Asset Use and Documentation

This is the post for the Monday, September 26, 2016 class meeting.

Sad kitten, with the caption, I wish I had tracked my assets and sourcesDesign Presentations

  • 2:30 Class: Morgan G.
  • 4:00 Class: Katelyn M.

Finding Assets

Finding things you want to use in your project is easy. They are everywhere. Finding things that you can freely use without violating someone else’s rights is the hard part.

Intellectual property rights for your assets (the things you use to make a project) fall into three categories, all of which require documentation:

  • Protected by Copyright—You will have to prove Fair Use or get permission. Use the Copyright Genie.
  • In the Public Domain—You can use these freely, without seeking additional permission.
  • Protected by Creative Commons—You need to follow the license. See p. 68 of Writer/Designer.

Use the Where can I find graphics that I can use in my projects? FAQ for links to public domain and creative commons assets.

Tracking Assets

As you find sound clips, video clips, photographs, and so forth to include in your projects, you need to track where they came from so that you can credit your sources.

Make a copy of the Project 4 Source List Template and track your sources there. See the assignment on pp. 62–63 of Writer/Designer (“A Multimodal Annotated Source List, Part 1”) for the information to include in your annotations. This document will be your Sources & Assets Plan, as noted in the Deliverables on the Major Projects Workflow page.

Practice with PowerPoint Video

Create a movie based on a PowerPoint slideshow with five or six free-to-use images, including the one you made last week, and a free audio track at http://dig.ccmixter.org (or a similar site). Share your movie in the PowerPoint Movie Practice Discussion. Remember to test your movie before submitting it.

If you are using PowerPoint for Mac 2016 (on the classroom computers), once you create your slideshow with transitions and audio, save it and quit PowerPoint. Launch Keynote on your computer, and open your saved PowerPoint file. Use the Export command on the File menu to create a QuickTime version of your slideshow. Save your PowerPoint and QuickTime files to a flash drive or email them to yourself, as they will be deleted from the classroom computer when you log out.

The grace period for this discussion ends next Monday, 10/3.

Homework

  1. The grace period for your formal pitch ends at 11:59 PM on Wednesday, September 28. The submission instructions are at the bottom of the Formal Pitch page.

  2. For Wednesday, 9/28, read the Graphics FAQ pages. Have your Sources & Assets Plan set up (see the Tracking Assets section above), and be prepared to work on your projects in class. I will check your plans in class.

  3. For Monday, 10/3, watch Up and Running with Audacity (1h 49m on Lynda.com), and complete Design Journal #6. Download and install Audacity (Mac, Win) on your computer as well. We will use it in class.