Digital tools for teaching, writing, and research: Building capacity in the Digital Humanities

This workshop introduces low-barrier open source digital tools: TimelineJS, Voyant Tools, Palladio, and Omeka that can support capacity building of instructors, librarians, and technologists in their teaching, writing, and research projects. Participants will practice a range of learning activities, critical thinking strategies, and writing formats commensurate with their type of data.

Digital Humanities tools and methods have become an integral part of the educational process and emergent research in institutions in the 21st century. Digital Humanities has proved to provide a successful framework and a culture of cross-institutional collaboration enriched through a technologically enabled environment. Growing this field at our liberal arts institutions is only possible through a practical teamwork effort across disciplines and communities of practice. The following workshop smoothly introduces participants, with no knowledge of any digital tools, into some low-barrier DH tools that can be aligned with learning outcomes and real classroom applications, and will prepare them to initiate their mini projects. Each session will focus on one of the following tools: TimelineJS, Omeka, Voyant Tools, and Palladio offering a theoretical background on ways of integrating them into their classroom and research, followed by hands-on practice. Day 2 will allow participants to create, revise, develop their own mini DH projects using one of the tools that fits their data.

Audience

The target audience for this workshop includes any interested faculty, librarians and IT staff at AMICAL partner institutions already somewhat involved in, or significantly interested in digital scholarship. All hands-on sessions require no previous training on the digital tools introduced in this workshop.

Schedule

• Pre-workshop (April)
  • Participants who signed up for the workshop are contacted by the facilitators to offer them guidance and basic instructions for preparing materials for each hands-on session and for their projects.
  • Participants must send a brief outline/description of a project/assignment/idea, no later than April 30 to the organizers, providing an appropriate context for using one of the tools being taught in the workshop. This can be very brief (1-2 paragraphs, or 50-100 words).
• Day 1 (4 May)
  • Omeka (2 hours, Dalal Rahme): Omeka is an open source web application used by libraries, archives, museums and many academic departments all over the world to create and manage web exhibits and databases. The workshop will introduce participants to this tool allowing them to create their archive of digital objects, apply metadata and create a search engine-optimized website. Participants will also learn how to build digital exhibits, use plugins for digital collections and create student-driven class projects like building online exhibits with an archive of primary resources.
  • TimelineJS (1 hour, Najla Jarkas): TimelineJS is an open-source tool that enables anyone to build visually rich, interactive timelines. The theoretical session will showcase real classroom applications of the tool aligned with course learning outcomes. The hands-on session will gently introduce participants to the tool’s different features and allow them to produce interactive digital timelines.
  • Palladio (1 hour, Najla Jarkas & David Wrisley): Palladio is a user friendly web-based toolset that allows participants to map, create and analyze networks from structured data. The theoretical session will showcase real classroom applications of the tool aligned with course learning outcomes. The hands-on session will gently introduce participants to the tool’s different features and allow them to create a number of unique visualizations answering research questions that reflect humanistic thinking about data.
  • Voyant Tools (1 hour, David Wrisley): Voyant Tools is a free web-based reading and text analysis environment. It allows participants to apply both distant and close reading practices on single/multiple texts. The theoretical session will showcase real classroom applications of the tool aligned with course learning outcomes. The hands-on session will gently introduce participants to the tool’s different features and allow them to create a number of unique visualizations of textual analyses of their corpus.
• Day 2 (5 May)
  • Mini Project Exercise (2 hours, Najla Jarkas, Dalal Rahme & David Wrisley): Participants choose one of the four digital tools introduced in this workshop and:
    • Revise, modify, clarify, or develop their project/assignment/idea where they can apply one of these tools
    • Share the idea, decide which tool is more appropriate to use, and justify
    • Apply found data on the tool
    • Present their group project
• Follow-up Sessions
  • The trainers will create opportunities for follow-up sessions on AMICAL Connect and/or through webinars with groups that wish to expand on their training and move forward with developing their mini projects and/or integrating the tools into their courses.
  • Participants are expected to post to AMICAL Connect, by December 2018, a brief report (1-2 paragraphs) on the impact of the workshop on their teaching or research. Some posts may be selected for republication on AMICAL’s blog.

Participant requirements

• Gmail accounts (Some tools require a gmail account, and some session material and instructions may need to be shared with participants prior to the workshop)
• Optional: Participants may bring their own laptops

Expectations of participants

• Before the workshop: participants are recommended to post a brief outline/description of a project/assignment/idea providing an appropriate context for using one of the tools being taught in the workshop. This can be very brief (1-2 paragraphs, or 50- 100 words).
• After the workshop: participants are expected to post to AMICAL Connect, by December 2018, a brief report (1-2 paragraphs) on the impact of the workshop on their teaching or research. Some posts may be selected for republication on AMICAL’s blog.