SENATE COMMITTEE ON CURRICULAR AFFAIRS
COURSE SUBMISSION AND CONSULTATION FORM
Principal Faculty Member Proposing Course: Aaron Mauro
College: BEHREND COLLEGE
Department or Instructional Area: HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
College/Academic Unit With Curriculum Responsibility: BEHREND COLLEGE
Type of Proposal: Add
Type of Review: Full
(See Guide to Curricular Procedure for definitions of a full or expedited review.)
Course Designation: (DIGIT 110) Text Encoding Fundamentals
Special categories for Undergraduate (001-499) courses
Current listings for existing courses are in bold type. Proposed changes are indicated by the checkboxes.
Proposed Bulletin Listing
Abbreviation
: DIGIT
Number
110
Title
: Text Encoding Fundamentals
Abbreviated Title
: TextEncoding
Credits
: Min: 3 Max: 3
Repeatable
: No
: DIGIT 110 teaches students standardized encoding techniques for archival quality data
creation, storage, and analysis.
Prerequisites
:
Concurrent Courses :
Cross Listings
:
Does this Course have a Travel Component: No
Description
Course Outline
A brief outline or overview of the course content
Computation has fundamentally changed the nature of research in the humanities. The humanities are becoming
increasingly data-driven but the data produced from digitization efforts of literary and historical documents must
adhere to rigorous standards. DIGIT 110 teaches students standardized encoding techniques for archival quality
data creation, storage, and analysis. Students will learn how to format literary and/or historical data according to
the norms of the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the Text
Encoding Initiative (TEI). This class is a skills intensive and collaborative learning opportunity for students to build
technical ability in a team setting. In addition to instructor led technical and theoretical instruction, students will
learn collaborative document development skills specifically tailored to a humanities context such as version
control and project planning. Students will learn how to digitize, manage, and query literary or historical texts, for
example, with the XML/TEI guidelines to produce high quality data driven documents with semantic—human
readable—markup. They will develop encoding ontologies that prescribe how large groups of humanists can
collaborate on a single text encoding project. The content of the course will vary with the expertise of the instructor
and the archival, literary, or historical resources available to individual campuses. Students will also use XSLT
(EXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) to format and present their data on the web as well as XQuery
and XPath to parse and analyze their documents. The methods taught will evolve in parallel with the best practices
of the digital humanities and technical resources of each campus in which it is taught. Students will work to
collaborate and troubleshoot technical problems in groups and learn to access web based forums and communities
to solve real world development problems. They will learn to understand the role of the Resource Description
Framework (RDF) and how it shapes a vision of a semantic web of linked data. Through a theoretical framing of
computation in a humanities context, students will be tasked with envisioning and proposing solutions to the kinds
of interpretations that encoding demands. Historical and literary issues related to race, class, and/or gender will
inspire technological solutions to the limits of the TEI guidelines and cultural biases alike.
A listing of the major topics to be covered with an approximate length of time allotted for their discussion
Data Curation for Humanists
Course Overview
-Historical study of literary and historical information storage
-Study examples of data types in humanities contexts
-Theory and practice of data curation, storage, and retrieval
-Evolution and purpose of the W3C and the TEI
-Access development forums and communities
-Encoding Method and Planning
-Humanities literary data analysis
-Evaluation and development of encoding ontologies
-Future proofing semantically encoded data and anticipating future debates
DH Practice and Web Based Tool Use
-XML/TEI encoding
-XSLT
-XQuery/XPath
-web hosting and file transfer protocols
Critical Assessment of Encoded Texts
-Reflection on Successes and Failures
-Peer evaluation of encoded projects
-Merge encoded texts and edit web anthology
Course Timeline:
Week One—What is XML?
History of markup
How XML can be used?
Week Two—Welcome to Oxygen
XML Document Style
Structure and Human Readability
Week Three—XML Declarations and Elements
Week Four—XML Attributes and Syntax
Week Five—An introduction to class source texts
DTD—Document Type Definition
Valid XML Documents
Internal/External DTD
Week Six—Basics of Mark-up with source texts:
XML Entities
Parameter and character entities
Week Seven—Displaying XML Documents
HTML and XML
Introduction to CSS in XML
Week Eight—XML Namespaces
Namespace syntax
Declaring namespaces
Week Nine—XPath
functions and operators
predicates
Week Ten—XQuery
Week Eleven—XQuery: Interpreting Results
Week Twelve—XML Transforms
XSLT
Week Thirteen—XSLT, CSS, and JavaScript
Week Fourteen—TEI Ontologies
Week Fifteen—Publishing and Archiving
Long Course Description:
A succinct stand-alone course description (up to 400 words) to be made available to students through the on-line Bulletin
and Schedule of Courses.
