· Name: Cynthia Heider
· Office address: Gladfelter Hall 925
· Office hours: Thursdays 8-9pm or by appointment
· Email: cynthia.heider@temple.edu
· Telephone: XXX-XXX-XXXX
· Course number: HIST 4400/HIST 5152
· Course title: Digital History
· Course Canvas site: https://templeu.instructure.com/courses/53718
· Course syllabus:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qezltG9HcnavtnGUtV7eFTAZ3xC_jBxLXK9PnyODxps/edit?usp=sharing
· Course time: Thursdays 5:30-8pm, from 1/17/19 to 4/25/19
· Course location: Gladfelter Hall 925
The definition of digital history is amorphous, broad, and often debated. Digital history projects may refer to everything from an online exhibition to a podcast to mapping and geographic information systems. This class will explore digital history in terms of the questions of narrative, shared authority, access, and historical analysis that arise when using digital tools for working with history. We will discuss the major issues involved in digital history initiatives and gain familiarity with various technologies often used in such projects.
· Examine evolving theory and major debates within digital humanities and digital history, including issues of transparency, ethics, accessibility, authority, and legitimacy
· Discover how to use digital projects to engage with multiple stakeholders and audiences and encourage conversations and collaborations
· Evaluate and critically assess digital methodologies and tools through hands-on technical experimentation and skillbuilding
· Determine how methods of digital history might contribute to the advancement of research interests, scholarship, and professional goals
All course materials are available free-of-cost online, or otherwise will be provided to students by the instructor. Class readings are accessible through the course’s Canvas site.
Your success in this class is important to me. If there are circumstances that may affect your performance in this class – including personal, health-related, family-related, or any other type of difficulty - please let me know as soon as possible so that we can work together to develop strategies for adapting assignments to meet both your needs and the requirements of the course.
Additionally, any student who may have a need for accommodation based on the impact of a documented disability has the right to guidance and resources made available free-of-cost by Temple University Disability Resources and Services. For example, DRS can arrange for use of assistive technology, provide alternate format materials, and help determine appropriate and reasonable classroom accommodations. If applicable, please get in touch with DRS to initiate the formal accommodation process. DRS is located in 100 Ritter Annex and can be reached at 215-204-1280 or online at https://disabilityresources.temple.edu/contact.
This course will meet only once per week for 13 weeks. Because class participation accounts for a significant part of your grade, consistent attendance is particularly important. If you will be unable to attend a class due to religious holiday, illness, or emergency circumstances, please let me know by phone or email as soon as you anticipate the absence.
Due dates for all assignments are listed in the syllabus and on the course Canvas website. All assignments besides course readings and annotations have an automatic three-day grace period, no questions asked. Following that, you’ll incur a one-letter-grade penalty and will need to work out a plan with me for completion of the assignment.
Temple University guidelines for incompletes maintain that an instructor may file a grade of “I” (Incomplete) for a student only if a student has completed the majority of the work of the course at a passing level and only for reasons beyond the student’s control. Please consult the Bulletin for the details of the formal process governing the distribution of incomplete grades (Policy #02.10.13).
Plagiarism is defined in the TU Bulletin as “the unacknowledged use of another person's labor, another person's ideas, another person's words, and another person's assistance.” Academic cheating, generally defined, means engaging in behavior that gives a student or students an unfair academic advantage- including but not limited to fabrication of data, resubmission of work already submitted for another academic assignment, or doing the work of another person.
Plagiarism and academic cheating are serious infractions of the Academic Honor Code. Suspected instances may be referred to the University Disciplinary Committee; I also reserve the right to assign a grade of “F” for the given assignment.
Freedom to teach and freedom to learn are inseparable facets of academic freedom. The University has a policy on Student and Faculty and Academic Rights and Responsibilities (Policy #03.70.02).
Since technology is a focus in this class, we’ll be using computers each week for the lab portion of that class. If it’s an option for you, you may bring your own computer to class, or I can arrange for the use of university-issued laptops. Please note that consistent access to a computer and an internet connection is necessary for the completion of assignments for this course.
Time required to complete activities related to and required for this course is estimated at 155 total hours over the course of the spring 2019 semester (or, roughly 11 hours per week).
