This project has 5 very significant and critical tools, but will be focusing on one, the DocNow tool.
Is a tool for appraising and collecting consent for Twitter. DocNow mainly focuses on gathering consent from those content creators, known as ethical consent. This tool also includes live tests and refines collecting parameters on recent tweets, along with sharing information about one’s personal collection with the public. DocNow allows trending topics to be views globally, in real time, then allowing the exploration of that content by the media and users. Lastly, with the use of API, this can collect back in time and downloads Tweet ID archive for sharing Twitter’s terms of service.
The information provided below comes from a Youtube video, titled “DocNow V.1 User Demonstration.”
How to Use DocNow:
1.) You must have a Twitter account, so if you don’t have one, you must create one. Login and follow Twitter’s prompts (for your first time logging in, it will suggest you provide your email and everyone must agree to the terms of service for your profile).
2.) Once you are logged in, you must click to authorize the app, but will see your account is in provisional status because an administrator must approve it, and to be approved you must read and agree to the terms of service within 24 hours.
3.) Once you are approved and your status at the top bar says “full access,” you will be able to save your searches and publish collections, rather than just being able to browse. You can explore what is currently trending in any of the hundreds of Twitter’s places, being able to select up to six pages on that same page. Different colors will start to emerge in the trending topics which denote phrases, hashtags, and terms. You can select what topic you want to explore by their color coordination.
4.) Explore is DocNow’s appraisal feature displaying the most recent 1,000 tweets, allowing us to refine our search before saving. The page breaks apart into categories of tweets, users, hashtags, urls, and media allowing us to explore the quality and specificity of the content, also being able to expand their searches.
5.) Once you have refined your search terms, save the search. This saved search will be available to view under the searches tab. Activate your search to start collecting and building the activation panel that, in the future, is where your saved search becomes a public collection.
6.) Choose a collection title and describe the collection that will help content creators understand why you are collecting their content. A tweet will then automatically post on your Twitter account, including the terms you are collecting. You can also set a date range for your collection and limit the number of tweets you collect.
7.) Once you have activated your search, you should see the number of tweets collected start to rise. Click the title of your search, to go to your insights overviews. When you have collected everything, you can create an archive and download the zip file of your collection. To do that, you must turn the search off, and will be able to create archive.
8.) Once that is done, you will see it says ‘download archive’, where you can see the zip file which will be opened up. There is a viewer inside the archived files that will work as long as you have internet access that is labeled “index.html” that takes you to view your archived DocNow collection.
PSA: This application does have a Twitter imposed limit of 10,000,000 tweets per month, so only collect what is needed.
This method reflects best practice because DocNow uses digital methods and tools that are also used in Digital Humanities, such as digital media, data and informative visuals, and other resources.