The World Wide Web has radically changed the way we research and store literary and historical information. The
technical standards and specifications used to power mass communication over the Internet are also driving the
need to digitize texts for use on the web by researchers all over the world. DIGIT 110 will allow you to create
archival quality data and style it for use on the web. Students will interpret poems, fiction, and historical documents
by encoding archival, literary, or historical information into usable data formats. They will use industry standard
technologies to encode and understand literary and historical documents. For example, students could learn to
encode texts with Extensible Markup Language (XML) by following the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)
guidelines.Intended for students who have completed DIGIT 100, this course will build upon previous tool based
digital humanities practice by allowing students to propose encoding projects and complete them during class time.
Because of the methodological orientation of the course, our readings will be derived from online community
forums for other developers and programmers. Additionally, some readings will be generated by the class as we
identify the most current resources online. Therefore, this class will occur in a lab environment and will encourage
collaboration between students to complete these complex tasks. Despite the technical context of our explorations of
humanities texts, the only technical requirement for the course is a keen curiosity and a willingness to work
diligently to solve technical problems.
The name(s) of the faculty member(s) responsible for the development of the course
Aaron Mauro
Justification Statement
Instructional, Educational, and Course Objectives
Course Objectives:
This course is a practical and skills based extension of the theoretical and cultural training in DIGIT 100. This
course will teach students how to encode textual information into XML using the W3C and TEI standards.
Students will complete small encoding projects that can be used to answer and complement humanities based
questions and critiques.
Instructional goals and educational objectives include:
1) Goal: To teach XML/TEI encoding standards
Educational objectives: Students should be able to…
-have a firm basis in data curation methods and best practices.
-use XML and XSLT in conjunction with a rigorous critical engagement with literary or historical texts.
-use appropriate technical terms to describe humanities problems.
-find and evaluate development community forums and resources.
-understand the context of technological development of DH.
2) Goal: To encourage students to envision and plan encoding projects
Educational objectives: Students should be able to...
-analyze political and cultural problems of TEI markup and propose additions to the specification.
-understand the difference between procedural and descriptive markup.
-understand the relationship between syntactic correctness and document type definitions.
-understand the need for data independence from hardware or software systems.
3) Goal: To prepare students to contribute meaningfully to the digital humanities discourse
Learning objectives: Students should be able to...
-plan, outline, draft, revise, and edit a small encoding project.
-write a purposeful essay on their use of technology.
-discuss technology with sophisticated, appropriate, and persuasive language.
Evaluation Methods
1) Ongoing Blog Posts:
Each week, students will write a short post to the class blog about a reading or project that they find interesting or
useful. Their posts may be as long they like, but a substantial contribution will likely be 100 to 200 words in length.
They may also consider including links or other content to share with the class.
2) Response Blog Post:
Students are required to respond to a classmate’s blog post once during the semester. They must respond with
academic professionalism, critical insight, encouragement, and support. This is a forum for you to commiserate,
congratulate, and postulate. They may answer questions that have been asked or you may ask questions that need
asking. The instructor will moderate or interject if needed. Students may comment on other comments.
3) Attendance and Participation:
This class is designed to give students the opportunity to develop a robust set of interpretive and technical skills
through encoding texts. We will place an emphasis on XML/TEI for cultural critique and data curation, but we will
also place an emphasis on collaboration between students. Students are expected to attend class, to be on time, and
to be ready to engage with class material. Because this is a skills based class, attendance will form a portion of your
overall grade, and daily quizzes will require you to submit validated encoded texts.
4) Encoding Proposal:
Students will propose a digitization project by accounting for its purpose, method, feasibility, and proposed
outcomes. They will select a text and propose an encoding ontology to answer a research question.
