Creating Panoramas with Hugin

Upon returning from last month’s ACRL 2013 conference, I was excited to sit down and explore Hugin after more than one librarian mentioned using it to create panoramic and/or 360-degree images (for one example, see this PDF of Scott Rice and Margaret Gregor’s Presentation  “This Library Orientation is Fun! Building a Successful Virtual Experience for Students”).

Based on the Panorama Tools project, Hugin is a free, cross-platform photo stitcher that allows you to join overlapping images into a single panoramic image. Although Hugin’s advanced features can be initially overwhelming for the casual user, with seemingly endless image manipulation tools,  the “Assistant” tab can get you started creating panoramas in just three quick steps.

After downloading Hugin, the first step in the assistant is to load your images. I decided to test out Hugin using images of the Towson University campus I snapped with my phone’s camera. Hugin will attempt to automatically detect information about the lens used to take the images, and it easily recognized the information for my iPhone’s camera.

Hugin Assistant

The next step is to “Align” the images. Hugin automatically attempts to create a single panoramic image from the images you upload – including selecting “control points” between images (significant overlapping points in each photo used to align the images). From there, you can also adjust a number of other settings, including layout, projection, and cropping.

Hugin Panorama Preview

Finally, you can “Create your panorama.” The Hugin processor will ask you to save your project (which means you can come back to work with it again later) and will produce your panoramic image. (Tip: It look me a while to find, but you can adjust the image file output to produce TIFF, JPEG, or PNG files in the “Sticher” tab in the upper right-hand portion of the Hugin screen).

Below you can see the before and after of the simple panorama I created using Hugin. Four individual photos are stitched together to create a single image, with the Hugin assistant automatically attempting to adjust the images’ exposure, orientation, and cropping. If you are not pleased with your panorama, you can go back and try adjusting any of the image settings as-needed.

Image series before….

… and panorama after using Hugin.

Creating this simple panorama with the Hugin assistant took me less than five minutes from start to finish (maybe 10 minutes if you include install and picture taking time). You can also opt to by-pass the assistant, and follow these directions provided by Hugin to dig deeper into the program. The assistant feature seemed to work well with my smartphone snapshots in “ideal” photographic settings – outdoors, with plenty of natural light and subjects that are farther in the distance. More complicated projects would benefit from someone with an interest in digital photography and equipment that is much more sophisticated than a smartphone camera.

Although there are more settings than I could fully explore in one sitting, I can see how the advanced features in the tool would be useful for larger projects, particularly in the hands of users with a higher level of photography experience and knowledge (or time and interest to develop such knowledge). Libraries might be interested in further exploring Hugin if they are producing images of their library to use, for instance, in promotional materials or online tours.

Hugin also includes tutorials on its site that demonstrate several other techniques, including stitching multiple rows together and joining scanned images. And according to Hugin’s website, they will be unrolling a new interface sometime in 2013 (you can see a preview on the Hugin website), which promises to include Simple, Advanced, and Expert settings.

Why not take a few quick shots of your library and see what you can create!

How to “Explain Everything”

If the latest version of the NMC Horizon Report Higher Education Edition is any indication, tablet computing continues to be at the forefront of higher education trends. As a new tablet owner myself, I have been looking for more ways to incorporate it into my daily work life aside from reading email, taking notes and enjoying the occasional YouTube video. Also, as more librarians are using tablets for roving reference or during instructional sessions, it’s interesting to consider how shifting more of our day-to-day work to tablets might look.

Given the increasing number of librarians interested and involved in creating online instructional materials, one area to explore in tablet computing is screencasting and screencapture applications which allow librarians to do this type of work on-the-go.

Explain Everything

One of my favorite applications I’ve found so far for screencasting from my iPad is Explain Everything. Explain Everything is an iOS app which allows you to interact with images and presentations on your iPad, including adding annotations and recording live animation or voice narration.

Creating and Editing Projects

To begin a new project in Explain Everything, you can upload images (JPG or PNG), upload other compatible files (including PDF or RTF and PowerPoint, Excel, Word, Pages or Numbers files), or start from scratch with a blank project. Projects are presented as a series of slides, with new pages or images from imported documents each appearing as separate slides. You can rearrange, duplicate, insert, and delete slides within the Explain Everything project.

Explain Everything home screen displaying saved projects.

