I. Project Summary
The Digital Humanities Project brings together teaching staff of the Department of History and
the Center for Teaching and Learning to create and implement a new core instructional
component for Teacher-Advisor Program (TAP) and History Methods (HST 101) courses that will
create a model for the integration of digital humanities methods into humanities courses. This
component focuses on teaching students how to select, analyze, and digitize primary source
materials. The learning outcomes are enhanced student engagement, improved research and
analysis skills, and the development of technological skills. These skills allow students to move
from being consumers to producers of scholarly digital information. Students will work with
documents and digital technologies located in Bailey-Howe Library.
II. Project Narrative
A. Project Description:
The Digital Humanities Project aims to create, implement, and evaluate a new core instructional
component for required first-year Teacher-Advisor Program (TAP) and intermediate-level
History Methods (HST 101) courses. This component will teach digital humanities methods and
explore the potential of these approaches to enhance student engagement through the
selection, analysis, digitization, and creation of a digital collection of primary source materials.
It aims to strengthen UVM’s curricular efforts in providing multiple ways of engagement with,
and expression of, student learning. It will also support the development of the Humanities
Major in the College of Arts and Sciences and a Humanities Concentration in the Honors College
that incorporate digital humanities components
Digital Humanities, is defined as “the use of digital media and technology to advance the full
range of thought and practice in the humanities, from the creation of scholarly resources, to
research on those resources, to the communication of results.” [Dan Cohen, Center for History
and New Media, George Mason University] Digital humanities scholars agree that the
convergent practices of the discipline are not simply a way to use computing technology to
undertake traditional scholarly tasks such as research, analysis, synthesis, and writing, but are
also a way to experiment with new research approaches made possible by new technologies.
Simple information technology literacy skills such as online research, bibliographic
management, and web site creation are currently supported at UVM, albeit selectively.
Providing students with the opportunity to develop more sophisticated digital humanities skills
that can be applied to their scholarly work requires a more integrated, or holistic, approach.
This includes providing course-based opportunities to create digital projects, access to
information on current standards and best practices for digital resource creation, and a
technology infrastructure that provides tools and support for digitization and online delivery.
The first phase of the Digital Humanities Project will begin in the Summer of 2011, with the
identification of an initial selection of primary source materials in consultation with staff of
Special Collections; an evaluation of the technological resources, methods, and learning
outcomes; and the creation of a syllabus.
The second phase will take place in the Fall of 2011 with the integration of the new digital
humanities component into the targeted course, culminating in the creation of an online
collection that adheres to current standards as defined by the digital library community. This
collection will be housed at the CTL’s digital collections server.
Evaluation will take place in the third phase, as both students, the instructors, and other
humanities professors examine the design, implementation, and outcomes of this course and
make suggestions for changes for the future.
B. Statement of Objectives:
The key objectives of this project are to:
a) increase student engagement by providing an avenue for them to experience both the
excitement of working with primary source materials and the opportunity to contribute to
(global? Actual?) scholarly knowledge;
b) strengthen students’ skills in technology, information literacy, and digital humanities
methods;
c) enhance students’ understanding of history as an active [creative, formulating questions,
Melanie HELP!!!!]
b) develop and test an integrated and holistic model for use of digital technologies as part of
primary-source based research, writing and digitizing projects that can be adopted by
professors in other humanities courses; and,
e) expand UVM’s capacity to develop a Humanities Major in the College of Arts and Sciences
and a Humanities Concentration in the Honors College with digital humanities components.
C. Methods and Procedures:
During the Summer of 2011 Professor Melanie Gustafson (History) and Hope Greenberg (CTL)
will work together to identify an initial selection of primary source documents located at UVM’s
Bailey-Howe Library’s Special Collections, set up the technological infrastructure for the course,
and write the syllabus to integrate the new instructional component. The initial syllabus will be
written for Gustafson’s Fall 2011 TAP course, Women’s History. We have chosen American
Women’s History, a TAP course, because Special Collections contains many documents
relevant to this history. The syllabus will emphasize both the purpose and promise of digital
humanities research for students interested in the humanities as well as those thinking of
majors in other fields.
The initial course will be taught during the Fall 2011 semester. Students will be introduced to
key events and individuals in American women’s history. From the beginning of the semester
they will also be introduced to digital humanities research, methodologies, standards and best
practices. This will involve sessions at the Center for Teaching and Learning where they will
learn how scan and digitize primary resource materials to create digital surrogates. Creating
digital surrogates includes not only scanning an image but also selecting and applying
appropriate textual markup to make those images machine readable, applying appropriate
metadata to make them searchable, and designing the online site where they will be delivered.
They will also have one or more sessions at Special Collections where they will be introduced to
working with historical documents and will do the actual scanning.
While the attainment of skills will be the focus of these sessions there will also be an emphasis
on exploring why use of primary sources is important. Students will use these sources as they
learn about cause and effect, change and continuity, turning points, using the past, and
historical perspective. The semester will conclude with oral presentations, and students will be
encouraged to present their work at the annual UVM Student Research Conference. By the end
of the semester, students will have acquired technological skills that enhance their analytical
abilities for humanities research and analysis.
D. Project Evaluation and Outcomes Assessment
Students will be assessed on their ability to develop historical questions, on evidence that they
can analyze those documents in ways that will help them answer those questions, and on their
creation of a robust and standards-based digital resource. This quite tangible result of the
project will be a web-based public collection of digitized primary materials that can be used by
others to contribute to historical scholarship. The project will be assessed on its applicability to
and adoption by other humanities courses. The overall aim is to help students move from being
passive consumers, to active, engaged and informed producers of scholarly information—from
“learning about history” to “thinking like a historian.”
III. Budget
I’ll use the actual form, but essentially the budget will include
- funds for a grad student, with an explanation of what that student will do
- summer development funds for Melanie
- software (OxygenXML licenses, matched by CTL) 10 @ $54 = $540
- hardware (2 scanner purchases, matched by 2 from CTL) Epson Perfection V600 2 @ $200 =
$400
- an indication of matching commitment of CTL staff (me!) and physical space for students to
learn and work (303 and CMD)
Education
University of Vermont, MA History,
State University of New York at Stony Brook, BA Interdisciplinary Humanities