Week 9 – Media and Public Scholarship

Blog Post – Due Monday, July 25

It is one thing to create scholarly material for a class, to be seen by a handful of people; it is an entirely different concept to develop a digital project that is openly available on the Internet that engages a wide audience and encourages interaction. Read Burdick, et. al. “3. The Social Life of the Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities, 84-98 and think about how your project disrupts traditional ways of doing scholarship. In what ways can your project engage the public, as well as other scholars? How is your project social/empowering/decolonizing? Can your project live alongside the work of “traditional scholars?”

-OR-

Think about the concept of “community of practice” and how it applies to Digital Humanities/Scholarship work. How has this summer created a community of practice for you? Would the summer have been different if you were working on your own, instead as part of a collaborative cohort? How have other DH/DS communities of practice informed your work this summer? How does the idea of DH/DS as a community of practice inform the social/empowering/decolonizing nature of digital projects?

Monday, July 18

8:30am-9am: Check-In (Library 014)

9am-Noon: Public History and Digital Scholarship (Library 014, Public Session)

Today we will have the opportunity to hear about the work of Gettysburg College professors Jill Titus and Ian Isherwood, both of the Civil War Institute. They will be discussing the importance of public scholarship and how it intersects with digital scholarship, and how they have integrated digital scholarship into their courses.

• Facilitators
  • Jill Titus, Ian Isherwood
• Readings and Assignments
  • Take a look at the following projects:
    • The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs
    • Uproar on Campus: Student Protests in the Vietnam War Era
    • The Southern Tradition of Civil War Commemoration: Carolina and The Southern Cross Magazine
    • “It’s Still My School and I am Entitled to It!” The Little Rock Nine Desegregation Crisis
  • Frost Davis, Rebecca, and Bryan Alexander. “Should Liberal Arts Campuses Do Digital Humanities? Process and Products in the Small College World.”
  • Thomas, David, and Valerie Johnson. “New Universes or Black Holes? Does Digital Change Anything?” In History in the Digital Age, edited by Toni Weller, 173-193. London: Routledge, 2013. (Password protected)
  • Waltzer, Luke. “Digital Humanities and the ‘Ugly Stepchildren’ of American Higher Education.”
• Program Learning Goals Supported
  • Participate in digital scholarship activities as a part of a collaborative cohort to support digital scholarship initiatives at Gettysburg College and beyond
  • Reflect upon the process of creating and managing a digital scholarship project to record and evaluate individual progress and identify challenges and best practices for other digital scholars
• Activities
  • Guest lecture

Noon-1pm: Lunch (On Your Own)

1pm-5pm: Research and Project Work (on your own)

Tuesday, July 19

8:30am-5pm: Research/Project Work (on your own)

Wednesday, July 20

8:30am-9am: Check-In (Library 014)

9am-Noon: Social Media and Digital Scholarship (Library 014, Public Session)

Digital scholars are increasingly turning to social media and crowdsourcing sites to publicize their projects, as well as enlist public support for transcription and identification. Today we’ll look at the social media presence of a few digital projects, as well as discuss how digital scholars are using crowdsourcing to transcribe historical documents.

• Facilitators
  • R.C. Miessler
• Readings and Assignments
  • Burdick, et. al. “3. The Social Life of the Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities, 84-98.
  • Look at the Anthracite Coal Region of Northeastern Pennsylvania Facebook page and website
  • Scroll through the @jackpeirs Twitter account
  • Check the Making History – Transcribe and DIYHistory crowdsourcing sites
• Program Learning Goals Supported
  • Identify a range of possible digital scholarship tools to integrate into a public-facing digital scholarship project
  • Communicate personal experience as a Digital Scholarship Fellow to demonstrate the value and opportunities provided by digital scholarship
• Activities
  • Reading discussion
  • Review of social media and crowdsourcing sites
  • Discuss ways the projects could have social media applications integrated into them

Noon-1pm: Lunch (on your own)

1pm-5pm: Research/Project Work (on your own)

Thursday, July 21

8:30am-5pm: Research/Project Work (on your own)

Noon-1pm: DSSF Lunch (Specialty Dining)

Friday, July 22

8:30am-9am: Check-In

9am-Noon: Using Video in Digital Projects (Library 014, Public Session)

Digital scholarship is a visual way of presenting material, and video is way to provide engaging content to your audience. While not necessarily interactive, it does engage multiple senses, and can be a way to visualize data when an interactive view isn’t necessary. Today, Carrie Szarko from Educational Technology will discuss the use of video in digital scholarship, as well as get us introduced to Microsoft Moviemaker.

• Facilitators
  • Carrie Szarko
• Readings and Assignments
  • Install Windows Movie Maker on your laptop (works with Windows 10 as well)
• Program Learning Goals Supported
  • Identify a range of possible digital scholarship tools to integrate into a public-facing digital scholarship project
  • Use collections/materials/artifacts to explore a research question best interpreted through a digital scholarship lens
• Activities
  • Review the challenges of using video in digital scholarship, including finding material and copyright issues
  • Walk through how to get started with audio and video editing with Moviemaker and Audacity

Noon-1pm: Lunch (on your own)

1pm-5pm: Research/Project Work (on your own)