Once a project is created, you can manipulate objects using the interactive white board. Tools in the whiteboard allow for adding new slides, annotating or free-hand drawing, inserting shapes or typed text, adding additional images, and opening a live browser window. You can also rotate, resize, and delete objects.

Editing and recording interactive whiteboard in Explain Everything. Image created using Skitch

Recording

In addition to manipulating the slides on screen, you can record a presentation or screencast. Using the “Record” button on the bottom of the whiteboard will capture your live annotation, object manipulations, laser pointer, and voice narration. You can continuously record while navigating from slide to slide, and easily pause the recording during interruptions.

Since Explain Everything also allows you to open a live browser window, you can easily create projects which demonstrate online resources. This is particularly nice for libraries as we create guides for users to reference when interacting with our online catalogs, databases, etc. Unfortunately Explain Everything’s recording capabilities may not capture some online animations (including pop up windows and javascript), which can make it difficult to demonstrate certain interactive online activities (like typing into a search box).

For demonstration purposes, you can see a couple of quick videos I created using the recording function.

Saving and Exporting

One of the best features of Explain Everything is its ability to export projects in different formats to different locations. Projects can be exported as Explain Everything’s XPL format, or as PDFs, images (PNG), and videso (MOV/MP4), and can be saved to various places like the iPad camera roll or Youtube, as well as your favorite cloud storage service (including Evernote, Dropbox, and Google Drive). You can also adjust the quality and size of exported images and videos, though the quality of its compressed videos may leave something to be desired for some users.

Export and Save in Explain Everything

Wrapping Up

Although not a free app, Explain Everything’s current price at $2.99 (or $1.49 per copy if you’re purchasing more than 20 copies through Apple’s education volume purchasing) is significantly lower cost than many other screencasting alternatives which offer the same type of features and capabilities. Additionally, you can learn more about using basic and advanced features of Explain Everything with video guides and a free iBook manual. [Note: At this time, Explain Everything is available for iOS only. However, Android users may want to check out these posts when looking for Android-friendly alternatives.]

In addition to creating quick, low-cost screencasts and tutorials, Explain Everything might be useful for librarians who are using iPad carts in library instruction or libraries with iPad check out programs, providing students an easy way to create and export their own screencast projects or narrated presentations.

Have you tried to create screencasts or tutorials using a tablet application? Leave us a comment!

Managing Social Media with IFTTT

Yesterday I attended the first *official* meeting of the Maryland Library Association’s Social Media User Group. The primary discussion focused around a panel of local library professionals who are active in managing library social media accounts. Throughout this discussion, several tools were mentioned for managing multiple social media accounts to create a cohesive presence across platforms. With many of the panelists singing the praises of “IFTTT” for managing content, and several attendees left wanting to know more, the site seems ripe for further discussion in the library world.

What is “IFTTT?”

“IFTTT” (pronounced like “gift” without the “g”) stands for “If This Then That.” It is a web-based service that allows you to create automatic connections between different internet applications. These applications, which IFTTT calls “channels,” currently include over 50 sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Delicious, as well as productivity applications like email and Google Drive. Once you’ve created your IFTTT account, you can activate any of the channels in which you have an account and would like to link to other applications.

After activating channels, you will be able to create “recipes” to automatically link content across accounts or to automate activities you perform frequently. Recipes consist of a “trigger” from one channel that leads to an “action” in another channel. Want to archive your Facebook posts as a journal in Evernote? Or automatically post a link of your most recent blog post to your Facebook timeline? Create a recipe!

Recipes in IFTTT

Create a Recipe in IFTTT

IFTTT gives you the option to set up personal recipes or share your recipes with other users. This means there are already several shared recipes set up for IFTTT channels that you can use or view as examples.

IFTTT leads you through creating a new recipe in a few simple steps. Let’s say I want all of our new LibTechTalk posts to automatically appear as links on my Facebook page. First, I select the channel that will initiate the trigger (or the “this” in the “if this then that” chain).

Choosing a trigger channel in IFTTT

Once I’ve selected a channel, I need to choose a trigger action. For this recipe, I’ll choose “Any new post” in the WordPress channel. This means my recipe will be “triggered” every time a new post appears on LibTechTalk.

Choose “Any new post” in the WordPress as the recipe trigger.

