1 of 42

Digital Humanities in Practice: �Project Development and Digital Pedagogy

Megan Kudzia, Kristen Mapes, Kate Topham

2 of 42

Agenda

  1. Introductions
  2. How are DH projects made?
  3. Questions/discussion
  4. Overview of breakout workshops

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

3 of 42

How are digital humanities projects made?

  • Starting from a research question
  • Choosing a methodology(ies)
  • Getting the raw materials
  • Planning for preservation
  • Selecting tools
  • Making the work public

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

4 of 42

Research Question

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

5 of 42

Example: “Eyre” Head

Student project for Intro to DH course - Karah Smith

Project leading into honors thesis

How does reading and literacy function in the novel Jane Eyre?

​

janeeyredh.wordpress.com/

​

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

6 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

7 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

8 of 42

Methodology

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

9 of 42

Big list of methodologies

  • Textual analysis
  • Data visualization
  • Network analysis
  • Image analysis
  • Virtual environment creation/analysis
  • Social media analysis

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

10 of 42

Example: Critical Comics

Analyzing comic image scans with ImageJ

  • Image saturation plotted against space and time

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

11 of 42

Example: Critical Comics

Other methodologies used:

  • Data visualization
  • Text analysis
  • Mapping and annotation

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

12 of 42

Getting the Raw Material

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

13 of 42

Example: Critical Comics

  • Exported catalog data
  • Digitized comic images

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

14 of 42

Planning for Preservation

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

15 of 42

Example: “The 1986 Flood Project”

1986flood.com

Purchasing a domain for 10 years up front (with grant funding)

Screencast walkthrough

Individual pages saved to Internet Archive

Wordpress database and video backed up, deposited with Bay County Historical Society

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

16 of 42

web.archive.org/web/20190103065211/http://1986flood.com/

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

17 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

18 of 42

American Religious Sounds Project

  • Several iterations of the project over five years
    • Methods for gathering data
    • Structure/existence of metadata
  • Dealing with student work
  • Managing a large archive
    • File formats
    • File naming conventions
    • Keeping track of files

​

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

19 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

20 of 42

Metadata

Digital files

Website

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

21 of 42

AURA

Digital files & Metadata

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

22 of 42

Preservation Checklist:

  1. What do you want from preservation?
  2. How would you like to share the project with the public?
  3. How long should do you want it to be accessible to the public?
  4. What happens if a major contributor of funding source isn’t able to continue with the project?
  5. What are your metadata requirements?

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

23 of 42

Selecting a Tool

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

24 of 42

Don’t pick it just because it looks cool.

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

25 of 42

Example: “Eyre” Head

Research question interested in analyzing text →

Text analysis approach

Had one text, so topic modeling wouldn’t be appropriate

Voyant had a low barrier to entry → Voyant

​

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

26 of 42

Example: “Eyre” Head

Final product - website → wordpress.com

Methodology - screencast video → screencast-o-matic

​

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

27 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

28 of 42

‘Network of words generated by Voyant’s Links tool. Notice the close connection between “read” and “eyes.”’

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

29 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

30 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

31 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

32 of 42

Example: 1986 Flood Project

Public facing project with many people involved → Needed to make it easy to manage and maintain → Wordpress

Wanted to have a form to intake individual stories → Wordpress

Wanted to show scope of flooding along with images → Mapping → Storymap from Esri allows for a tour guide mode and is open source

​

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

33 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

34 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

35 of 42

Making the Work Public

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

36 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

37 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

38 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

39 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

40 of 42

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

41 of 42

Example: The Darktown Comics Project

Not all projects become public - some don’t. Reasons could be:

  • Material is sensitive
  • Student work might or might not fit public-facing goals/standards of instructor
  • Students might not be comfortable publishing

This does not mean the work was wasted!

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY

42 of 42

Breakout Sessions!

dh.msu.domains/uic

​

10:30-12:30-- Breakout session 1

Topic 1 - Navigating the Mapping Landscape

Topic 2 - Exploring Data Visualization Options with Flourish

1:45-3:45 -- Breakout session 2

Topic 1 - Project management and collaboration

Topic 2 - Simple Strategies for Adding DH into your Pedagogy

@mkudzia @kmapesy @tophkat CC-BY