Module: HIS5125-20 Digital Humanities

Level: 5

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Stephen Gregg

Module Tutor Contact Details: s.gregg@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

Every professional activity involves the use of some form of digital technology, such as creating or curating online collections of information or images, or a requirement to engage with and disseminate knowledge to the public, or to create graphical representations of data. In parallel, the study of humanities subjects has come to depend upon a wide variety of digital resources. Importantly, humanities students and scholars - in the field known as ‘digital humanities’ - are employing digital tools and practices to create new resources, as well as understand and ask questions about their subjects in excitingly new ways.

This module enables you to reflect on how digital technology has transformed and is transforming the study of humanities subjects in the twenty-first century, and aims to form a bridge between your own subject-specific knowledge in humanities, these developments in digital humanities, and future employability. The module depends upon a mixture of critical study and practical training (no previous technical knowledge is required). Through this you will be able to develop a deep knowledge of how historical objects, printed material, images, and oral memory are transformed into digital archives, resources and collections. The module will teach you how to handle all sorts of humanities data (for example, information about objects, people, or texts) and from this to create graphical visualisations. It will also enable you to understand the practice and principles of curating and disseminating humanities knowledge to the wider public (for example, Wikipedia, citizen knowledge, and crowdsourcing).

2.Outline syllabus:

Weeks 1-3: digital transformations (historical objects, cultural memory, printed material).

Weeks 4-6: digital public knowledge (crowdsourcing, wikipedia, citizen knowledge).

Weeks 7-9: Handling humanities data and creating visualisations.

Weeks 10-12: Portfolio activities.

You will also write a reflective learning journal as you go along: this will form some of the scaffolding for your work in the Portfolio assessment.

3.Teaching and learning activities:

Seminars (all- and small-group working), lectures, workshops, journal writing.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: Course Work

• Description: Portfolio

(This represents the combination of tasks selected by the student in consultation with staff on the module. For example, a spreadsheet of data, graphic visualizations, and a critical essay; or a website of curated images, accompanied by an introductory essay and a reflective piece of writing)Portfolio

• % Weighting: 100%