Peter Organisciak

• Phone— 780-953-7105
• Address—1206-8715 104 St. NW, Edmonton, AB, T6E 4G7
• Website—http://www.porganized.com
• email—organisc@ualberta.ca

PhD in Library and Information Studies

August 2010-present | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

MA in Humanities Computing, with Specialization in Library and Information Studies

September 2008-August 2010 | University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

• Thesis: Why Bother? Examining the Motivations of Users in Large-Scale Crowd-Powered Online Initiatives

Honours BA in Communication Studies and Multimedia

September 2004-June 2008 | McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

Research Assistant

September 2008-present | Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Alberta | Edmonton, AB

Supervised by Stan Ruecker and Geoffrey Rockwell. Current projects:

• Just in Time Research (JiTR): Research environment considering on-demand research.
• Day of Digital Humanities: Project documenting 24 hours in the field of Digital Humanities, and visualizing such semantically linked data.
• Flash Text Analysis Tool (FlashTAT): Tool for embedding text analysis tools into a webpage.

Freelancer

March 2008 – August 2008 | Hamilton, ON

Various Projects in programming, design, and academia. Including:

• Spectator Map Generator – Hamilton Spectator – Tool for creating custom maps for online articles.
• SmartTexts – Dr. Geoffrey Rockwell – Project visualizing a tool for archival of web projects.
• “The Body Snatchers“:Trench Raid at Roclincourt – Dr. Kathy Garay – Animation of WWI trench raid. Funded by the Peace and War in the 20th Century project.

Instructor – “Crowdsourcing”

January 2009 – July 2009 | Metroland West Group | Hamilton, ON

• Private sector instructor and course designer. 1-hour course, “Crowdsourcing”, taught every week to editorial, marketing, and advertising employees at newspaper publisher.

Instructor – “Web Development”

December 2007 – June 2008 | Metroland West Group | Hamilton, ON

• Private sector instructor. 2-hour course “Web Development” taught to newspaper employees from creative and news departments.

Teaching Assistant

September 2007—December 2007 | Department of Communication Studies and Multimedia – McMaster University | Hamilton, ON

• Course topic is Introduction to Digital Media in the Humanities.
• Areas covered revolve around introductory web design, particularily XHTML, CSS, usability and online media.

Assistant Photographer

Fall 2007 – Present  | Chappell Studios | Toronto, ON

• Photographer at University of Alberta and Grant McEwan convocations, October 2008 – Present
• Photography of McMaster University convocations, November 2007 – June 2008

Instructor – “Mashups”

November 2007-December 2007 | Metroland West Group | Hamilton, ON

• 2-hour course “Mashups” taught to newspaper employees from creative and news departments.
• Course designed by me in August 2007.
• Topics covered included history of content on the internet, practical uses of mashups, and hands on introduction to creating mashups.

Website Designer

June 2007—present | Mixed Media | Hamilton, ON

• Website redesign for the James Street North Art Crawl.
• An example of the future site can be found at http://www.porganized.com/JameSt.
• Coded in CSS and PHP, uses WordPress as a content management system.

Graphic Designer

July 2004—July 2006 | Hayden Industries | Hamilton, ON

• Main medium of design was for publishing.
• Experience with Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Flash.
• Example work at http://porganized.com/commercial.html.

Graphic Designer

July 2004—September 2004 | Crawford and Associates | Hamilton, ON

• Created icons for computer software interfaces.

Conference Presentations

Rockwell, Geoffrey, Stan Ruecker, Peter Organisciak, Megan Meredith-Lobay, Kamal Ranaweera, Stéfan Sinclair. “A Day in the Life of Digital Humanities.” Digital Humanities 2010. King’s College London, UK. July 7-10, 2010.

Organisciak, Peter, Kathleen Reed, and Alicia Hibbert. “Shortcuts and Dead Ends: Control Issues With Online User-Generated Content.” Information Science: Synergy through Diversity. Canadian Association for Information Science. Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. June 2-4 2010.

Rockwell, Geoffrey, Stan Ruecker, Peter Organisciak, Megan Meredith-Lobay, Kamal Ranaweera and Julianne Nyhan. “What do we say about ourselves? An analysis of the Day of DH 2009 data.” Society for Digital Humanities. Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. June 2-4 2010.

Rockwell, Geoffrey, Stan Ruecker, Peter Organisciak, Megan Meredith-Lobay, Kamal Ranaweera and Julianne Nyhan. “What do we say about ourselves? An analysis of the Day of DH 2009 data.” Society for Digital Humanities. Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. June 2-4 2010.

Organisciak, Peter, Geoffrey Rockwell, Stéfan Sinclair, and Stan Ruecker. “Text Analysis for me Too: An embeddable text analysis widget.” Society for Digital Humanities. Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. June 2-4 2010.

Organisciak, Peter. “Collecting Crowds: A Survey-based Introduction to Crowdsourcing.” HuCon 2010: Current Graduate Research in Humanities Computing. University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. February 26, 2010.

Ruecker, Stan, Geoffrey Rockwell, Susan Brown, Stéfan Sinclair and Peter Organisciak. “Mashing Texts: Supporting collections level text analysis”. Digital Humanities 09. University of Maryland, USA. June 22-25, 2009.

Rockwell, Geoffrey, Stan Ruecker, Peter Organisciak, Stéfan Sinclair. “Ubiquitous Text Analysis”. Digital Humanities 09. University of Maryland, USA. June 22-25, 2009.