Next, I choose the channel in which I want the next action to occur (or the “that” in the “if this then that” chain).

Setting up an action

In this case, I want the action to occur on my Facebook page, and will select the Facebook channel accordingly. Then, I’ll choose the action I want to occur in Facebook, in this case “Create a link post.”

Choose an action in IFTTT

After selecting the action, I can customize how the post will appear in on my Facebook page.

Customize an action

Finally, add in a description of the recipe and I’m done! I can also choose to share the recipe with other users, turn the recipe “off,” or delete the recipe altogether.

A personal recipe in IFTTT

Using IFTTT

Although IFTTT does not allow you to monitor any of the activity in your social media accounts, it takes some of the hassle out of linking activities and content across several different sites. You will still need to manage the spontaneous engagement that is so important in cultivating a vibrant social media presence, but IFTTT can help you automate the routine tasks you find yourself completing time and time again. Best of all, IFTTT is free to use and can be accessed anywhere you have internet access.

Ready to dive into IFTTT?

How do you use IFTTT? Do you have any great recipes? Tell us in the comments!

 

New LibraryH3lp Feature: FAQ Module

Recently, our library has been studying ways to improve the quality of our instant messaging reference service. While we’re thrilled the popularity of IM reference has continued to grow (according to our data, the number of questions we answered nearly quintupled during the two year period from 2008-2010!), increasing popularity can also lead to not-so-fun growing pains.

Once such instance is when, typically during evenings or weekends, our reference services are single-staffed. Juggling multiple in-person and virtual reference interactions can make it difficult for one person to provide prompt service, leading to frustrations from librarians and students alike.

As we have been looking for ways to alleviate such situations, I was happy to see LibraryH3lp debut their new Frequently Asked Questions (long-time readers might remember we discussed using LibraryH3lp to address previous IM conundrums). Although I’ve see other examples of FAQ’s on various libraries’ websites, LibraryH3lp makes it easy to create a searchable (and mobile friendly!) FAQ site you can build to supplement other reference service resources.

LibraryH3lpFAQ

Building the FAQ site is relatively straightforward. LibraryH3lp users can start right away using the “FAQ” tab in their admin site.

First, check out the “Questions” tab where you can add questions and answers. You can also assign each question to any number of topics, which will then be browse-able on your live FAQ site. You can also visit the “Questions” tab after your page is set up to view usage statistics like the number of views and likes or dislikes per question.

Adding a question to LibraryH3lp FAQ

The “Pages” tab allows you to customize specific features of your FAQ page. Here, you can specify the URL, assign a theme, enter additional contact information, and customize how the LibraryH3lp chat widget appears on the FAQ page. Additionally, you can customize any section of the page with standard HTML and/or your own CSS through using the “Templates.”

Pages tab in LibraryH3lp FAQ module

For more specific details about setting up and configuring your own FAQ module, see the LibraryH3lp documentation. And check out Library H3lp’s own FAQ page for an example.

We’re hoping that sending our chat users a quick “Hello, we’ll be right with you!” message along link to a more in-depth, searchable FAQ page while they are waiting for further assistance will help improve the responsiveness of our IM reference services. While this certainly does not provide the same depth and level of service their eventual chat with librarian will, it is quick and simple to set up and could be a good resource for users who have a commonly asked question or just need to be pointed to some quick facts about the library.

We’re just starting to get our FAQ page set-up, and I will provide updates to this post as we progress and finalize our page.  In the mean time, does your library have a similar FAQ resource you’ve found successful?  We’d love to see it!

Mobile Help Guides?

The idea for this week’s post came from a conversation I had with a student during a library instruction session. This student wanted to know if the library provided online instructions for navigating the library’s mobile page and mobile database interfaces. My answer was “Well, no, not specifically… But many of concepts and principles presented in our other help guides should still apply.” The student seemed satisfied with that answer, but I continue to wonder: how can we provide the same type of point-of-need instruction documents (PDFs, videos, etc.) to mobile users? Or even, should we be providing this type of support?

Long-time readers probably know Library Tech Talk authors have a great interest in mobile devices. We introduced why we thought mobile technology would become important for libraries, previewed the iPad upon its release, demonstrated how to use jQuery Mobile for making mobile websites, and show you tools that use mobile devices to engage library users in reference and instruction. But so far, we haven’t talked about providing instructional support for these devices. As more of our students rely more on smart phones, tablets, etc. to view, consume, and create information – with the ECAR reporting that the number of students using smartphones for academic purposes has nearly doubled since 2011 - academic libraries are pushed to not only provide mobile versions of their resources, but also to help people navigate those resources.