This includes:
· 39 hours of class time (3 hours per week x 13 weeks)
· 26 hours engaging with course readings (2 hours per week x 13 weeks)
· 90 hours completing course work (6 hours per week x 15 weeks)
This unit of assessment is composed of smaller assignments with their own due dates (all dates also have an automatic 3-day grace period).
· Due February 7: “Get it and assess it” (5%)
· Due February 14: “Clean it up” (5%)
· Due February 21: “Treasure hunt” (5%)
· Due February 28: “Worth 1000 words” (5%)
Pick one of the “featured projects” from the course of the semester, or another digital history project that corresponds to your interests. Review the project following the guidelines outlined in the Journal of American History and the NCPH Digital History Project Review Guidelines. Your review may take the form of a blog post, a YouTube or video review, a digital exhibit, an oral presentation, etc. or some other type of creative medium (just clear it with me first, please!). Please email it to me or otherwise provide a link to where it may be found, if applicable. The review should be ~500-750 words (if written). Due: March 14 (plus automatic 3-day grace period)
Your Final Project contains two parts: a Project Proposal and a Project Plan. In effect, the first assignment will state a problem, and the second will present a solution. Together, these elements will provide you with a solid plan for producing a digital project that meets your needs and wishes. The Final Project materials can also serve as a blueprint for creating effective documentation in your professional life; conference presentations, white papers, process papers, and applications for employment or grant funding will require similarly formatted documents.
Detailed parameters for producing the Project Proposal and Project Plan can be found on the course Canvas site.
· Due March 25: Rough project proposal via email (ungraded but with feedback)
· Due April 4: Polished project proposal via blog post (15%)
· Due April 25: Project plan and brief presentation (15%)
Readings are assigned weekly and should be completed before each class. In addition, the class will work to collaboratively annotate the readings through Canvas using the Hypothes.is tool. We will discuss more about Hypothes.is on the first week of class. Readings and annotations will help you prepare for class discussions; for this reason, they will be worth 15% of your grade (or, 1% each class).
Participation in discussion and lab work will similarly comprise 15% of your total grade (again, at 1% each class).
I would like every student to have the opportunity to participate and share their reactions to a reading or discussion. Quality is more important than quantity. While an individual’s participation will naturally vary from class to class, students are encouraged to improve their participation each class and contribute to class discussion every week. I will assign a grade for a student’s participation in each class and then average the grades over the course of the semester to reach a letter grade that counts toward the final assessment for the course. Class participation will be assessed according to the following rubric:
A– Prepared for every class and familiar with readings and sites for review, contributes questions and discussion points that are not simple reiterations of statements from the readings, makes connections between readings for this class and previous classes, responds to other students’ comments and extends the analysis, analyzes and challenges readings and class discussion in a respectful, evidence-based manner.
B–Prepared for most classes, engaged listener who contributes but requires occasional prompting, analyzes readings but comments may focus more on restating author’s opinions rather than building upon them with unique statements, respectfully listens to other student comments but does not respond directly to issues they raise.
C–Minimally prepared for classes, does not volunteer comments or questions, provides comments indirectly or not at all connected to the topic when called upon, inattentive listener
D–No evidence of preparation, cannot provide comments on the subject matter when called upon, disrespectful to other students’ comments, inattentive listener
The grade for this course will be determined according to the following formula:
Assignments/Activities | % of Final Grade |
Readings and annotations | 15% |
Class participation | 15% |
Digital Project Review | 20% |
Skillbuilding assignments | 20% (5% each) |
Final Project assignments | 30% (15% each) |
Letter grades for the entire course will be assigned as follows:
Letter Grade | Points | Percent |
A | 4.00 | Example: 92.5% and higher |
A- | 3.67 | Example: 90.0 – 92.49% |
B+ | 3.33 | Example: 87.5% - 89.99% |
B | 3.00 | Example: 82.5% - 87.49% |
B- | 2.67 | Example: 80% - 82.49% |
C+ | 2.33 | Example: 77.5% - 79.99% |
C | 2.00 | Example: 72.5% - 77.49% |
C- | 1.67 | Example: 70% - 72.49% |
D+ | 1.33 | Example: 67.5% - 69.99% |
D | 1.00 | Example: 62.5% - 67.49 |
D- | .67 | Example: 60% - 62.49% |
F | .00 | Example: 59.99% and lower |
This is a living document! Please feel free to add your comments or questions, as they will allow the syllabus and the work of the class to grow and change if needed. On that note: Dates, assignments, readings, or lab tutorials are subject to change throughout the semester. I will contact you by email at least a week prior to the affected class if I make a change in the syllabus.
