Digital Humanities Audit

Completed by Josephine Geiger-Lee

Introduction

Conducted over June 8th to June 17th, 2026, this audit intends to:

1. Find comparable digital humanities projects.

2. Analyze the digital humanities’ website design. 

3. Analyze the digital humanities’ intended audience.

The findings of these three components will then guide suggestions for Brontëgram (BG), as well as locate areas for potential growth. 

1. Overview of Comparable Digital Humanities Projects

Found through Reviews in Digital Humanities, I selected Project Twitter Literature (TwitLit), Digital Humanists’ Orlando Furioso, Archival Gossip, the Hajj Trail, Literature in Context, and Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom as starting points. Further explanations accompany each one’s brief synopsis. 

1a. Project Twitter Literature (TwitLit)

Project Twitter Literature (TwitLit) is a “[d]igital [h]umanities project that seeks to study, visualize, and preserve the global writing community developing on Twitter.” Similar to BG, TwitLit works with social media and appears to be primarily run and maintained by one scholar. Over the course of its life, TwitLit employed three different undergraduate students.

In terms of comparison, the similar staffing gives an achievable layout for the website. However, since TwitLit focuses more on data aggregation, some sections of the website would need to be modified or re-conceptualized if used to understand BG better.

The review, conducted by Christina Boyles, gives a concise overview of the project and identifies potential problems in privacy and surveillance issues. BG will not generate these problems.

Link to DH Review: https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/project-twitter-literature/release/1 

Link to Website: https://twitlit.github.io/index.html 

1b. Digital Humanists’ Orlando Furioso

Digital Humanists’ Orlando Furioso is a Google site dedicated to the work of one undergraduate seminar (a 3000-level course cross-listed between Digital & Computational Studies and Italian Studies at Bowdoin College). This comprehensive website intends to leverage data in close-reading and textual analysis. After discussing several computational tools used—Constellate, Gephi, R, and Voyate—the class chose to focus on one specific passage in the epic poem Orlando Furioso and break it down across various essays.

In terms of comparison, this project also uses Google sites and the work of undergraduate students. However, this site has a broad goal with a broad base (combining studies such as literature, Italian language, computational study, statistics, anthropology, and more) while BG has a narrow focus.

In the review conducted by Caterina Agostini, Agostini specifically declares “[t]he project serves as a replicable model for digitally included users while confirming the value of experiential learning in the humanities.” Something noted is the importance of the rationale—throughout the process, the team behind Digital Humanists’ Orlando Furioso continued to explain why and how they created the website.

Link to DH Review: https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/digital-humanists-orlando-furioso/release/1 

Link to Website: https://sites.google.com/bowdoin.edu/digital-furioso/home 

1c. Archival Gossip

Archival Gossip aims to dissect and analyze late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century gossip through a variety of mediums (such as letters, magazines, and more). The site then endeavors to show how gossip becomes a “prime commodity” and demonstrate the financial stakes for women. The site takes two distinct approaches to breaking down their research. The first is an archival collection scholarly-minded audience members can use. The second approach—and, perhaps, the more important approach as it is located higher in the menu—is a blog that is meant to give short-form discussion of the matter. 

Similar to BG, both sites concern the nineteenth-century and maintain a strong slant toward a more public-facing audience. However, Archival Gossip prioritizes its archive and does not appear to include undergraduate student work, and pedagogy is not a primary concern.

Of note in the review conducted by Molly Mann, Archival Gossip gives “more interactive ways” users can use the site. The interactive ways noted are thematic timelines and maps. Mann’s interest in those two features show that they believe primary lines of inquiry are “when” and “where”. Mann also views the engagement with the primary audience through the blog. The blog, again, might not be applicable to the project, but the specific titling of the blog posts may be of interest, as they carry a certain level of “click-bait” such as “The Euphemism Challenge: A (growing) list of the best, worse, and—quite frankly—weirdest descriptions of Cushman’s relationships (with friends as well as lovers).”