5) Encoding Project:
Large projects can be completed independently or in groups. Each group will consult with the instructor in person
on an ongoing basis to discuss the breadth and direction of their project. The size and scope of their project will be
proportional to the number of members in your group. Those working in groups must also submit a short email
detailing your experiences in the group. These comments are private and are meant to offer a space to reflect on
your collaborative experience. Their final assignment will be submitted in the form of encoded XML and XSLT
files. Students must also include a "README" file describing the outcomes of their project. All code will be
validated according to current standards and in-line commenting will be assessed for clarity and accuracy.
Relationship/Linkage of Course to Other Courses
DIGIT 110 is the encoding skills and data curation based extension of DIGIT 100. Students will learn the practical
and methodological basis of digital humanities research. They will extend their knowledge of HTML markup
through rigorous attention to XML and TEI standards. DIGIT 110 will teach students how to handle literary data
through the processes and standards of the semantic web and structured textual data. By contrast and extension,
DIGIT 210 offers students algorithmic methods of accessing and querying unstructured data through
programming languages, libraries, and software packages.
Relationship of Course to Major, Option, Minor, or General Education
DIGIT 110 instructs students in a central practice within the digital humanities. XML/TEI has been a technique for
digitizing, storing, and querying literary information since the inception of the field. Any graduate of a humanities
program with a digital focus will be expected to have experience with XML/TEI. Additionally, this is a near
ubiquitous data type used in software development, data storage, and data retrieval and promises to serve students
well beyond academic research interests.
A description of any special facilities
Multi-user Computer Lab
Frequency of Offering and Enrollment
Annually
Effective Date: Fall 2015
Consultation Summary/Response:
This final note describes to the ways we have addressed the non-concur votes in the consultation process.
1) As Lynette Kvasny mentions in her comment, she expressed that we felt unqualified to assess this class. She requested
to be removed from the consultation process, but the CSCS system does not allow for this to occur once the review
process has begun.
2) Scott Bennett expressed several concerns in his comments. I addressed each of his concerns in my response, and I
updated the proposals to include a course content completion timeline. The timeline can be found in section B.2 above.
Formal Consultation
Name:
Position:
Lynette Kvasny
Formal Consultant
Department: INFO SCIENCES & TECH
Campus:
UNIVERSITY PARK
CAMPUS
Title:
ASSOC PROF OF IST
Concur:No, This Proposal Needs Significant Changes
(1)
Comments: I do not have the expertise to evaluate this course, and would like to abstain from reviewing.
Please remove me as a reviewer.
Reviewed On: 9/9/2014 12:50:00 PM
Response: On 9/16/2014 4:04:47 PM Aaron Mauro Responded: Dear Lynette, No problem. Thank you for your time
thus far. We are working to have you taken out of the system for these courses. All best, Aaron
Name:
Position:
Rod Troester
Formal Consultant
Title:
associate professor
Concur:Yes
Comments:
Reviewed On: 9/11/2014 10:46:00 AM
(2)
Department: DIV HUMAN & SOC SCI
Campus:
PENN STATE ERIE, THE
BEHREND COLLEGE
Name:
Position:
Scott Bennett
Formal Consultant
Title:
Distinguished Professor OF POL SCIENCE
Concur:No, This Proposal Needs Significant Changes
Comments: -- There is no time allotment for the different parts of the course. I cannot tell if the content and
volume of material is appropriate for a semester course.
(3)
Department: POLITICAL SCIENCE
Campus:
UNIVERSITY PARK
CAMPUS
-- Like some other courses, I do not understand the titling and focus of this (primarily) technical course. As
written, it could be computer science or a libraries course. I see little humanities content; the couple of brief
sentences about biases in the standard are not incorporated in the course outline. It is unclear if this should be
just a technical course (oriented towards humanities majors?) and presented as such, or if it is really
humanities in content. Perhaps information about how this and other courses fit in a sequence or with a major
more specifically would help. I have trouble understanding this as a single course.
-- More detail of the outline should be provided, with time, and a clearer link between the technical content
and why it is a humanities course in the outline or assignments would help clarify the course.
