LIBR 220-03
LIBR 220-12
Resources and Information Services in Professions and Disciplines
Topic: Digital Humanities
Fall 2008 Greensheet
Susan Schreibman
E-mail
Office Hours: Upon arrabement
Greensheet Links Textbooks and Readings Course Requirements Course Outline |
Resources Blackboard Blackboard Tutorials SLIS eBookstore |
The access code for this course for Blackboard will be sent to those enrolled in the class via the MySJSU messaging system a few days prior to start of the semester. The course will be open for self-enrollment at the time the access code is sent.
Course Description
This course will explore the burgeoning field of digital humanities – how computational methods are being used to further humanities research and teaching. Most humanities scholars now use computers daily in the form of word processing and email. This course, however, will explore how advanced and experimental computational techniques are being used to challenge and change the very nature of humanities research as well as its system of academic rewards.
Areas to be discussed include thematic research collections, a new genre akin to the scholarly article or monograph; 3D virtual recreations of ancient cities or monastic ruins; scholarly editions of films in which the film and its annotation are preserved in the same medium; born digital literature and art which poses new and substantial challenges in the area of preservation; e-lit and e-art which are breaking down traditional barriers between disciplines; and the experimental field of datamining and visualization which may provide us with more effective ways of sifting through hundreds, even thousands of pieces of information than methods we currently employ.
This course will also focus on the various roles that librarians and archivists have played and will continue to play in the chain of digital scholarly communication, not simply because their repositories are the holders of the majority of primary resources from which many disciplines in the humanities draw, but because they are increasingly being turned to as final custodians for this born digital scholarship. This course will also discuss the crucial rule that information professionals play in the digital humanities by applying and adapting traditional library practice (such as classifying and cataloguing) to this new environment. The primary textbook for this course will be A Companion to Digital Humanities (Blackwell 2004), augmented by online articles, tools, and projects.
Course Prerequisites: LIBR220 is an elective course. There are on prerequisites. It is a completely online class distributed via Blackboard and will run 25 August 2008.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course students will:
- Be familiar with digital humanities as a discipline and as a practice;
- Have an awareness of the tools and technologies used in digital humanities scholarship;
- Be aware of the differences between disciplinary practices;
- Be familiar with current trends and theoretical perspectives in the field;
- Have an appreciation of the discipline from a historical perspective;
- Develop a sense of how digital humanities impacts on more traditional disciplinary practice.
This course supports the following SLIS Core Competency:
- recognize the social, cultural and economic dimensions of information use
Textbooks and Readings
Required Text
- Schreibman, S, Siemens, R, & Unsworth, J (2004). A Companion to Digital Humanities. Publisher: Blackwell Publishing (ISBN: 9781405168069)
Additional Readings
Additional required readings per the syllabus are freely available online or via database subscriptions through the King Library.
Course Requirements
Blackboard Information
This course will be delivered entirely online through Blackboard. Students must self-enroll for this course on Blackboard between August 23 – August 25. You will be required to use a password access code which I will send via the MYSJSU Messaging system prior to August 23.
This class begins on Monday 25 August. Weekly sessions begin on Monday and continue through Saturday.
Assignments
- Blackboard discussions. Weekly blackboard discussions based on introductory postings, textbook readings, and/or other readings will be posted to the class discussion board. Each student is expected to respond to discussion questions and to participate fully in the discussion with other students in the class. Participation is mandatory. Class participation via weekly discussions is worth 25 points.
- Co-Facilitating a Weekly Discussion. This assignment will allow you to explore a theme of the course in depth. It will provide you with the opportunity of leading an on-line discussion, gaining first hand experience in developing new rhetorical modes for on-line communication. 15 points.
- Review of a Thematic Research Collection. This assignment is designed to acquaint you with one of the most common forms of digital humanities research. Assignment should be completed in HTML (preferably not by converting a Word document). 15 points.
- Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography. This assignment is designed to help you prepare you for your final paper. You are to locate and evaluate 10 - 12 items (articles, books, websites, etc.) pertinent to your paper topic. Instructions will be provided. Assignment should be completed in HTML (preferably not by converting a Word document). 15 points.
- Final Paper. Write a formal research paper in which you explore a topic related to the course in significant depth. Topics may be selected from the areas covered in class or you may choose an issue of more personal interest that is relevant to the goals and objectives of the course. The text of your paper must be 15 to 20 pages in length (space and a half; 12 point type); the reference list should include at least 20 citations. A bibliography is not required, but you should include one if you use sources not cited but consulted for background information and context. You will be graded on the extent of your research, your description and critical analysis of the topic, the evidence you provide in support of your argument, and the clarity and quality of your writing. Your references and formatting must adhere to the rules established in the APA Publication Manual or the MLA Style Manual. A proposal for the final paper (no more than one page in length) must be submitted to me for approval no later than 10 November. 30 points.
All assignments are due on Fridays and must be turned at 5 p.m PST. Late submissions will be reduced by 20% of the total points possible for that assignment.
Course Calendar
Assignment | Points | Due Date |
Blackboard Discussions | 25 points | Weekly |
Co-Facilitating a Weekly Discussion | 15 points | Varies |
Review of a Thematic Research Collection | 15 points | 26 September |
Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography | 15 points | 24 October |
Final Paper | 30 points | 5 December |
Assignment due dates are subject to change with fair notice.
