Doing Digital Scholarship offers a self-guided introduction to digital scholarship, designed for digital novices. It allows you to dip a toe into what is a very large field of practice. It starts with the basics, such as securing web server space, preserving data, and improving your search techniques. It then moves forward to explore different methods used for analyzing data, designing digitally-inflected teaching assignments, as well as tips for creating the building blocks required for publishing digital work.
These modules, listed in the right column, are designed to expose you to a variety of digital tools and approaches to scholarship, so that you feel more comfortable participating in conversations about digital scholarship at conferences, unconferences, and at your home institution. Not all of the material presented will be relevant to your current research, but it may be useful to you in the future.
Review the Zotero library filled with readings or browse suggestions for additional professional development opportunities.
This is self-directed. Start at module 1 or module 8, pick and choose from the Topic list to find areas of work that interest you most.
The goal for completing all of the modules is to prepare you to pursue advanced digital training specific to the methodologies most relevant to your work. You will not, however, be an expert in digital methodologies or a master of any one skill. Mastery of any new methodology or developing expertise in any area of scholarly practice takes years.
By immersing yourselves in this series of modules, you should be better prepared to review digital projects for scholarly journals and for colleagues portfolios. By feeling more comfortable reading and exploring digital work in the medium in which it was produced, and to look “under the hood” to see the work involved in data-driven analysis, you will be able to better analyze the content presented and analyzed from your field of expertise.
The Social Science Research Council sponsored the development of these modules together with the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.