Link to DH Review: https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/archivalgossip/release/3 

Link to Website: https://www.archivalgossip.com/ 

1d. The Hajj Trail

The Hajj Trail’s main goal is to house the video game of the same name. The educational historical simulation is similar to The Oregon Trail, and the game wants to illustrate the pilgrimage to Mecca during the early modern period. This then decenters the Eurocentrism of the early modern period while simultaneously introducing students to various obstacles and opportunities along the journey. 

Of the sites listed in this audit, it is perhaps the simplest in website design, but it is specifically meant as a pedagogical tool. Along with the game, it includes “suggested assignments” and veers away from any language that would make it appear too scholarly. For BG, it shows one way a website can become a pedagogical tool, both for students who would visit the site and for instructors who may want to incorporate or replicate BS.

Merve Tekgürler’s review centers on praise and then calls for expansion. It specifically highlights that “the project increases students’ engagement with Ottoman history… Broadly speaking, The Hajj Trail also demonstrates how historians can communicate their research to a wider public audience.” While BG does not center research, it ultimately communicates the nineteenth-century in new ways.

Link to DH Review: https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/hajj-trail/release/1 

Link to Website: https://hajjtrail.com/ 

1e. Literature in Context

Literature in Context endeavors to create a database with accessible, digital texts used in college classrooms. With the help of faculty and students, each text gets interactive tools such as annotation or the ability to pull up facsimile pages. At the time of the review (February 14th, 2022), they developed more than 80 teaching editions.

In terms of comparison, the site aims to be a pedagogical tool as well as exist alongside classical, canonical texts. Since those are goals of BG, some of Literature in Context’s insights may prove valuable. However, its emphasis on the database diverges from BG’s goals. 

Reviewed by Mattie Burkert, the review praises the site for its accessibility and various possibilities for classroom integration. The site specifically selected frequently taught authors (such as Aphra Behn, Phyllis Wheatley, and more) while also letting instructors assemble “coursepacks.” However, the ultimate critique of the project is the need to be more inclusive. Burkert asks that “LiC should prioritize incorporating more Indigenous and Caribbean voices and continue growing the collection’s strengths in women’s literature and Black diasporic writing.”

Link to DH Review: https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/literature-in-context/release/4 

Link to Website: https://anthology.lib.virginia.edu/index.html 

1f. Undisciplining The Victorian Classroom

Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom is a pedagogically-focused website that teaches Victorian studies in an “undisciplined” way. Through Zoomcasts, lesson plans, syllabi, and assignments, the site provides models to integrate into the classroom. 

For comparison, Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom gives a model for pedagogically-minded projects. 

The review of this project, Roopika Risam, raises two important points for BG. Praised throughout the review, Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom places accessibility as a core user feature. This includes closed-captions, alt-image descriptions, and transcriptions given. While BG does not necessarily need a video component (although one project does take video form), creating alt-image descriptions could enhance BG’s accessibility. Finally, Risam critiques the project for its confusing navigation. While those navigational insights are unique to Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom, the need for clarity is something to keep in mind moving forward.

Link to DH Review: https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/undisciplining-victorian-classroom/release/4 

Link to Website: https://undiscipliningvc.org/index.html 

2. Components of Website Design

2a. Home Page Analysis

Key: TwitLit (TL); Digital Humanists' Orlando Furioso (DHOF); Archival Gossip (AG); The Hajj Trail (HJ); Literature in Context (LiC); Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom (UVC)

Other details of note include:

• 2 sites (DHOF, UVC) include a citation of the site.

• Most sites used buttons for navigation, rather than hyperlinks or relying on the menu.