Grading
Based on the evaluation percentages listed in evaluations criteria, the standard SJSU SLIS Grading Scale will be applied to an aggregate total of evaluation criteria:
97-100 | A |
94-96 | A- |
91-93 | B+ |
88-90 | B |
85-87 | B- |
82-84 | C+ |
79-81 | C |
76-78 | C- |
73-75 | D+ |
70-72 | D |
67-69 | D- |
Below 67 | F |
In order to provide consistent guidelines for assessment for graduate level work in the School, these terms are applied to letter grades:
- C represents Adequate work; a grade of "C" counts for credit for the course;
- B represents Good work; a grade of "B" clearly meets the standards for graduate level work;
- A represents Exceptional work; a grade of "A" will be assigned for outstanding work only.
Students are advised that it is their responsibility to maintain a Grade Point Average (GPA) of 3.0.
Academic Integrity
Your own commitment to learning, as evidenced by your enrollment at San José State University, and the University's Academic Integrity Policy requires you to be honest in all your academic course work. Faculty members are required to report all infractions to the Office of Student Conduct and Ethical Development. The policy on academic integrity can be found at http://sa.sjsu.edu/student_conduct.
Reasonable Accommodation of Disabilities
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability,
please e-mail me as soon as possible. Presidential Directive 97-03 requires
that students with disabilities register with the Disability Resource Center
(DRC) to establish record of their disability.
No matter where students reside, they should contact the SJSU DRC to register. The DRC Web site: http://www.drc.sjsu.edu/
Course Outline
Week of | Topic | Readings | Homework | |
1 | 25 Aug | Intro to Digital Humanities | CDH: introduction / preface/ Hockey Mary Ellen Bates, Unknown Unknowns. EContent, Nov2007, Vol. 30 Issue 9, p58-58 |
Assignment: Introduce yourself to the class. Assignment: Choose the top three topics on which you would like to co-facilitate a discussion and email them to me by 5 September |
2 | 1 Sept | Inro to DH (con’t) | John Unsworth, What is Humanities Computing and What is Not? http://computerphilologie.uni-muenchen.de/ jg02/unsworth.html#fn2 DLS: Vandendorpe |
Assignment: Review of a digital humanities thematic research collection. Due: 22 September |
3 | 8 Sept | Disciplinary Areas | Read any two chapters from section I of CDH | |
4 | 15 Sept | Themetic Research Collections | CDH: Palmer & DLS Price Schreibman, Susan. Computer-mediated Texts and Textuality in Computers and the Humanities (36) 283-292, 2002 |
|
5 | 22 Sept | Text Encoding and Text Analysis | CDH: McGann & Renear | Assignment: Opinion Piece. Choose one of the disciplinary areas you read from CDH and respond to the author’s take on the subject. Due 20 Oct. |
6 | 29 Sept | New Narratives | CDH: Laure-Ryan & DLS Gervais Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular http://www.vectorsjournal.org/ (pick and choose what catches your fancy) |
|
7 | 6 Oct | e-literature | Electronic Literature: What is it? By N Katherine Hayles http://eliterature.org/pad/elp.html Electronic Literature Collection Vol I: http://collection.eliterature.org/1/index.html (pick and choose what catches your fancy) Review of ELO Collection: How to Think (with) Thinkertoys: Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1 by Adalaide Morris http://www.electronicbookreview.com/ thread/electropoetics/distributed |
|
8 | 13 Oct | Reading Week | Catch up on Readings | |
9 | 20 Oct | Interface | CDH: Kirschenbaum & Drucker | |
10 | 27 Oct | Modeling | CDH: McCarty CDLS Lavagnino | |
11 | 3 Nov | Cyber infrastructure | Our Cultural Commonwealth 2006 American Council of Learned Societies ACLS Commission on Cyberinfrastructure Report http://www.acls.org/programs/Default.aspx?id=644 |
Assignment: Create an annotatied bibliography of resources for any area of digital humanities. Due 10 Nov |
12 | 10 Nov | Tools | Report on the Summit on Digital Tools for the Humanities (Sept 2005) http://www.iath.virginia.edu/dtsummit/ Doing Digital Scholarship: Presentation at Digital Humanities 2008 Lisa Spiro Blog post http://digitalscholarship.wordpress.com/ 2008/08/11/doing-digital-scholarship-presentation-at-digital-humanities-2008/ some tools to play with http://textarc.org http://v-machine.org http://www.nines.org/collex http://tapor.ualberta.ca/ |
Assignment: Final Paper. Due 8 December |
13 | 17 Nov | Futures of DH | CDH: Jenson Jerome McGann, Culture and Technology: The Way We Live Now, What Is to Be Done? New Literary History, 2005, 36: 71–82 |
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14 | 24 Nov | Week off for Thanksgiving | ||
15 | 1 Dec | Concluding Discussion: DH: Future Prospects | ||
16 | 8 Dec | Final Paper Preparation |
Key:
- CDH: Companion to Digital Humanities (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004). Also available online at http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/ (Assigned Text)
- DLS: Companion to Digital Literary Studies (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008). Also available online at http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companionDLS/