81954 - Digital Humanities: Sources and Methods (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of this course, students will: • Show critical awareness of the implications of the Digital environments on changes in research and communication in the Humanities • Have an overview of the tools and methods for source retrieval, editing and annotation, analysis and communication • Demonstrate understanding of the cultural implications underlying digital scholarship and use of digital research infrastructures • Demonstrate ability to apply to a specific project some of the methods and tools, appropriate to the specific research interest of the student, by retrieving and presenting relevant sources and communicate historical elaboration in a research or learning environment

Course contents

Topics to be addressed in class and through workshops:

• Exploring and expanding views on Digital Humanities
• Analyzing different forms of digital humanities scholarship (How might digital methods help us to answer particular research questions?)
• Digital collections
• Preservation and sustainability
• Digital narratives: oral history and online storytelling
• Spatial Humanities
• Visualizing Information, Visualizing History
• How is scholarly communication changing in the digital age. Towards new scholarly genres.
• Collaboration and Project Management in the Digital Humanities

Readings/Bibliography

Students attendng the course will read:

1) Johanna Drucker, David Kim, Iman Salehian, Anthony Bushong, Introduction to Digital Humanities, Course Book, Los Angeles: UCLA, 2014 (available in the teaching materials on line)

2) Burdick A., Drucker J., Lunenfeld P., Presner T., Schnapp J., Digital Humanities, The MIT Press, Cambridge Mass-London 2012, open access edition:https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/9780262018470_Open_Access_Edition.pdf

Students not attending classwork:

will prepare the readings listed above under nr. 1 and 2 and will prepare at least two of  he assignments listed in the section 'Tutorials' pp. 79-115 of the Course Book under nr. 1.

Students with no previous experience in the field and non attending students can take advantage in the reading of the following Textbook:

A Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
<http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/ >

Teaching methods

The course will introduce students to analysis of current digital humanities projects as well as tools for approaching humanities research in new ways.

Through hands-on workshops students will acquire basic familiarity with core digital humanities tools and methods, including text analysis, text encoding, information visualization, modeling, and mapping.

Assessment methods

Class participation (50% of final assessment): Students are required to prepare each week the suggested material, which will be distributed during the first meeting, so to contribute to class discussion.

Active participation to class and workshops will contribute to 50% of final assessment.

Project review/ proposal (50% of final assessment): Working in a small group, students will be asked to draft a substantial review of one or more digital humanities projects, or a proposal for a new project. As part of the proposal, the group may develop a small demonstration of the project idea.

The groups may follow the guidelines of the past calls of NEH Digital Humanities advancement grants https://www.neh.gov/grants/odh/digital-humanities-advancement-grants and sample application narratives available in the website.

The groups will be asked to prepare a public presentation of the final project review/ proposal according to specific formats.

For students not attending classwork:

the final exam will be an oral assessment on the topics listed in the course contents based on the same bibliography listed above.

In addition, the final exam will assess through a practical exercise, ability to apply to a specific project some of the methods and tools. This requires the completion of at least two of the 'Tutorials' of the coursebook: Johanna Drucker, David Kim, Iman Salehian, Anthony Bushong, Introduction to Digital Humanities, Course Book, Los Angeles: UCLA, 2014 pp. 79- 117. (available in the course materals).

Evaluation and grading

The grade assigned to the class participation will be based on the careful preparation of assignments in all the five weeks, effecive and critical contribution, respect of timing, collaboration in small groups, clarity in oral expression.

The grade assigned to the project work will be based on the assessment of information retrival, quality of analysis of existing projects or of the state of the art, use of appropriate vocabulary, critical apprisal of the main methodological issues, use of appropriate tools, clear structure and presentation, capacity of dividing tasks in the group and produce an organic work.

For non attending students the assesment will be based on the capacity of presenting the course topics with critical awarness of the methodological implications, clarity of oral expression, use of appropriate vocabulary. Quality of the practical exercise and authonomy in the use of the online tutorial to show capacity of applying digital tools and methods.

good/excellent final grade: critical analysis of topics with use of proper terminology and authonomous capacity to apply the appropriate Digital methods and tools to a given context.

sufficient/fair grade: description of the main issues learned or analyzed, use of appropriate language even if with some uncertainties. Guided capacity to apply digital methods, based on replication of class examples or tutorials

fail: insufficient understanding of the topics or insufficient capacity of describing methodological issues and limited knowledge of case studies. Insufficient ability of basic use of tools.

 

 

Teaching tools

Online or free available tools for source retrieval, editing and annotation, analysis and communication.

Office hours

See the website of Carla Salvaterra