UWO History 9808 2008-09 - Digital History

History 9808 is a year long graduate course on digital history that emphasizes both the presentation of history on the web and in interactive systems, and the use of computational techniques to work with digital resources. It is required for students in the public history program; other graduate students may take it with my permission.

Participants

Schedule

We meet weekly on Wednesdays from 3:30 to 5:30 pm in SSC 4317. Seminar discussions alternate with studio sessions. If you’d like to meet with me, send me e-mail at wturkel@uwo.ca to arrange a time.

(10 Sep 2008). 01. Introduction
(17 Sep 2008). 02. The Infinite Archive
(24 Sep 2008). Studio: roles and tasks.
(01 Oct 2008). 03. Open Source, Open Access and Open Content
(08 Oct 2008). Studio
(15 Oct 2008). 04. Search and Information Trapping
(22 Oct 2008). No class scheduled: work on group project.
(29 Oct 2008). Studio: preliminary sketches and presentation.
(05 Nov 2008). 05. Social Search and Folksonomy
(12 Nov 2008). Studio
(19 Nov 2008). 06. Markup
(26 Nov 2008). Studio: storyboards.
(03 Dec 2008). No class scheduled: work on group project.
(07 Jan 2009). 07. Links, Hypertext and Spidering
(14 Jan 2009). Studio: exhibit mockup
(21 Jan 2009). 08. Mashups and Collective Intelligence
(28 Jan 2009). Studio
(04 Feb 2009). 09. Digitization and Visualization
(11 Feb 2009). Studio: working beta version.
(18 Feb 2009). No class scheduled: reading week.
(25 Feb 2009). Studio: presentation of group project beta to review panel (Shelley McKellar and Jeff Longland, ITS). N.B. Prof. McKellar has to leave at 4:30 pm.
(04 Mar 2009). 10. Machine Learning and Data Mining
(11 Mar 2009). 11. Locative Technologies and the Internet of Things
(18 Mar 2009). 12. Histories of the Future
(25 Mar 2009). No class scheduled: work on group project.
(01 Apr 2009). Studio: dry run of final version.
(08 Apr 2009). PUBLIC PRESENTATION of final version of group project.
(15 Apr 2009). No class scheduled: website and final documentation for group project due.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for the course other than a willingness to learn new things and the perseverance to keep working when you’re confused or when you realize that you could spend a lifetime learning about the topics and technologies that we will cover in class, and still not master them all. Students will come into the course with very different levels of experience and expertise. Some, maybe most, will be familiar only with the rudiments of computer and internet use. Others may already be skilled programmers.

Readings

There are three kinds of readings listed in the syllabus. “Readings for Discussion” must be done in advance by every student in the class, as they will form the basis of our seminar and studio discussions. “Technical Background Readings” provide some of the detail about particular methods, techniques or technologies. You should read as many of these as you can, skipping only things that you are already familiar with or readings that are completely over your head. Finally, there are lists of books for “Further Reading.” You will probably only read these if you are especially interested in the week’s topic or need more information to implement a particular project.

Evaluation

You will be graded on your participation in seminar discussions (30%), on your reflective blogging (30%; see below) and on the work that you put toward the success of the group project (40%). Your final grade will reflect how much you’ve learned or accomplished, rather than any overall level of technical attainment.

Blogging

Every student in the class will have an academic blog and will be expected to make regular posts to it. This use of blogging is to encourage you to engage in ‘reflective practice,’ that is, to force you to think about your learning and research as you are doing it. This process was described by Donald Schön in The Reflective Practitioner (London: Temple Smith, 1983):

In each instance, the practitioner allows himself [or herself] to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique. He reflects on the phenomena before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his behaviour. He carries out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomena and a change in the situation… He does not keep means and ends separate, but defines them interactively as he frames a problematic situation. He does not separate thinking from doing… Because his experimenting is a kind of action, implementation is built into his inquiry.

Different bloggers have very different styles. Some people like to keep what amounts to a lab notebook, others a daily diary. Some write short, off-the-cuff entries, others prefer to write well-crafted essays. If you have never blogged before, spend some time familiarizing yourself with existing history blogs.

User Accounts

Before the first class (10 Sep 2008) you should go to Blogger and create an account and a blog. If possible, create the blog under your own name (e.g., http://johndoe.blogspot.com); if not, choose something professional sounding. Post an introductory message about yourself and then send me the URL of your blog so that I can add you to the course blogroll for History 9808. You should also sign up for a user account on this site (http://wikispot.org) so you can edit the group project wiki. E-mail me your wikispot username when you have one.

Use of Computers

You will obviously be using computers for this course. If you don’t have one of your own, you can use a machine in one of the campus computing labs. Unlike many other courses, however, I also encourage you to use your own computer (if you have one) during seminar discussions. Take notes, look things up on the web, blog about the ongoing discussion, send backchannel text messages to other people in the room. To get the most out of the course, you will want to experiment with new forms of interaction and learning.

Wikipedia

In this class you will be exposed to a lot of relatively new technical terms and ideas. You should get in the habit of looking these up in Wikipedia whenever you come across something unfamiliar. You’ve probably heard that Wikipedia is an unreliable source. That’s true, but it’s true of any source. One of our early seminar discussions will focus on reading Wikipedia critically; during the course you will also have the experience of writing a Wikipedia article and monitoring its subsequent revision.

Studio

The best way to learn how to do something is to try to do it yourself. I've set aside about half the course for a studio, a space where you can get hands-on experience with the software, hardware and techniques that you will be studying in class. The group project this year is to create an exhibit that explains and contextualizes William Harvey's work on the circulatory system. The exhibit may consist of one or more components but must include both virtual and tangible elements. The wiki for the Harvey Project is here. More information about the studio will be given in class.

Required Texts

Cohen, Daniel J. & Roy Rosenzweig, Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2005. Full text available online; if you’d prefer to read a paper copy it can be ordered inexpensively from Amazon, Chapters, etc.

Schriebman, Susan, Ray Siemens and John Unsworth, eds. A Companion to Digital Humanities. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Full text available online; the hardcover is prohibitively expensive, and we won’t be reading the whole thing.