95739 - Digital Sources and Methods for Historical Research (1)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students demonstrate critical awareness of the implications of digital environments in the edition of sources, heuristics, analysis of documents and public communication of the historical data. They know how to apply at the basic level tools and methods for finding sources in a digital environment, cataloguing, conservation and dissemination of historical and cultural heritage They are able to illustrate the cultural implications of the use of digital research and communication infrastructures. They demonstrate the ability to apply to a specific project some of the learned methods and tools, appropriate to the specific interest of their research, recovering and presenting the relevant sources, applying analysis models and communicating historical processing in a research or digital learning environment. They have a good ability to collect, select, process and synthesize complex documentary information, aimed at the autonomous formulation of conclusions and opinions. They logically organize information also through conceptual maps and exhibits in an orderly way with methodological rigor, precision and accuracy..

Course contents

The course consists of two segments.

The first segment will look at the changing practice of doing history in the digital age and new ways for historians to share the results of their research with peers and with non-professionals.

The second part will explore the changing nature of historical sources in the digital age. We will examine how software tools are used by digital historians.

- Text mining
- Data visualization
- Network analysis
- Historical GIS

Readings/Bibliography

Primary Texts (for all students)

 

- Deborah Paci (a cura di), La storia in digitale: teorie e metodologie, Milano, Unicopli, 2019

 

Additonal texts for non-attending students:

 

- Daniel J. Cohen, Roy Rosenzweig, Digital history: a guide to gathering, preserving, and presenting the past on the Web, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005

OR

- Richard Rogers, Metodi digitali. Fare ricerca sociale con il web, Bologna, il Mulino, 2013

Teaching methods

The didactic methodology includes both lectures and seminars.

Assessment methods

All students will take a final oral exam.

Teaching tools

Multimedia tools are used to illustrate the possibilities of using new sources for historiographyReference texts.

Office hours

See the website of Deborah Paci