Introduction to Digital Scholarship
This module offers you a true introduction to what digital scholarship and digital projects look like across the social sciences.
Outcomes:
- Increase your understanding of the digital work happening across the social sciences.
- Increase your understanding of how the internet works.
- Learn the basics of scanning a digital project.
Readings
- Christine Wolff, Alisa B. Rod, Roger C. Schonfeld,”Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey 2015” (Ithaka S+R, April 4, 2016): http://dx.doi.org/10.18665/sr.277685 ♦ Estimate Read time = 1 hour
- Christopher Cantwell and Hussein Rashid. “Religion, Media, and the Digital Turn: A Report for the Religion and the Public Sphere Program,” Social Science Research Council, December 2015. http://www.ssrc.org/publications/view/religion-media-and-the-digital-turn/. ♦ Estimate Read time = 1 hour and 10 minutes
- Lisa Spiro, “Defining Digital Social Sciences,” April 9, 2014, dh+lib, http://acrl.ala.org/dh/2014/04/09/defining-digital-social-sciences/ ♦ Estimate Read time = 7 minutes
- Deborah Lupton,“Digital Sociology: An Introduction,” Sydney: University of Sydney, August 3, 2012, https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/8621 ♦ Estimate Read time = 21 minutes
- Ethan Watrall, “Archaeology, the Digital Humanities, and the ‘Big Tent,'” Debates in the Digital Humanities, eds. Matthew Gold and Lauren Klein (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016), http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/79 ♦ Estimate Read time = 11 minutes
- Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web (2005), Introduction, http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/introduction ♦ Estimate Read time = 30 minutes
- Thomas, William. “What Is Digital Scholarship? A Typology.” William G. Thomas III, February 28, 2015. http://railroads.unl.edu/blog/?p=1159 ♦ Estimate Read time = 3 minutes
- Example of Defining and Categorizing Digital History: http://ssrc.doingdh.org/week-1-monday/digital-history-categories-and-projects/
Reading Questions
- In the Ithaka S+R reports, does the state of faculty survey, relative to digital research and analysis ring true to your own experiences?
- How does Spiro flesh out current trends in digital scholarship across social science fields?
- Thinking about the Watrall, Cantwell and Rashid pieces, is there room in the social sciences for digital methodologies to bridge disciplinary boundaries or do they reinforce them?
- In what ways is it useful for a field to define categories of digital work, such as in Thomas’s piece? How does this help or hinder work or the reviews of this work?
- Cohen and Rosenzweig discuss some of the pluses and minuses of doing digital work. Do these characteristics apply to the work currently done in your field?
Resources
- Do you know how the Internet works? Watch this short video to learn about the different systems and agreements that work together to make the World Wide Web live for us to use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5oe63pOhLI&feature=youtu.be
Have a project in mind?
Use the Project Planning section to think concretely about the lessons learned here and throughout the modules.
Digital Project Lens
We will ask periodically that you look and ask questions of existing digital projects to get you more comfortable with learning to “read” them, much like you’ve been trained to skim a book or journal article.
Today, look at Old Weather, https://www.oldweather.org/index.html
- What is the purpose of this project? What are the goals? Who created this project and who is it for? How do you find out? (Hint)
Now that you have scanned Old Weather, take a look at The Trans-atlantic Slave Trade Database, http://www.slavevoyages.org/ and answer the same questions.