To give credit where credit is due: I am indebted to the expertise of many scholars who came before me. This syllabus borrows ideas from digital history and digital humanities classes taught by Adina Langer, Cameron Blevins, Scott Selisker, Jason Heppler, Sharon Leon, Trevor Owens, Fred Gibbs, Jim McGrath, Caleb McDaniel, Miriam Posner, Lauren Tilton, Ben Schmidt, Lincoln Mullen, Purdom Lindblad, Jeremy Boggs, and Deb Boyer.
Topics: What is Digital History? Introduction to course structure and syllabus; Course goals, requirements, and assignments
Lab: Intro to collaborative annotation
How and why to annotate your course readings with Hypothes.is in Canvas
Topics: Questions guiding this course; principles of DH (collaboration, interdisciplinarity, transparency); overview of major theoretical debates within digital history and the digital humanities
Discuss: “Eternal September of the Digital Humanities” (Nowviskie); “Is (Digital) History More than an Argument about the Past?” (Dorn); “Digital History and Argument” (Mullen and Robertson)
Lab: Your professional identity in the digital context
Topics: Finding and creating data(sets); processes for creating structured data; metadata and paradata
Discuss: “Humanities Data: A Necessary Contradiction” (Posner); “The Transnational and the Text-Searchable: Digitized Sources and the Shadows They Cast” (Putnam); “Reading the Grand Tour at a Distance: Archives and Datasets in Digital History” (Kelly)
Lab: Digging up data
Pick a dataset for use throughout the semester labs from this list
// OR //
Identify a dataset from your own research that you want to explore
Assignment for next class: “Get it and assess it”
1. Assess your dataset by answering the following questions:
How, why, when, and by/for whom was this dataset created?
What questions can I explore with this dataset?
What is missing from this dataset? Are there other sources that could help me fill in gaps to explore the questions I’m interested in?
What kinds of manipulation will this dataset require to make it meaningful (Formatting? Standardization of spelling?)?
// AND //
2. Blog about your dataset and your assessment (250-500 words)
Due: “Get it and assess it”
Topics: Organizing data; transforming data
Discuss: “Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload, ca.1550-1700” (Blair); “Thinking with Linked Data; Representing History” (Leon); “Tidy Data” (Wickham); “Against Cleaning” (Rawson and Muñoz)
Featured projects: Historical Violence Database; What’s on the Menu?
Lab: Cleaning up data
“Getting started with OpenRefine” (Posner) walkthrough
Assignment for next class: “Clean it up”
1. Use OpenRefine or Excel to manipulate the dataset you picked last week
// AND //
2. Blog about the choices you made when organizing your data (250-500 words)
Topics: Computation of research data (textual analysis, topic modeling, data modeling); using textual analysis tools to discover and develop research questions
Due today: “Clean it up”
Discuss: “Big Data for Dead People: Digital Readings and the Conundrums of Positivism” (Hitchcock); “Seven ways humanists are using computers to understand text” (Underwood); “Topic Modeling: What Humanists Actually Do With It” (Roland); “How 21st Century Tech Can Shed Light On 19th Century Newspapers” (Shipman)
Featured projects: Text Mining Martha Ballard’s Diary; Homesteading the Plains: Toward a New History
Lab: Textual Analysis
Using Voyant to analyze a corpus of text
Voyant Tools walkthrough
Assignment for next class: “Treasure hunt”
1. Use Voyant on your own dataset (or one provided in class) and analyze the results
// OR //
Practice topic modeling your data using MALLET (and this tutorial)
// AND //
2. Blog about your findings (250-500 words)
Topics: Visualization (charts, graphs, timelines, network analysis)
Due: “Treasure hunt”
Discuss: “Information Visualization Manifesto” (Lima); “Chapter 1: Telling Stories with Data” in Visualize This: The FlowingData Guide to Design, Visualization, and Statistics (Yau); “The Image of Absence: Archival Silence, Data Visualization, and James Hemings” (Klein)
Featured projects: Visualizing the History of Fugazi; The Knotted Line
Lab: Visualization
Charts and graphs with Tableau Public; Network analysis with Palladio
Assignment for next class: “Worth 1000 words”
1. Use Tableau Public on your own dataset and analyze the results
// OR //
Perform network or other analysis on your data using Palladio