2b. Menu Analysis

2c. Unique Pages/Features

Of TwitLit

TwitLit's "About the Project" page, notably, lays out 4 goals:

Here, I think it could be useful for BG to establish a similar page, regardless of audience, with its main goals. That way, it addresses several key “why” questions: Why would an instructor (faculty or graduate) take this approach? What might an undergraduate student take out of this project? This could be separate from the essay, while recycling the content from the essay into digestible bullet points. This would also allow the goals to be stated in various locations, multiple times.

Of Digital Humanists’ Orlando Furioso

Based on the comments left in the Digital Humanities Review, part of the appeal of DHOF is its emphasis on process. Within the page “DH Tools & Methods”, the project itself acknowledges the importance of iteration. Since BG will be a reiterative process due to different classes doing the assignment, if the assignment sheet continues to be updated for this specific project (or not!), it may be an opportunity to better highlight the instructor’s process with this digital humanities project. 

Of Archival Gossip

Similar to TwitLit, Archival Gossip includes a brief section addressing its research questions. While it is more subtle than TwitLit, it still raises the possibility of using questions:

Of Hajj Trail

The Hajj Trail dedicates one of its five tabs to “Suggested Assignments.” Further rendering the site as a pedagogical tool, the suggested assignments gives instructors a way to fold this assignment into a larger syllabus (with specific language) as well as additional resources to better contextualize the project. For BG, there could be two distinct possibilities for a similar page: either one that shows how to fold in BG specifically in a syllabus that includes reading Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights; or one that shows how to make a similar social platforming profile to better engage students.

Of Literature in Context

Of special interest is Literature in Context’s “For Teachers & Students” tab. Since it is a pedagogically minded project, placing that on the menu articulates that clearly. Within the menu, there are three sections.

The custom coursepacks place several annotated editions into a collection, making it easier to teach. Assignment samples specifically include language of how to incorporate the project into a syllabus. While Literature in Context encourages outside users to join the project, or add annotations, adding specific language allows for the replication within a syllabus. Again, depending on BG’s ultimate goal, it can either have language on how to investigate the site on a syllabus or create a similar project.

Of Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom

For each of Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom’s subpages, there is a short overview (the average word count being 62 words; the average character count being 422 characters) introducing the section. BG could replicate this style with each of the semesters.

3. DH’s Audience and What Addresses that Audience

3a. TwitLit’s Audience

From the Digital Humanities Review, “the intellectual content of Project TwitLit is relevant to scholars of contemporary Anglophone literature, while the tools developed as part of the project are more broadly applicable to those working in the fields of new media and digital humanities.” I would affirm the audience of fellow academics. When considering fellow academics, TwitLit explicitly states its first goal as “[t]he development of tools and detailed instructions to help humanities-focused scholars with Twitter-scraping for academic purposes.” These detailed instructions assume complete unfamiliarity with the tools, such as the “How to Use Python” beginning with instructions on how to download. The project lead—Christian Howard-Sukhil—also includes detailed explanations behind each step of the process, making TwitLit a potential model for similar projects that may employ Twitter. 

However, I would include the audience of undergraduate students. For that particular audience, the writing from the students through the blog post seems directed more at peers than people in other academic positions. The first two blog posts are cross-posted on DH@Bucknell, which is only available to those at Bucknell, and uses informal language like “awesome”. All three students highlight how this project relates to their own academic experience and how it aided them as scholars, but it does not tend to get very specific. Throughout the site, TwitLit tends to write more informally, making their content accessible for an undergraduate student. 

3b. Digital Humanists’ Orlando Furioso

From the Digital Humanities Review, “the anticipated audience includes students, specialists of the poem, and instructors interested in conducting this kind of work.” The pedagogical value of the site is reiterated through certain features: the inclusive plural “we” demonstrates it is a class project with a collective voice while the site itself flows as a timeline of the development of the project. Because of this, it reads like a research essay with the expectation one reads through each individual section to reach the end. 

Due to the closeness of this narrative, the site has the audience of the institution itself. In the final section—“Contextualizing the Moon”—the project concludes that “Good results point to more questions like these rather than definitive answers.” The open-ended nature of the inquiry does not point out any specific results. This, and several requests for further funding to create classrooms such as this one, would serve well in a grant.