Reviewed On: 9/17/2014 11:37:00 AM
Response: On 9/21/2014 1:12:49 PM Aaron Mauro Responded: Dear Scott, Thank you for your comment. Let me take
the opportunity to offer some additional material for you to consider. Naturally, my hope is that you’ll revise
your non-concur of our major program. I'll list my response to your concerns below. If you have any questions,
please feel free to email me directly (mauro@psu.edu) or call my office line (814-898-6394). 1) How can we
be sure there is enough time?: This course has been modeled on several long running programs in the digital
humanities community. I have several years experience working with the Digital Humanities Summer
Institute. It is the longest running DH training center in the world and has had a transformative influence on
the field. You can find the website and course descriptions here: http://dhsi.org/courses.php. I suggest you
look through the "Text Encoding Fundamentals and their Application” and the "Fundamentals of
Programming/Coding for Human(s|ists).” The form and timing of these courses (and courses like them taught
all over the world) has been well calibrated. 2) Why are humanists teaching methodologically focused
courses?: The digital humanities has always been methodologically focused. Simply because there is
methodological overlap with other disciplines (i.e.: Computer Science), does not preclude the use of
computation in the humanities. Computational methods must be taught in a humanities context because the
problems solved with these tools is very different than Computer Science, Physics, or Mathmatics. Simply put,
the way we approach problems and find solutions requires humanistic expertise, and the most competent
programmer/encoder cannot answer questions in the humanities without robust training in humanistic critique.
While it is true that the humanities has long been invested in the practice of close reading and critical writing,
the humanities makes no claim upon them as methodological practices within the university and acknowledges
that other disciplines have specific use cases for reading and writing. The artificial divisions between technical
fields and fields with soft skills (like cultural critique) are precisely discursive divisions we hope to break
down. As an example of how this is functioning today, I will list several examples of successful classes below.
3) Shouldn't the title include "the humanities" somewhere?: If you should require examples of other courses
taught by leaders in the field, I would recommend you look to Stephen Ramsay's "Digital Humanities:
Development and Design" at UNL: http://jetson.unl.edu/syllabi/2014/fall/dh/index.html. Ramsay's course is an
excellent model for the kind of work we will be doing in DIGIT210. You may also wish to consult Laura
Mandell's excellent TEI/XSLT course at TAMU. You can find the link here:
http://idhmc.tamu.edu/chat/programming4HUManists/XSLTClassSchedule.html. You'll see that her course,
which is one of the first of its kind, is indeed called Programming for Humanists. As has been common in the
field, many have given nods to Dr. Mandell for her pioneering work. I included the reference out of respect
and a sense of honoring our discursive legacy. While I appreciate that the title of the course can be cause for
concern, its place within the School of Humanities and Social Science will distinguish it from overlapping
courses in CS. In all honesty, adding "for humanists" to the title seemed redundant, but it may prove necessary
to respect a more conservative definition of the faculties. 4) Why is the course lacking detailed description of
content?: Like all courses in the humanities, the actual selection of texts is largely dependent on the instructor.
Realistically, any moderately sized corpus would suffice for students to encode in TEI or analyze with
computational methods. An instructor may have an interest in the journalistic output after the 9/11 attacks, the
letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, or the Shakespeare's later romances. In any case, the methodological basis of
their research would remain fairly similar. The questions asked would vary depending on the particular
instructor's expertise. While TEI has a more rigid schema, the ontologies (that is the plan by which researchers