Varnam, Christine, Peter Organisciak, Kathleen Reed, Alicia Hibbert, and Diana Keto. “Invasion of the And-Ors: Applying Active Learning Principles in the Development of a Flash-based Boolean Search Tutorial and Game.” Canadian Association for Information Science / l’association canadienne des sciences de l’information (Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences). Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. May 26-29, 2009.

Rockwell, Geoffrey, Stan Ruecker, and Peter Organisciak. “A Day in the Life of the Digital Humanities.” Society for Digital Humanities / Société pour l’étude des médias interactif 2009 (Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences). Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. May 22-25, 2009.

Rockwell, Geoffrey, Stan Ruecker, Peter Organisciak, Susan Brown, and Stéfan Sinclair. “Mashing Texts: Exploring New Possibilities in Rapid Research Document Management.” Society for Digital Humanities / Société pour l’étude des médias interactif 2009 (Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences). Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. May 22-25, 2009.

Organisciak, Peter, Kathleen Reed, Alicia Hibbert, Christine Varnam, and Diana Keto. “Invasion of the And-Ors: The Development of a Flash-based Boolean Search Tutorial and Game.” Beyond Analogue: Current Graduate Research in Humanities Computing. University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. Feb 13, 2009.

Conference Panels

Ruecker, Stan, Geoffrey Rockwell, Peter Organisciak, Jean-Guy Meunier, Michael Eberle-Sinatra, Alan Galey, Aimee Morrison and Ray Siemens. “Graduate Education in the Digital Humanities.” Society for Digital Humanities / Société pour l’étude des médias interactif 2009 (Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences). Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. May 22-25, 2009.

Poster Sessions

Stéfan Sinclair, Dave Beacon, Susan Brown, Stephen Downie, Carlos Fiorentino, Patrick Juola, Peter Organisciak, Geoffrey Rockwell, Susan Schreibman, Kirsten Uszkalo. “TADA Research Evaluation Exchange: Winning 2008 Submissions”. Digital Humanities 09. University of Maryland, USA. June 22-25, 2009.

Varnam, Christine, Kathleen Reed, Peter Organisciak, Alicia Hibbert, and Diana Keto. “Invasion of the And-Ors: Applying Active Learning Principles in the Development of a Flash-based Boolean Search Tutorial Game.” Faculty of Education Poster Fair: A Celebration of Graduate Student Research in Progress. University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. Mar 18, 2009.

Talks

Svenson, Stephen, Peter Organisciak and Cory Ruf. “Life and Death in New Orleans : Disaster Tours Imagined.” X Marks the Spot: Cryptographies of the City.  Culture of Cities Centre, Toronto, Canada. April 9, 2008.

Academic Contests

Organisciak, Peter. “Bookmarklet for Immediate Text Analysis.” 1st Place in Best Idea for Improving the Interface of the TAPoR Portal. 2008 T-REX (TADA Research Evaluation eXchange). McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. 2008.

Layout Editor

June 2005—present | Between the Lines | Hamilton, ON

• Strong experience with Adobe InDesign.
• Examples available at http://porganized.com/publishing.html

Club President

September 2006—present | McMaster Multimedia Students Society| Hamilton, ON

• prior to President, held the position of Treasurer, August 2005-April 2006.

Residence Rep

September 2005 | McKay Hall | Hamilton, ON

Faculty Rep

September 2005, September 2006 | McMaster Humanities Society | Hamilton, ON

First-Year Representative

September 2005—April 2006 | McMaster Humanities Society | Hamilton, ON

• Position representing the interests of the first-year students of a university faculty.

• Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship (2009)
• McMaster Dean’s Honour List (2007, 2008)
• The Bank of Montreal Humanities Multimedia Scholarship (2007)
• Time Magazine Person of the Year (2006)
• St. Joseph’s Community Scholarship (2004, 2006)
• Queen Elizabeth II Aiming for the Top Scholarship(2004)
• McMaster University Entrance Scholarship (2004)
• Honour J: “For Excellence in academic and extra-curricular activities at Saint John’s College” (2004)
• Silver Medal – Skills Ontario Animation Competition (2004)
• Runner-up – Notmad Skin Design Contest (2003)
• Saint John’s College Honour Roll (2002, 2003, 2004)
• 1st Place City Standing in Cayley Mathematics Competition (2002)
• 1st Place City Standing in Pascal Mathematics Competition (2001)

Software

• Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Premier, InDesign)
• Final Cut Pro
• Lightwave
• Maya
• Cubase

Design

• Photo editing, Photo manipulation
  • Strong ability at improving photos or adapting them to a desired style
  • example 2 (combining two photos and a vector illustration)
• Editing
  • Strong video editing ability, quickly adapt to new functions or tasks
• Web Design and Code
  • Fluent in XHTML, XSLT, CSS, Actionscript 3.0, Actionscript 2.0
  • Growing familiarity with PHP, JavaScript
• 3D Modelling, 3D Animation
  • Skill depending on task and program. Most notable skills with texture design and using Lightwave
• Photography
  • Moderate skill, strong familiarity with digital SLRs, some professional experience
• Vector design, vector animation
  • Moderate vector illustration skill

• Photography (examples – http://flickr.com/photos/organisciak/)
• Graphic Design (examples – http://porganized.com/graphics.html)
• Crowdsourcing (journal – http://crowdstorming.wordpress.com/)