My project is heavily based around political science, which is my major. My project has been able to present typical political science project information in a way that incorporates many digital humanities aspects. Being able to create any sort of humanities based project online is one of the beauties of the digital humanities. In a non digital humanities setting, this project would have been probably presented in a much more physical and simple way. Especially with political science, papers and posters are very standard for the classroom type projects. While this is an efficient and useful way to get a point across, it limits the creative aspect that helps the viewer better understand said point. With my project, and many other digital humanities projects like it, that creative aspect is able to thrive in many forms. For example, my project uses timelines and interactive corpuses that are creative tools for learning.
A key component to knowing how effective a creative tool is the use of a test partner. Collebarting about and testing different parts of your project is very useful in determining what creative aspects of the site are most pleasing to a viewer. Nothing helps your website grow like good criticism does. This collaborative aspect of the digital humanities is what allows the field to be so connected and to have mutual respect for others and their studies. Examples from this summer of this include our trip to Lafayette College and when students from the Bucknell University DSSF program came down to spend a day with us. In both of these settings, it was clear that everyone involved was open to and excited about the collaboration and the sharing of opinions. Everyone approached the collaboration with a pre-established respect for others in the digital humanities. From both of these examples, I have taken others ideas and applied them to my project based on their feedback. This allowed for my website to grow and to become more appealing to a viewer that does not know how to navigate the site. I also felt as though my insingth and opinions were valued by the other students, and they seemed very appreciative of that fact. I hope that these types of meetings and gatherings remain a common occurrence for the digital humanities as the field continues to grow.