mark up the text) could vary a great deal. An emphasis on gender may be appropriate for a study of
Shakespeare, whereas an emphasis on tagging vocabulary relating to racial profiling and political jargon may
be important with regard to the journalistic output after 9/11. As I hope you can see, an overly prescript course
description may limit the natural breadth and interdisciplinarity of these courses. Finally, Scott, I want to
welcome your comments on my responses. The digital humanities is a field that contains multitudes. There are
multitudes of methods, and multitudes of research topics. I suspect it is so widely misunderstood because it is
simply so variable. At its heart, however, is a simple and unyielding desire to leverage computational tools to
answer humanistic questions. As I mentioned at the opening of this response, please feel free to email me
directly (mauro@psu.edu) or call my office line (814-898-6394). Kind regards, Aaron
Name:
Position:
Mary Beth Rosson
Formal Consultant
Title:
PROFESSOR AND ASSOC DEAN INFO SCI & TEC
Concur:Yes
Comments:
Reviewed On: 9/22/2014 11:17:00 AM
(4)
Department: INFO SCIENCES & TECH
Campus:
UNIVERSITY PARK
CAMPUS
Name:
Christopher Long
Position:
Formal Consultant
Title:
ASSOC DEAN FOR GR and UG Education
Concur:Yes
Comments: (Approved By Default - Exceeded Two Week Time Limit)
Reviewed On: 9/24/2014 2:50:00 AM
(5)
Department: LIBERAL ARTS
ADMINISTRATION
Campus:
UNIVERSITY PARK
CAMPUS
Name:
Position:
Graeme Sullivan
Formal Consultant
Title:
DIRECTOR
Concur:Yes
Comments: (Approved By Default - Exceeded Two Week Time Limit)
Reviewed On: 9/24/2014 2:50:00 AM
(6)
Department: SCHOOL OF VISUAL ART
Campus:
UNIVERSITY PARK
CAMPUS
Name:
Position:
Maura Shea
Formal Consultant
Title:
Assoc. Dept Head, F-V & MS
Concur:Yes
Comments: (Approved By Default - Exceeded Two Week Time Limit)
Reviewed On: 9/24/2014 2:50:00 AM
(7)
Name:
Position:
Title:
(8)
Mariel O Harden
Formal Consultant
Department: FILM/VIDEO
Campus:
UNIVERSITY PARK
CAMPUS
Department:
Campus:
Concur:Yes
Comments: (Approved By Default - Exceeded Two Week Time Limit)
Reviewed On: 9/24/2014 2:50:00 AM
Name:
Meng Su
Position:
Formal Consultant
Department: THE SCHOOL OF
ENGINEERING
Campus:
BEHREND
Title:
(9)
ASSOC PROF CMPSC/SFTW EN
Concur:Yes
Comments: (Approved By Default - Exceeded Two Week Time Limit)
Reviewed On: 9/24/2014 2:50:00 AM
Name:
Position:
Matthew Jackson
Formal Consultant
Title:
ASSOC PROF DEP HD TELECOM
Concur:Yes
Comments: (Approved By Default - Exceeded Two Week Time Limit)
Reviewed On: 9/24/2014 2:50:00 AM
(10)
Department: COMMUNICATIONS
Campus:
UNIVERSITY PARK
CAMPUS
Name:
Position:
Robert Speel
Formal Consultant
Title:
ASSOC PROF POL SCI
Concur:Yes
Comments: (Approved By Default - Exceeded Two Week Time Limit)
Reviewed On: 9/24/2014 2:50:00 AM
(11)
Department: DIV HUMAN & SOC SCI
Campus:
PENN STATE ERIE, THE
BEHREND COLLEGE
Name:
Position:
Rob Speel
Per Request of College Administrator
Title:
ASSOC PROF POL SCI
Concur:Yes
Comments: The School of Humanities and Social Sciences Academic Program and Policy Committee
recommended some revisions to an earlier version of this proposal, and the recommended revisions have been
made. The Committee unanimously approves this proposal.
Reviewed On: 11/12/2014 12:31:00 AM
(12)
Department: DIV HUMAN & SOC SCI
Campus:
PENN STATE ERIE, THE
BEHREND COLLEGE
Required Signatories
Name:
Position:
Title:
Steven Hicks
Head of Department
(Not Available)
Concur:Not Yet Reviewed
Comments: Not Yet Reviewed
Reviewed On: Not Yet Reviewed
Department: (Not Available)
Campus:
(Not Available)
Name:
Position:
Title:
Rodney Troester
College Representative
(Not Available)
Concur:Not Yet Reviewed
Comments: Not Yet Reviewed
Reviewed On: Not Yet Reviewed
Department: (Not Available)
Campus:
(Not Available)
Name:
Position:
Title:
Dawn Blasko
Dean of the College
(Not Available)
Concur:Not Yet Reviewed
Comments: Not Yet Reviewed
Reviewed On: Not Yet Reviewed
Department: (Not Available)
Campus:
(Not Available)
Name:
Position:
Title:
[Name Not Specified]
Faculty Senate
(Not Available)
Concur:Not Yet Reviewed
Comments: Not Yet Reviewed
Reviewed On: Not Yet Reviewed
Department: (Not Available)
Campus:
(Not Available)
Concur:Not Yet Reviewed
Comments: Not Yet Reviewed
Reviewed On: Not Yet Reviewed
Bluebook Number:
Approval Date:
ProposalID: 19801
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