Intro to Digital Humanities and Social Sciences (SP25)

HUM 230, Spring 2025

Category: Assignments (Page 2 of 3)

Madison Warren – Creating a Digital Identity

January 21, 2025 / / 0 Comments
  1. Make a list of the social media platforms you’re active on.
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Snapchat
  • TikTok

2. Who are you speaking to (or listening to) on each one? What communities are you participating in?

  • In each one, I watch how to videos, like for food or crafting items. For YouTube specifically, I watch those types of videos or gaming channels for laughs. That is also one of the communities that I participate in.

3. What do you share about yourself on each platform? What do you keep private?

  • I usually share about who I am as a person and what I’m interested in doing throughout my life. What I keep private are things like my address, my phone number, family information and so forth.

4. Think about this class as a digital community of colleagues. What information do you want us to know about you?

  • Hello! You can call me by my first name, Madison. I’m from the south suburbs of Chicago. I’m 20 years old in my sophmore year of college. I’m majoring in computer science cybersecurity. My favorite color is blue. My favorite food is shrimp alfredo, but I have other favorites, such as macaroni and cheese, greens, sushi and oysters. I’m sometimes a nerd, who likes to play video games on occasions and watch other people play games. I like to go out and practice bowling or skating if there is time to do so. I was also into playing the violin but stopped playing. I might go back into playing it again sometime in the future. When I was younger, I was on the junior cheerleading team and became homecoming queen at the end. Usually, when people get to know me, they note that I’m quiet in the beginning, and that is because I’m not as comfortable yet as I would be with people I hang out with more often and familiar with. When I become comfortable with people, I start to become myself.

Zach’s Lab

January 15, 2025 / / 0 Comments
  1. List of socials:

    Snapchat

    Instagram

    LinkedIn

    3) Snapchat, I use to keep up to date with my friends as another way of texting. For Instagram I use that to follow different places or local eatery places in Chicago and also to post things about my daily life as a 19-year-old college student. My LinkedIn social is used for connecting with students from SIUE and professional people who are in the same or similar field of work that I want to go into once I graduate. LinkedIn is also good for posting your accomplishments that you have gotten from school or work.

    4) As far as information I want people to know about me is that I am sophomore in college with a study of Public Relations with a minor in sociology. I am from Chicago; IL and I came to SIUE because I was awarded a scholarship that takes care of my tuition and the environment that the school is located in. I’m far enough away from home but not too far which I like. I am a very friendly person and approachable person as well.

    How Did They Make That? Presentation and Paper

    January 13, 2025 / / 0 Comments

    (Adapted from Brian Croxall’s DH Project Evaluation assignment)

    If we’re going to spend the semester conducting research and completing a digital humanities project, it might be useful for us to see some finished projects ahead of time. Looking at examples like this can provide us with inspiration for what we try to do.

    But we can do more than just look: we can do some research and reflection, considering what works and what doesn’t. Asking and answering the same question Miriam Posner poses—“how did they make that?”—will prepare us to be thoughtful about what we want to accomplish as we work on the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy.

    In this assignment, you will do a deep dive into a specific digital humanities project. You will work to understand what questions they seek to answer, how they are organized, and what technologies and methods they use. This assignment has two parts: a presentation and a paper.

    Presentation

    Sign-up sheet

    On the day for which you sign up, you will give us an approximately 5-7-minute presentation on your two projects. You will cover most of the same points that you will write about in your paper (see below). You should plan to walk us through portions of the site to help demonstrate your points. Remember: you’re the expert on this project now, and you’ll be introducing it to us. The bulk of the presentation should be explanatory rather than evaluative, but you can provide your thoughts on the projects as you go. You should conclude the presentation by summarizing what you’ve learned by investigating these two projects.

    This is not something that you should just wing. Feel free to bring in notes or a script and to practice beforehand.

    Written assignment

    Your “How did they make that?” entry should be about 300 words and do your best to address the following:

    • Who made the project?
    • What are the goals of the project?
    • Who is the project’s intended audience(s)?
    • What are the project’s conclusions? In other words, what did the researchers learn after all their hard work?
    • What specific methods and/or technologies does the project employ?
    • How long did the project take from start to finish?
    • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the project?
    • Reflect a little on what the project tells us about our local region. Does it enhance our knowledge with facts you didn’t know before? Does it add nuance or context to things you already knew? Does it gel with your understanding of the region? Does it seem off-base?

    Although I’m asking you to tackle some very specific questions, the paper should not be written in bullet points but instead with paragraphs. 

    Submit your written assignment on the course website at the start of the class on which your present, with the tag “How did they make that.”

    Projects

    Below is a list of projects that you can evaluate. Each project can only be claimed by one person, so when you know what you want to work on, make sure you email me to claim it! I’ll update the list as projects are claimed, both here and on Blackboard. If you find another that you would like to choose instead, please email me first. (In particular, you’ll notice that St. Louis exerts an outsized influence on this list. If you find a digital project about the Metro East, please send it my way!)

