Blog Post – Due Monday, July 11
What could be a dataset from your research that could potentially be integrated into a future version of your project, and what method of visualization would enhance the presentation of your research? Think about the information you have gathered and presented and how it could be manipulated into a spreadsheet or database. It doesn’t have to be a large dataset, nor does it have to be something you are working with directly. Reading Picking the Right Visualization for Your Data may help you think of a way to present it.
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Technology, especially in higher education, is often disruptive and intrusive; similarly, Digital Humanities is sometimes viewed as a disruptive way of doing research in the humanities. There can be a lot of pushback from traditional humanists who see DH as reducing their work to just bits of data and its manipulation, which is seen as not being as valuable as reading and writing traditional research.
In light of last week’s blog post, read Matthew Kirschenbaum’s “Am I a Digital Humanist? Confessions of a Neoliberal Tool” and Roopika Risam’s “Digital Humanities in Other Contexts” as counterpoints to the LARB article. Are their views more in line with how you view Digital Humanities/Scholarship? Why do you think Digital Humanities provokes such strong reactions from both its practitioners and detractors (who are sometimes the same people)? Do you ever see “digital” being dropped from Digital Humanities, and it just is doing the humanities?
Monday, July 4
Independence Day
Tuesday, July 5
8:30am-9am: Check-In (Library 014)
9am-Noon: Research/Project Work
Noon-1pm: Lunch (On Your Own)
1pm-5pm: Research/Project Work
Wednesday, July 6
8:30am-9am: Check-In (Library 014)
9am-Noon: Datasets and Visualization in Digital Scholarship (Library 014, Public Session)
Miriam Posner defines data visualization as “Graphical representation of data. We visualize data so that it’s easier to notice aspects and features of the data. Our current moment is obsessed with data visualization, perhaps because we’re moving so quickly that there’s more information to sift through. It’s also expected that we do more now, because we have these tools.” With so much data to try to process, and not enough time to do so, it makes sense to process it in a way that appeals to visual culture. Today, we’ll look at ways to visualize data, as well as the datasets that live underneath the presentation. In addition, Divonna Stebick, Associate Professor of Education, will discuss her use of data visualization with young adult literature and how she integrated it into her classes, and Sharon Birch from Educational Technology will give insight about how she helped bring the project to life.
- Facilitators
- R.C. Miessler, Divonna Stebick, Sharon Birch
- Readings and Assignments
- “Which Chart or Graph is Right for You?”
- Skim Data + Design: A Simple Introduction to Preparing and Visualizing Information
- Look at the ways data is visualized at the following sites:
- Pick a dataset that looks interesting and look through it; think about how it is organized
- Program Learning Goals Supported
- Use collections/materials/artifacts to explore a research question best interpreted through a digital scholarship lens
- Identify a range of possible digital scholarship tools to integrate into a public-facing digital scholarship project
- Activities
- Reading discussion
- Presentation of chosen dataset
- Discuss different ways data can be presented
Noon-1pm: DSSF Lunch (Specialty Dining)
1pm-5pm: 3D Printing Lab (West Building)
And now for something completely different … today we will take a field trip to the West Building to have a 3D printing workshop with Eric Remy from Educational Technology. This is a chance to have a little fun!
Thursday, July 7
8:30am-5pm: Research/Project Work (on your own)
Friday, July 8
8:30am-9am: Check-In
9am-Noon: Text Analysis in Digital Scholarship (Library 014, Public Session)
Text analysis in digital scholarship takes large bodies of texts (corpora) and uses digital tools to find relationships between words and concepts. This sort of analysis has been happening for decades, to the point where the first thing many scholars think about when discussing digital humanities is text analysis. While it is difficult to learn, projects like Google’s Ngram Viewer has made working with texts easier. Today, we’ll look at some text analysis projects and the tools behind them.
- Facilitators
- R.C. Miessler
- Readings and Assignments
- Kaylin, Walker. “50 Years of Pop Music” and “Text Mining South Park.”
- Trammell, Anna. “Using Voyant Tools for Basic Text Analysis.”
- Underwood, Ted. “Where to Start with Text Mining.”
- “Movie Narrative Charts.”
- Program Learning Goals Supported
- Identify a range of possible digital scholarship tools to integrate into a public-facing digital scholarship project
- Activities
- Reading and site discussion
- Demonstration of Voyant Tools
- Use Voyant Tools with a corpus to create a basic visual analysis of text
