I. Course Description
Examination of digital tools and techniques, including web and games,
used for projects and research in digital humanities. This section of
DIG 3171 is a Research-Intensive (RI) course. This designation will
be noted on your transcripts. You will actively engage in research
processes and a significant portion of your grade will be derived from
course-related project(s) based on original research and/or creative
scholarship.
II. Course Purpose & Objectives
The course examines digital humanities tools through the lens of
critical making. This course provides an introduction to digital
humanities discourse, intentional design, multimodal development, and
digital tools.
Students will be able to:
- Use emerging technologies to conduct and disseminate humanities
research.
- Understand the role of the Internet in the humanities.
- Conduct humanities research with a variety of software.
- Display their digital work on a professional digital portfolio.
- Engage in scholarly discourse around the digital humanities.
- Conduct and present original critical making research.
III. Required Texts
- Burdick, A., Drucker, J., Lunenfeld, P., Presner, T., & Jeffrey, S.
(2012).
Digital_Humanities.
MIT Press.
- Drucker, J. (2021). The Digital Humanities Coursebook: An
Introduction to Digital Methods for Research and
Scholarship.
Routledge.
- Johnson, E.K. and Salter, A. (in press). Critical Making in the Age
of AI. Amherst.
- Additional required readings and resources are accessible in
Webcourses
*All texts are free eBooks. Some links ask for UCF login
credentials.
IV. Course Requirements
Exercises & Conversations
Each week, you will be asked to complete an activity, reflect on
it, and discuss your process. I am always experimenting
with new platforms to enhance our conversations. This semester, we will
use Yellowdig. This multimodal platform rewards participation with a
weekly point maximum, so you will need to post weekly exercises that
consist of 3 parts: exercise, reflection, & replies. For full marks,
you’ll need to post several times each week.
The first exercise is the Academic Verification Activity, which is
due by the end of the first week of classes. Yellowdig awards each
student per activity, with a weekly maximum limit. There are 12
Exercises and one optional exercise on the Fall schedule.
Final Reflection Paper (8 points): This paper serves as your final
exam for this course: a short reflection on your experience in the
course and outline your next steps for your research, career goals, etc.
Labs
Labs are hands-on critical making assignments to help you learn
about each digital humanities tool and how projects using the tool fit
in the overall discourse of the field. Resources and optional, virtual
class times are available for each of the four lab assignments.
In the first lab, you will create a digital portfolio, and you will post
the remaining assignments and labs there. This course emphasizes
process over product; the research and thought behind each digital
product is much more important than the appearance of digital product
itself.
Research Assignments
The major research component of this course is broken into 4 smaller
research assignments: A) Project Proposal, B) Annotated Bibliography, C)
Abstract, D) Digital Project.
XII. Course Schedule
Week 1: Welcome
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Complete Academic Verification Activity
Week 2: Digital Portfolio (Part A)
- Read Ratto article (What is critical making)
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Post Exercise 1 (3 parts: exercise, reflection, & replies)
Week 3: Digital Portfolio (Part B)
- Read Drucker Ch. 1: (DH overview)
- Read Johnson & Salter Ch. 9 (Generation)
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Post Exercise 2 (exercise, reflection, & replies)
- Digital Portfolio Lab
Week 4: Place and Space (Part A)
- Read Drucker Ch. 8 (Mapping and GIS)
- Read Johnson & Salter Ch. 4 (Map)
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Post Exercise 3 (exercise, reflection, & replies)
Week 5: Place and Space (Part B)
- Read Drucker Ch. 2 (Data modeling & use)
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Post Exercise 4 (exercise, reflection, & replies)
- Interactive Map Lab
Week 6: Digital Narratives (Part A)
- Read Burdick et al. Ch. 1 (What is DH)
- Read Johnson & Salter Ch. 5 (Hypertext)
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Post Exercise 5 (exercise, reflection, & replies)
Week 7: Digital Narratives (Part B)
- Read Burdick et al. Ch. 2 (DH methods & genres)
- Read Johnson & Salter Ch. 6 (Game)
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Post Exercise 6 (exercise, reflection, & replies)
Week 8: Digital Narratives (Part C)
- Read Drucker Ch. 6 (information visualization)
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Post Exercise 7 (exercise, reflection, & replies)
- Submit Digital Narrative Lab
Week 9: Digital Analysis (Part A)
- Read Johnson & Salter Ch. 8 (Analysis)
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Post Exercise 8 (exercise, reflection, & replies)
Week 10: Digital Analysis (Part B)
- Read Rambsy article (Text-mining short fiction)
- Read Drucker Ch. 7 (Data mining & analysis)
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Post Exercise 9 (exercise, reflection, & replies)
- Submit Digital Analysis Lab
Week 11: Research Project (Part A)
- Read Drucker Ch. 10 (Interfaces)
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Post Exercise 10 (exercise, reflection, & replies)
- Submit Research Assignment A: Research Proposal
Week 12: Research Project (Part B)
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Optional: Read Drucker Ch. 12 Project Design/IP and Coda
- Post Exercise 11 (exercise, reflection, & replies)
- Submit Research Assignment B: Annotated Bibliography
Week 13: Research Project (Part C)
- Read/watch/listen to everything listed under the “Learn” heading in
the module
- Optional: Read Burdick Ch. 4: Provocations
- Optional: Post Extra Exercise (exercise, reflection, & replies)
- Submit Research Assignment C: Abstract
Week 14: Research Project (Part D) last week of classes
- Post digital project link., abstract, & reflection (Exercise 12)
- Submit Research Assignment D: Digital Project
Week 15: Final