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For Workshop 4: Integrating Digital Humanities Projects into the Undergraduate Curriculum, after we go through one example of integrating a project into a course, we will work in groups to practice this technique. In order for this exercise to work, we need your help. Please add your courses and projects to the wiki. Your group will vote on which project they want to workshop–each group will use a checklist to brainstorm around creating assignments, assembling resources, and integrating digital humanities research into undergraduate courses. If you don’t have a course or project, don’t worry–someone else will. You’ll need to request access to the wiki if you haven’t already. Just follow the wiki link above and click the button for requesting access.

I’m already teaching a workshop on this topic, but I’d love to see a session on the place of undergrads in the digital humanities.  Our workshop, Integrating Digital Humanities Projects into the Undergraduate Curriculum, covers one aspect of that integration, integrating an existing DH project into a class.  But, there are many more issues to discuss.

• How do you train students in digital humanities?
• Which methodologies do you teach and how?
• How can we create a pipeline to graduate school or should we?
• Which texts should you use?

I’m sure we can come up with more questions and some answers, too.

In a recent whitepaper, “Divided and Conquered: How Multivarious Isolation Is Suppressing Digital Humanities Scholarship,” Quinn Dombrowski and I argued that isolation is a major challenge for the digital humanists, especially at the small liberal arts colleges that are members of the NITLE network, at primarily undergraduate institutions, or at other institutions without a digital humanities center.  Isolation is especially problematic since much digital humanities work is collaborative.  How can you effectively engage in digital humanities if you are the only digital humanist on your campus?  I would be interested in a session that discusses how to combat isolation in the digital humanities.

This session might include successful strategies and remaining challenges.  Regional THATCamps like this one help, as does social media.  Currently, we are also working on a project to combat that isolation by developing a project registry to link potential project collaborators.  DHCommons, short for Digital Humanities Commons, seeks to ameliorate the isolation that impacts digital humanists by developing an infrastructure that facilitates both collaboration and awareness of existing digital humanities projects. Although isolation from digital humanist colleagues and information about activities in the field is felt most acutely at smaller or non-research institutions that lack a digital humanities center, even scholars at institutions with well-supported centers may need reliable channels for connecting with potential collaborators beyond their institution, or discovering extramural projects without the resources for extensive outreach efforts. These disconnects between potential collaborators and existing projects result in duplicated effort. Rather than building on one another’s work or combining complimentary resource pools (e.g., skilled student labor on one side, and institutional funding on the other), scholars end up repeating or nearly repeating existing projects or redeveloping existing tools. To address these challenges, DHCommons will build an online project repository that provides faceted searching and browsing, where project leaders can post needs (e.g. technical assistance, beta testing, or content development), and potential collaborators can post their interests and availability. This tool will form the centerpiece of a larger effort to break down silos in the digital humanities community by changing practice.  What silos do you see and how can we break them down?

We look forward to seeing you in a few weeks. For those attending Workshop 4: Integrating Digital Humanities Projects into the Undergraduate Curriculum, here is the agenda:

9:00 am Welcome & Introductions

9:20 am Pedagogy Review and Introduction to Undergraduate Digital Humanities Projects

9:35 am  Case Study: Wheaton College Digital History Project (Kathryn Tomasek)

9:50 am  Exercise 1: Learning Goals (individual)

10:00 am  Break

10:15 am  Exercise 2: Matching Project to Curriculum (group)

10:40 am  Debrief

10:50 am  Exercise 3: Scaffolding & Pacing (group)

11:15 am  Debrief

11:25 am  Dork Shorts (each group shares its course in 2 minutes or less)

11:40 am  Project management (full group workshops one course)

12:00 pm Bye!

If you’re planning to take part in Workshop 4: Integrating Digital Projects into Undergraduate Courses, please join our wiki:  integratingdh.pbworks.com/w/page/40112677/FrontPage

If you’re planning to take part in Workshop 4: Integrating Digital Projects into Undergraduate Courses, take a look at this ProfHacker post by Amy Cavender:

Integrating a Digital Project Into a Class: Deciding on a Project

There are some good comments, as well.  Amy was a participant in the first iteration of this workshop at THATCamp Liberal Arts Colleges in June.

Also, don’t forget to join our wiki:  integratingdh.pbworks.com/w/page/40112677/FrontPage.  You can access readings for the workshop and share assignment ideas in advance in the wiki.

To get access just follow the link above and click on the link to request access.  Once we we grant access you should get another message.  If you don’t hear from us, try contacting me directly at rdavis@nitle.org or via twitter @frostdavis.

If you’re planning to take part in Workshop 4: Integrating Digital Projects into Undergraduate Courses, please join our wiki:  integratingdh.pbworks.com/w/page/40112677/FrontPage

To get access just follow the link above and click on the link to request access.  Once we we grant access you should get another message.  If you don’t hear from us, try contacting me directly at rdavis@nitle.org or via twitter @frostdavis.

You can also access readings for the workshop and share assignment ideas in advance in the wiki.

We suggest you take a look at these readings in advance:

• Blackwell, C., & Martin, T. R. (2009). Technology, Collaboration, and Undergraduate Research. Digital Humanities Quarterly, 3(1). Retrieved from www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/3/1/000024/000024.html
• Cavanagh, S. (2010). Bringing Our Brains to the Humanities: Increasing the Value of Our Classes while Supporting Our Futures. Pedagogy, 10(1), 131-142.  Retrieved from muse.jhu.edu/journals/pedagogy/v010/10.1.cavanagh.html
• You can also the Cavanagh reading in our wiki.  Just click the link and request access.