While I am still investigating more systematic responses to this question, I’ve found a couple of interesting tricks and tools, particularly for creating screen captures.

Mobile Screenshots

Many library help guides include screenshots to demonstrate step-by-step instructions for using a resource, and since mobile sites frequently look different than our full sites, images for mobile instruction should reflect this. But do you know how to take a screenshot on your favorite mobile device? The actual method varies by device and operating system. For instance, with Apple devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, etc.), simply pressing the “home” and the “power” keys simultaneously will take a screenshot of whatever you’re currently viewing and save it to your pictures.

Towson University Cook Library’s mobile site, taken with an iPod touch.

Not an Apple user? There is also be quite a bit of information floating around the internet to guide you through taking a screenshot on your other devices (including the Kindle Fire and Android devices).

Mobile Annotations

In addition to taking the actual screenshot, there are applications specifically designed for you to use the mobile device to annotate and edit screenshots, rather than switching over to image editing on a personal computer. One such free app is Evernote’s Skitch. With versions available for iOS, Mac, and Android, Skitch allows you to do basic mark-up of photos, screenshots, and maps using your mobile device.

Skitch annotation tools

You can use annotation tools like text, arrows, and shapes to call out or highlight important parts of the image. Additionally, freehand drawing tools allow for more creative highlighting and drawing on the image. There’s even a pixelation tool allows you to blur out sensitive information (like an account number or library log on information). You can then email your completed images to be saved or, if you’re an Evernote user, you can save them to a specific notebook in your Evernote account.

The images below were created using Skitch on my iPod touch as examples of demonstrating important features of mobile database.

Using Skitch to demonstrate the library’s mobile site.

Annotated screenshot demonstrating keyword searching in a mobile database.

Using “Find it” to locate articles in the mobile database.

Delivery?

While screenshots and annotations are the building blocks to providing help to our mobile users, a question I have yet to satisfactorily answer is: how do we deliver this content? Many of our library’s help guides are PDF documents, which are not necessarily easily viewed on smaller mobile screens. Creating videos and screencasts is another option, and currently our library’s mobile site links to our YouTube channels for video help guides. However, what tools are available to help us to create these videos showcasing the mobile interface itself? And are videos the best solution? Or should we focus on delivering the content on a webpages, taking a responsive design approach?

As I continue to explore this line of questioning, I’d love to hear from our readers about projects you’ve heard of or what your library is doing to address this potential need!

“Year of the Infographic”

Lately, it seems like everyone on the internet is a graphic designer, with customized infographics hitting every news outlet, blog, and personal website. Some have even dubbed 2012 “The Year of the Infographic.” Now, thanks to an ever-growing group of online services, librarians without graphic design backgrounds can start creating their own infographics in just a matter of minutes.

WHAT ARE INFOGRAPHICS?

Loosely, infographics use pictures, words, graphs, and other visual elements to express information. Ideally, infographics are designed to uses these visual elements  to organize complex ideas and data into a more easily understood form. For a more detailed explanation, see “InfoGraphic Designs: Overview, Examples and Best Practices.” Or, check out the “What is an Infographic?” infographic.

BUT I’M NOT A DESIGNER

Infographics themselves, along with other data visualizations, are certainly not new. And here at LibraryTechTalk we have already discussed a few different tools for creating visualizations. But recently there are new online services that offer ready-made templates and themes users modify by adding their own data. This means slick, professional infographics can now be created by just about anyone in less time than it takes to learn more advanced graphic design software. While there has been some criticism of these types of tools and the products they create, they are potentially valuable options for the everyday user who is intimidated by more advanced applications.

Two examples I’ve recently explored:

Piktochart – Jumpstart your own infographics using one of their ready-made themes. Piktochart offers a free basic service, as well as two options to upgrade to a paid “Pro” account – Monthly or Yearly.  WIth the Free account, you can choose from 5 free infographic themes which allow for some limited color and font customization, as well as pre-loaded shapes and graphics. After you “load” a theme, you can add or change graphics, shapes, and text on the page. There is also a chart wizard where you can manually add data to make a simple chart, or you can import your own data in CSV files. You can also upload up to 5 of your own images. When you’re finished, completed iinfographics can be saved and downloaded as an image (.PNG), but with the free account all of your images will also include the Piktochart watermark.