3c. Archival Gossip’s Audience

As per the Digital Humanities review, “the website addresses scholars who are interested in the project’s digital objects, metadata, or archival research methods, as well as non-professional users searching for information about Charlotte Cushman and other 19th-century historical agents who were part of Cushman’s circles: actors, sculptors, and editors, among others.” I would agree with that assessment of the audience on all accounts. The site prioritizes scholars (the secondary title, which is often hidden, is “A scholarly take on Nineteenth Century Tattletales), its menu includes information about the conference, and the collection might be difficult to navigate if this was your first experience. Still, it has a strong public-facing appearance. From its opening page being a simple question “Why gossip?”, to the repeated callout to the blog that includes more informal writings, it bridges the gap between scholars and non-scholars.

3d. The Hajj Trail

As per the Digital Humanities review, “the audience for The Hajj Trail is primarily undergraduate and high school students for use in world history, Middle Eastern history, and Ottoman history courses.” I would agree that the home page (and the majority of the website’s content) is dedicated to those students. After all, folded into that home page is the beta of the video game, which includes its own tutorial. It then accomplishes its goal of teaching students if students simply engage with that front page. However, undeniably, another audience is instructors seeking to fold in this content. On other pages, the creators offer a bibliography and a sample assignment sheet that uses the game as a tool. Both of those things could be replicated by BG. 

3e. Literature in Context

As per the Digital Humanities review, “While the primary audience for LiC is secondary- and college-level students… we also aim this project at faculty who work in digital humanities pedagogy and who wish to explore digitization projects with students, as well as faculty who want to develop more agile, responsive, and accessible mini-anthologies suited specifically to course content.” To me, it seems as if the primary audience on the home page would be faculty. The site encourages faculty buy-in through demonstrating numerical value and arguing how it could be better used within the classroom. Additionally, the tab dedicated to teachers and students specifically targets teachers through its assignment sheet. The actual content of the collections are what are aimed toward students, as annotated editions and using digital editions instead of textbooks would serve their purpose.

3f. Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom

While not stated as directly within the DH review, Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom’s primary audience appears to be fellow scholars teaching Victorian studies. Each of the sections offers something to an instructor. Zoomcasts offer insight on developing the plan, and the lesson plans, syllabi, and assignments are all things that can be incorporated directly into the classroom. However, as the review points out, a student could utilize the site to better understand the field’s current discussions or see “behind-the-scenes” for content. 

4. Proposal for BG

Based on this audit, I would make the following recommendations for Bronte Social:

• Throughout the entire website

  • Increase accessibility on the site through alt-image descriptions and embedding the videos from Helen and Rochester. 

  • Include buttons for navigational ease.

  • Develop a new logo that does not use “BS”.

• For the home page:

  • Offer a short description of the project (50-100 words) and place a larger description elsewhere.

  • Include a citation and/or a way to contact the developer on the boilerplate.

  • Retain the lead image. 

  • Rather than relying on the menu, include buttons for navigational ease.

    • Include a button linking someone to Dr. Kwok’s introductory essay, and then buttons leading people to the content of each semester.

  • Consider moving the menu to the top of the page.

• For the menu:

  • Retain the home page tab.

  • Retain the tabs dedicated to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

  • Include an about tab.

  • Include a people tab.

    • Within the people tab, consider including a section about contacting the website’s developers.

  • Consider including a resources tab or an assignment tab.

• For internal pages:

  • If the audience includes instructors, consider adding a syllabus or an assignment tab.

    • If including a syllabus, consider whether or not the syllabus shows how to make a project similar to BG or how to incorporate the perusal of BG within the classroom.

  • Within the Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights tabs, consider writing a short overview of the projects or maintaining the longer description currently on Jane Eyre’s page.