// AND //
2. Blog about your findings (250-500 words)
Topics: Re-creation and spatial analysis (maps, 3D modeling like SketchUp, 3D printing, virtual reality, AR)
Due: “Worth 1000 words”
Discuss: “What is the Spatial Turn?” (Guldi); “The Spatial Turn in History” (Guldi); “What are the differences among virtual, augmented and mixed reality?” (Johnson); “Apprehending the Past: Augmented Reality, Archives, and Cultural Memory” in The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities (Szabo); “Digital Summer School: Renewing Inequality” (The Metropole); “Decolonizing Geographies of Power: Indigenous Digital Counter-Mapping Practices on Turtle Island” (Hunt & Stevenson)
Featured projects: Mapping Indigenous LA StoryMaps; Layers of London; Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America & Renewing Inequality: Urban Renewal, Family Displacements, and Race 1955-1966
Lab: Narrative Mapping
Plug and play with StoryMapJS; Esri Story Maps overview
Assignment for next class: Digital Project Review via Canvas, blog post, or other creative medium (see assignment details)
Topics: Web publishing (e-books, social media, blogging, CMS tools like Omeka and Mukurtu); collaborative scholarship (wikis, annotation, “writing in public,” crowdsourcing); storytelling and interactives (Twine, JuxtaposeJS, mobile apps)
Due: Digital Project Review via Canvas, blog post, or other creative medium (see assignment details)
Discuss: “Scholarly Authority in a Wikified World” (Cronon); “Making History Go Viral” (Onion); “Decolonizing The Digital Humanities In Theory and Practice” (Risam); History Respawned Episode 32: Twine and Gaming in the History Classroom
Featured projects: Queering the Map; Writing in Public; Purchasing the American Dream: Buying a Home in 1960 Chicago; Sweet Chariot
Lab: Playing with Narrative
When Rivers Were Trails, Surviving History: The Fever, Golden Threads, Venti Mesi/Twenty Months,Confetti with the Brick Bats
Topics: Best practices for planning and executing a project
Discuss: “A Hybrid Model for Managing DH Projects” (Tabak); “On Digital Solitude” (Gibbs); Selections from Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning (Brown)
Lab: Tools for thinking ahead
Socio-Technical Sustainability Roadmap overview
Prototyping/wireframing with Balsamiq
Sketches and flowmaps with Draw.io
Assignment for March 25: Draft project proposal
Assignment for next class: Polished project proposal
You’ve got some data, some analyses, and some ideas about debates and topics in digital history. What are you going to do with it all? It’s up to you! Guidelines for the proposal are available via the course Canvas site.
Topics: Ethics and DH work; credit where credit is due- whose labor went into this project? Proper sourcing and citations, copyright and intellectual property
Due: Polished project proposal
Discuss: “Introduction,” in Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (Noble); “The Carework and Codework of the Digital Humanities” (Klein); “Before You Make a Thing” (Sayers); “Crowdsourcing, Open Data and Precarious Labor” (Mayer); “Your Family’s Genealogical Records May Have Been Digitized by a Prisoner” (Bauer)
Featured projects: Scripto and the Digital Newberry; FemTechNet Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Pedagogy Workbook
Lab: Contribute to a Smithsonian Transcription Center project
Topics: Advocacy by design; accessibility (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, 7 Principles of Universal Design); User Experience (UX) principles
Discuss: “Markup Bodies: Black [Life] Studies and Slavery [Death] Studies at the Digital Crossroads” (Johnson); “Digital History’s Perpetual Future Tense” (Blevins); “From Transformative Works to #transformDH: Digital Humanities as (Critical) Fandom” (Lothian); PolicyViz Podcast Episode #142: Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein [authors of Data Feminism]
Lab: User experience and design for accessibility in action
UX Apprentice walkthrough; WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool; vote on next week’s adventure
Topics: Digital oral history
Discuss: “Slowing Down to Listen in the Digital Age: How New Technology Is Changing Oral History Practice” (Sheftel and Zembrzycki)
Lab: Editing Audio with Audacity tutorial
Assignment for next class: Project plan and brief presentation
Topics: Tying things up
Due: Project plan and brief presentation