Creating an infographic with Piktochart.

Upgrading to a Pro account gives you access to over 70 additional themes, more options for customization, up to 100 slots for uploading images, downloading as raw data, and watermark-free images.

(Monthly Pro pricing is currently $14.99/mo and a Yearly Pro account is currently $129. Also, it looks like account prices will be increasing at the end of August.)

Easel.ly - Use visual themes (which they call, “vhemes”) to create and share your own infographics. Signing up for a free account gives you access to 15 vhemes. In the “creation tool,” drag and drop the vheme of choice onto the canvas, or choose to start with a blank canvas. Next, customize the infographic using Easel.ly’s pre-loaded objects, adding shapes or text, and uploading your own images. Unfortunately Easel.ly does not include any chart-making capabilities. Due to this lack of feature, Easel.ly does not necessarily stay true to the “infographic” ideals, but is an easily-accessible tool for an average user to begin exploring infographic creation.

Infographic created using Easel.ly

When you are finished, Easel.ly allows  you to share your infographic in a number of ways, including downloading as a JPEG, generating a web link, or copying code to embed the image in a web page, blog, etc. You may also choose to save your infographic as “Private” (default) or “Public.”

Easel.ly is currently still in beta, which means there are likely additional tweaks and improvements ahead.

APPLICATION IN LIBRARIES

Marketing/Outreach

Librarians are thinking critically about how to translate data about our services into easily-digestible and meaningful messages. Iowa State University Library is using data visualizations (including infographics) to tell their library’s story. The American Library Association has also used an infographic to demonstrate nationwide cuts to library budgets.

Instruction

Infographics could be an additional tool in our instruction toolbox. Think about what kinds of skills might benefit from a more visual explanation. Students could create their own infographics to demonstrate what they learn in a library session. For example, Bizologie has created an infographic outlining how to research private companies.

Visual literacy

Even if we choose not to create our own infographics, we are concerned with visual literacy. As per the  ACRL’s Visual Literacy Competency Standards, “visual literacy” as “a set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media.” As infographics continue to increase in popularity, librarians will play a role in helping users effectively interact with visual information.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Do you have a favorite infographic or tool for creating infographics? How is your library using infographics? Tired of seeing infographics everywhere?

More information:

A more extensive rundown of infographics tools is available at Daily Tekk’s “Over 100 Incredible Infographic Tools and Resources.”

iLibrarian – 9 Data Visualization Tools for Librarians and Educators

Daily Infographic – Anatomy of a Librarian Infographic

Kathy Schrock –  Infographics as Creative Assessment

Junk Charts – The coming commodization of infographics

Hello LibraryTechTalk-ers!

Hi everyone! My name is Kim and I am excited to be taking the helm of the LibraryTechTalk blog. My goal is to continue steering this blog down the path set forth by my wonderful predecessors. That is, this blog’s original mission was to highlight important, interesting, and just plain cool uses of technologies and technology-related issues that impact libraries, with an emphasis on practical application in academic libraries. I hope to stay true to that mission.

I would also like to take this opportunity to invite YOU to appear on LibraryTechTalk! This blog is always looking for guest authors to write about technologies and their use in an academic library. Interested? Contact me at kimberlymiller at towson.edu

A little more about me:

Shortly after earning my BA in Psychology from The College of Idaho, I moved from Boise, ID to Ann Arbor, MI and began working as a research assistant for a developmental psychology lab at the University of Michigan.  After confirming that I did not want to pursue further studies in psychology, I decided to dive into a career in librarianship to further feed my passion for helping others discover the joy of academic research. While completing my Master of Science in Information from the University of Michigan School of Information, I developed an interest in the connections between information literacy, library services, and “emerging” technologies. I am therefore very excited to embark on my new position as Research and Instruction Librarian for Emerging Technologies at Towson University.

