Your grade in this course will be determined by your performance on the following assignments. (Detailed descriptions for the assignments will be added as we discuss them in class.)
Analysis of a DH Project (10%)
Your first assignment is to familiarize yourself with several “mature” digital humanities projects, then select one to analyze and critique. Your investigation of the project should include not only the finished project itself, but also any supporting materials you can find — blog posts, press releases, early drafts, software documentation, etc… Your final analysis of the project will take the form of a short essay (1000–1500 words) and a brief in-class presentation (3–5 minutes). Read more…
Collaborative Class Project (15%)
To better understand what collaborative teams can do that individuals can’t, you will work with your classmates to contribute material to an ongoing digital humanities project: the re-publication of The Gray Jacket, Virginia Tech’s first literary magazine. Working in small teams, you’ll scan an issue of the magazine, run optical character recognition (OCR) software on your scans, and create plaintext transcripts of the articles in your issue. Then you’ll use Omeka to publish a web-based archive of the digitized magazines, along with their associated metadata. This project will help you (1) develop your digital skills, (2) serve the Virginia Tech community, and (3) experience the process of doing DH work from start to finish. Read more…
Documented Exploration of a DH Tool (25%)
In preparation for the individual final project, you will teach yourself how to use a new digital tool, documenting your learning process as you go. You will find an excellent list of digital research tools on the DiRT Directory website, but you are welcome to look beyond that list, too. “Learning” a new tool does not mean mastering it, but it does mean familiarizing yourself with it enough to teach other novices how to use it. Your final deliverables for this assignment will be a post on Medium designed to help beginners (i.e., your classmates) get started with your tool. Read more…
Individual Final Project (30%)
Your biggest assignment in this course is an individual digital humanities project, which you will design and develop during the second half of the semester. In order to accommodate the personal interests and goals of everyone in class, I have left the topic and medium for your final project almost completely open-ended. As long as you can demonstrate a connection to the ideas, methods, and tools we have explored in class, I will happily approve your proposal. I will negotiate the details of the final project with each of you in a personal conference, which will lead to a memorandum of understanding that will govern your work on the assignment. Along the way, you will present an early draft of your project to your classmates and deliver a 10-minute oral presentation about what you’ve created. Read more…
Class Participation and Short Exercises (20%)
You should come to class each day ready to contribute to our class discussions, and your comments should show that you have completed the reading assignments and done any necessary outside research to understand and apply what you’ve read. In addition, I will occasionally ask you to complete small assignments, such as submitting drafts of your papers and projects, commenting on your peers’ work, serving as a “discussion superhero,” or demonstrating a new tool in class. All of these efforts will contribute to your class participation grade. I will assign tentative participation grades at midterm, which will let you know where you stand and, if necessary, give you the opportunity to adjust your class participation efforts before the end of the semester.