacher and the joy that I felt in seeing my students grow, partially due to my help. I like Sierra and I want to see her be happy and successful.

Aside: I have never seen someone react so positively to seeing a document related to file naming conventions (I found this artifact in their files from 2014; it was not produced in-house, but it is evidence that someone was at least thinking of the same kind of work that we are doing).

I was at Joe’s today for four hours preparing the one working 4TB external hard drive (that we have centralized a copy of all student files on to) for Lauren to stop by tomorrow and run our inventory generating software on it.

While I was there, I spoke with Sierra (and eventually Patrick, who joined us) about an email that she sent me last Friday. In it, she told me that she is planning to request some new equipment before another class starts later this month, including one larger external to replace the broken 4TB one, and five smaller 2TB externals that match two that they already have. This would bring their total number of externals to nine.

I also learned more about another space (Harmony Hall) that they are going to start using later this month. It is a parks and rec department facility and they will be sharing it with them, including a lab with ten or so laptops. This setup does not sound appropriate for multimedia production and editing, or for CreativeWorks.

• Laptops instead of desktops.
• (Possibly) wireless network connection instead of wired.
• No ownership of hardware (workstations, modem/router, server?). This also raises questions about administrator/student accounts and privileges.
• No network connection to the main Mt. Rainer location.

The thought behind a request for multiple externals comes from this situation. Rather than save files on internal drives in machines that they do not own, students would instead use externals that CW does own. These drives could also travel between the two locations. [She also mentioned how some instructors desire/recommend externals to work off of because that frees up the machine for rendering. This sounds odd to both of us and I would like to know more.]

I explained to Sierra and Patrick and how they need a network-based solution to their problems instead of physical disk one, but then they told me all of this new information and now I do not know what to think. We floated the idea of still improving the server situation at the Mt. Rainer location; enlarging its storage capacity and using it to backup externals, and connecting it to any CW machines in the building so that it could be a repository for all CW content, both staff and student.

I am really bothered by what I learned about the Harmony Hall location today. It does not sound like someone thought about what would be best for CreativeWorks, or asked for Sierra’s input. I do not understand what the point of the location even is.

I would like to piggy-back off of Andy’s post, since we were at the same meeting (where I mentioned that we were looking at the wild frontier). I made the remark due to what I was seeing, which surprised me more than it did he and Juli.

Based on our first meeting with the client, I was under the impression that they needed more help with metadata than file structure. We were told that files were organized by year, group, student, and sometimes even project, but that was simply not true, at least consistently and obviously.

There are many student folders and a couple folders that appear to be tied to a year or two. Four external hard drives exist, but one is currently not being recognized, and they are not copies of each other (some files are mutual, but others are not). There are also six desktop workstations that have their own hard drives and it is not clear if any of those files exist on the externals.

I do not like that the situation feels so chaotic, but I know that one reason I feel that way is because of my autism. I like to feel in control or that I am in a controlled environment because predictability reduces my anxiety (which is especially of a social nature). That is why I am such an organized person. I need all of the client’s files to be centralized for me to really be able to wrap my head around what to do next with all of them.

We must leave our client with some guiding documents as part of this project because it is painfully evident that students, staff, and instructors are not on the same page.

Oregon Trail emulator