LibTechTalk Reborn

Dear Loyal LibTechTalk Readers:

You’ve stuck with us through thick and thin, and we thank you. You may have noticed as of late, we’ve become increasingly “thin” in that we haven’t been very good at consistently updating content. While still at Towson’s Cook Library, David and I have both changed positions and find less and less time to devote to the blog. The good news is that Cook Library has recently hired a WONDERFUL new Emerging Technologies Librarian named Kimberly Miller. Kim is a recent grad from the University of Michigan’s School of Information and has lots of fresh technology ideas to share. Kim will be taking the blog reins from here on out! I won’t quite say goodbye, because David and I will be both be back from time to time when we’ve got good things to share. Let’s all welcome Kim!

-Carissa Tomlinson

Welcoming Coursekit to the LMS Industry

There’s a new kid on the LMS block, and it was created by…kids. Well, UPenn students to be more precise. The Coursekit team claims, “We forgot what we knew about clunky university software and built something that is completely state of the art” (http://coursekit.com/about).

The start to that forgetfulness is a clean, friendly user interface that allows instructors to setup a course quickly.  Coursekit is banking on its easy to use interface trumping the complexity of other learning management systems, like Blackboard, in order to persuade individual faculty to use it instead. Coursekit is free and doesn’t require institutional cooperation for instructors to use it with their courses, meaning instructors can choose to use it without encountering any institutional barriers.  To start, instructors create a new course, create an account, and send invitations to their students through email.

Creating a Coursekit site is quick and easy.

After creating a new Coursekit site, instructors can set up meeting times for their courses, upload syllabi, create assignments, and provide information about supplemental and required course resources. The site is definitely inspired by the Facebook news feed, as the “Stream” view creates a timeline of comments, questions, and links posted by both the instructors and students.

A variety of methods of interaction between students and instructors are available in Coursekit, including assignments, questions, links, and blog entries.

While teaching faculty will most likely represent the majority of users creating Coursekit sites, I do see an opportunity for libraries without for-credit information literacy courses to take advantage of a LMS like this as well. Because Coursekit is not tied to an institution’s profile, it allows individuals to create non-credit, self-paced courses (fake courses, some might say) for their users. Libraries could use this system to not only structure their information literacy program in a meaningful, incremental fashion throughout a student’s college career, but they could create the learning blocks that coincide with those steps in a self-paced course using Coursekit.

Perhaps library Coursekits could be set up for each year of a typical individuals academic career (e.g. LIB100, LIB200, LIB300, and LIB400). Assignments, tutorials, and resources that represent the important content at each stage of learning could be added to the site. Librarians could monitor new students posts and “assignment” submissions and give feedback to students. Will all students follow the course from beginning to end? Probably not, but the research skills would be presented incrementally and students could be pointed to particular materials within the site for help with certain concepts. Coursekit could be a good tool for planning how to stage info lit concepts throughout a student’s college career.

So take a look at Coursekit, explore its features, recommend it to faculty who are unimpressed with their current LMS choices, but most of all, consider how your library can use it to extend and stage your IL instruction efforts.

Creately: More Than Just a Venn Diagram

Sick of drawing circles on the board to illustrate Boolean? Lines and boxes got you down? Creately (http://creately.com/) is your one stop diagram tool. From wireframes to flow charts, Creately helps you creatively create a multitude of diagrams. While newer versions of Microsoft products have some diagram tools, Creately is substantially more robust in terms of types of diagrams, shapes, images, connectors, etc. Additionally, one really nice feature of Creately is its collaborative capabilities. Not only can diagrams be shared and developed by multiple people, but Creately also allows for notes and comments.  After a diagram is created, there are several ways to use it.  PDF, PNG, and JPG downloads are available as is code for embedding online. I could see Creately used many ways in academia, but specifically in the library it could be used for:

• Administration (organizational charts, project and workflow management)
• Instruction (venn diagrams, mind maps)
• Technology (database/ dataflow diagrams, website wireframes)
• Research (data representation, presentations)

Examples of Creately Diagrams

Creately tools are available through a variety of ways including a web based program, a downloadable program, as a Google App, or as a plugin through JIRA, FogBugz and Confluence.  I looked at the web based version.  The web based program has several pricing options including a limited free version.  The free version allows a user to have any 5 diagrams saved online with a maximum number of 3 collaborators.   The web based Creately prices are listed here: http://creately.com/plans.  When contacting the company, I was told that there was a 50% educational discount for all of their products.  To receive the discount email: edu@creately.com.