    Grading

    Your grade for this project will be based 60% (30 points) on your paper and 40% (20 points) on your presentation.

    Your presentation will be evaluated on its clarity, organization, and your discussion of what you’ve learned.

    Your paper will be graded on how well it meets the requirements outlined above, as well as clarity, organization, attention to detail, and clarity. 

    Project draft (4/14)

    January 9, 2025 / / 0 Comments

    Submit a draft of your final project. This doesn’t need to be the full project! But it should have enough content that I can give you meaningful feedback on the direction of your project.

    At minimum, you should have:

    • A detailed outline (ideally a relatively full draft) of your written content
    • A prototype or partial version of your technical component (enough that we can identify any bugs, technical challenges, or areas where you might want more resources/support for learning the tool); for example:
      • TimelineJS/StoryMapJS: some slides with your content added to them and any customization you want to do
      • A website: multiple pages with navigation and draft content
      • Data visualization: complete data sets and at least a couple different visualizations
    • At least three sources for your bibliography

    Submit your draft as a blog post (linking to external content if necessary) with the tag “Draft.”

    Define digital humanities (4/30)

    January 9, 2025 / / 0 Comments

    Digital humanities is the intersection of technology and the humanities. It involves using digital tools, such as mapping, text analysis, and data visualization, to study and present human culture, history, and literature in new ways. Instead of solely reading texts or studying events, digital humanities enable interaction with information, identification of patterns, and digital research presentation. The skills learned in this class can be applied to make projects in other courses more engaging and interactive. Professionally, digital humanities tools facilitate clear communication of complex ideas that are valuable in fields such as education, media, museums, and others.

    Data set review (due 3/19)

    January 6, 2025 / / 0 Comments

    Sometimes we think of data as something that just exists, that we discover or access. But data sets are shaped by the people who create them, who structure them, and who use them. In order to produce visualizations and analysis that are accurate, critical, and transparent about data sources and bias, we have to evaluate our data sets.

    Choose a data set from the list below and answer the following questions in about 300-400 words total. The first four questions are about the sources of the data. You can answer these relatively briefly. If you can’t find the answers to any of them, note that in your review. The last questions are about how we can or should use it, challenges with the data, and any perceptible biases in it. These will take more reflection and should accordingly make up the bulk of your review. Submit the review as a blog post on the class website by Wednesday, March 19 at 1:30, with the tag “Data review.”

    Data set profile:

    1. Who is credited as the creator and/or contributors of this data set? Who are they?
    2. What are the sources of their data?
    3. Why did they create or compile it?
    4. How has it been used?
    5. What format is the data set in?

    Data set evaluation:

    1. Take a look at the data itself. How have they structured it? What fields have they chosen? What effect might that have on how it can be used?
    2. Read the creators’ description of the data set. Have they described the choices they made in cleaning the data, and if so, how? What effect might those choices have on the data?
    3. Consider the creators’ identities and goals in creating the data set. How might those things have shaped the data, either intentionally or inadvertently?
    4. What would you use this data for?

    Data sets to choose from:

    Average Weekly Hours of All Employees, STL Metro Statistical Area

    Monthly and Seasonal Temperatures, St. Louis (since 1874)

    Washington Park Cemetery North Reinterment Index

    Tombstone Transcription Project (choose a local cemetery that’s been transcribed)

    Illinois Landcover in the Early 1800s

    If you have another data set you’d like to review instead, please check with me (the earlier, the better).

    Problem statement (due 3/5)

    January 6, 2025 / / 0 Comments

    Write a problem statement on your chosen research question (300-450 words). Your research question should relate to an aspect of the St. Louis region’s local history or culture, broadly conceived. Examples from previous semesters include the Metro East’s light rail system in the early 20th century, music venues in St. Louis, and conservation efforts at the St. Louis zoo. You have lots of options! My primary goal — aside from engaging both the humanities and technology — is that you develop a question that you find genuinely interesting. Your problem statement should include:

    • Observation, background, context: Here you might talk about what drew your attention to this topic, what struck you as interesting about it, and/or any important context for the topic.
    • Problem: What problem or question arises from your observation?
    • Frame: How are you approaching that problem? What’s your point of view?
    • Example sources: Provide citations for one primary source (something that is direct evidence for the question you’re asking) and one secondary source (something that uses direct evidence to make an argument) that relate to your research question.
    • Proposed technology: What tool or method do you intend to use in your project? This could be
      • A storytelling tool that you’ll use to share your research about a topic (for instance, an interactive timeline, a storymap, or a website)
      • A tool for data analysis and visualization that you’ll use to formulate an argument (for instance, text analysis, a distribution map, or charts and graphs)
      • A tool, project, or organization that you want to interrogate, to understand its impacts on a local or regional community (for instance, a municipal data platform, a tech-related organization or nonprofit, or a large language model)

    Post your problem statement to the course website as a blog post by the start of class, using the tag “Problem statement.”

    Intro to Digital Humanities Final Project RubricDownload
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