Introduction to Digital Humanities | INF385t, Fall 2011 — iSchool, University of Texas, Austin

Introduction to Digital Humanities | INF385t, Fall 2011 — iSchool, University of Texas, Austin:

Course Description

This course is a hands-on introduction to the burgeoning field of digital humanities. Libraries and archives hold the majority of primary resources from which many disciplines in the humanities draw. As a result, librarians, archivists, and other information professionals have increasingly become the custodians for these artifacts. As well, as collaborations between scholars and libraries increase, these information professionals are the purveyors for the born digital scholarship that result. This course will include a project-based exercise in creating a digital humanities resource. As we look at the concepts, methods, and theories of digital humanities through the perspective of practice, we will consider how computational methods are being used to further humanities research and teaching. In particular, we will concentrate on the conceptual aspects of digitization and representation by determining possible purposes and audiences for the resource, describing and organizing it, and planning how to present those resources based on user needs. While the ideas we engage and the skills we will learn should be applicable to any digital humanities project, we will focus in this course on creating a specific collection of correspondences that will be freely available online.