Reflection Assignments (20% of final grade)
Summary
These assignments are intended to fulfill the course goal:
- Determine how methods of digital history might contribute to the advancement of research interests, scholarship, and professional goals
Every student in this class has different educational interests, needs, and priorities to fulfill. I’d like you to have the freedom to tailor this class to your own, as much as is possible. Choose what works for you. Additionally, the assignment list here is not exhaustive. You are welcome to come up with your own idea for an assignment that involves reflection on how work in the field might relate to you and pitch it to me. You will complete one assignment in this category.
Submit your work via the individual Canvas site links below by 4PM, November 29.
Be prepared to talk briefly about your work to your classmates on the last day of classes, December 6.
Possible Assignments
DH Article Pitch
Due on or before 4PM, November 29. Additionally, be prepared to talk about your work to your classmates for five minutes on the final day of classes, December 6.
Conference or Poster Session Proposal
Identify an upcoming conference, seminar, poster session, etc. and formulate a proposal for it that involves digital history in some aspect. Submit your documents, including a link to the CFP or website where you found the information and proposal requirements.
Due on or before 4PM, November 29. Additionally, be prepared to talk about your work to your classmates for five minutes on the final day of classes, December 6.
Skills Workshop Attendance
Hands-on experience really is the best way to learn how to work with digital tools. There are LOTS of workshops and events offered outside of this classroom — and many of them are free-of-cost to attend remotely. Even better, you can get credit in this course for attending and reflecting on one of them!
To complete this assignment:
1. Check out the Events calendar I’ve set up for this class to find a topic that you might be interested in. If you find one that isn’t listed on the calendar, run it by me; but it should be fine with me if you go to one of those, instead.
2. Once you’ve identified your event, make sure to register if necessary and check to see if you might need to prepare anything beforehand (sometimes, you might need to install some software or download a dataset or something along those lines to follow along in the workshop.)
3. Then, make sure to attend it! Take notes along the way to help aid in your reflection process later.
4. Once you’ve done all that, give a review of the workshop/event you attended. This can take the form of a written essay, a video, a screen recorded demo, an infographic, blog post, or just about any other medium you prefer. In your review, briefly explain (in no more than 1250 words/ 10 minutes):
- The name, date, topic, organizer, and other basic details of the workshop
- The structure of the workshop: how was it organized (thematically, step-by-step, etc.)? Give details about any processes, lectures, or preparatory work that made up the workshop.
- How was your experience? Did you learn something new? Were there things that frustrated you, and if so, how did you overcome them (or how might they be overcome next time)?
- Did you come away with an example/protoytpe/work-in-progress that you can show us?
- What advice would you give to someone else who might be interested in learning more about this same topic?
Due on or before 4PM, November 29. Additionally, be prepared to talk about your work to your classmates for five minutes on the final day of classes, December 6.
“Transparent” Tutorial or Walkthrough
Due on or before 4PM, November 29. Additionally, be prepared to talk about your work to your classmates for five minutes on the final day of classes, December 6.
Digital History Interview
Is there someone doing interesting digital scholarship in your field or subject specialty? Now’s your chance to meet them! The goal of this assignment is to connect you with someone engaged in the kind of DH work you might want to do. This will help you further explore possibilities for future scholarship, projects, and lines of inquiry. It will aid in pinpointing the particular kinds of skills and data that you may want to focus on or learn more about. And last but not least, it may result in a collaborative partnership or mentorship.
The first step: Identifying your subject
DH is a friendly field where scholars and practitioners are, as a rule, generous with their time and resources. You can learn a lot from others, but you first have to make a connection. If you don’t already have someone in mind, do some reconnaissance work by browsing journals, project websites, social media (especially Twitter), and news articles (DH Resources may help get you started). You can also ask me, any of your other peers or professors, or the Scholars Studio staff for suggestions of who you might want to contact.
The second step: Requesting the interview
“In the biz,” this is called an “informational interview.” You’re reaching out to someone because you want something from them (that is not a job) and you’ll get the best results if you take a polite and succinct approach to initiating contact with them. This isn’t hard, but it does take some finesse. There are lots of templates and guides out there to help — you might find this one useful.
The third step: Performing the interview
Plan what you want to ask about so that you won’t exceed the time span you indicated in your request (if it goes over time because the interviewee wants to keep talking, that’s fine, though). What kinds of things do you want to know about their career path, their digital experience, their scholarship and projects, or their skillsets?
The fourth step: Turning it in
You may choose to record it, if it’s a remote meeting and your interviewee is comfortable with that. Or, if it takes the form of an email conversation or chat, you may edit for clarity and submit it here.
Due on or before 4PM, November 29. Additionally, be prepared to talk about your work to your classmates for five minutes on the final day of classes, December 6.
Digital Project Review
By now, you’ve gained a bit of experience in and understanding of the behind-the-scenes processes of digital history work. Equipped with this knowledge, you now have a chance to critique a project created by someone else. The goal of this review is to provide guidance to potential users and producers of similar digital projects. Your assessment also serves as a contribution to the critical discourse surrounding digital scholarship at large, in an effort to raise the level and quality of work in the field.
Pick one of the “featured projects” from this semester, or another digital history/digital humanities project that corresponds to your interests. Review the project following the guidelines outlined in the Journal of American History and the NCPH Digital History Project Review Guidelines. Your review may take the form of a blog post, a YouTube or video review, a digital exhibit, an oral presentation, etc. or some other type of creative medium (just clear it with me first, please!). The review should be ~500-750 words (if written).
If you’re not sure where to find projects that might be of interest to you beyond the ones we’ve already looked at in class, be sure to check out the DH journals listed on this page for project feature articles, and browse through the nominees and winners of the DH Awards.
Due on or before 4PM, November 29. Additionally, be prepared to talk about your work to your classmates for five minutes on the final day of classes, December 6.
Your Idea Here
Due on or before 4PM, November 29. Additionally, be prepared to talk about your work to your classmates for five minutes on the final day of classes, December 6.
