Who supports DH at your institution? An impromptu survey. « Digital Humanities Questions & Answers

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Who supports DH at your institution? An impromptu survey.

(9 posts) (7 voices)

Asked 6 years ago by hopegreenberg
Latest answer from Shane Landrum

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hopegreenberg
Member
In the wake of increasing visibility of the term "digital humanities" in national and discipline-specific press, we might expect that faculty in humanities departments will be intrigued and will want to explore the possibilities of getting involved in DH work. Beyond the online resources, what are the local "on the ground" resources? Some possibilities might be people in the department already working on DH projects, or institution-wide faculty development organizations (Centers for Excellence in Teaching or for Teaching and Learning, etc.), or IT groups that support academic work.

The questions, then, are: to whom at your institution will propsective DH practitioners turn for information and help? What kind of help is available?

(I'f you prefer anonymity I'll also compile all answers I get, names removed, which are sent to me at hope.greenberg@uvm.edu)
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Posted 6 years ago Permalink
Patrick Murray-John

At University of Mary Washington, most DH-oriented work happened in conjunction with the Teaching and Learning Technologies group (that I am part of, at least for another few days). So, here at a teaching-focused university, the tech. knowledge was in the teaching and technology folks. Groups like that are sometimes in IT, sometimes standalone, and sometimes in the library, depending on institution. A bigger, more research-oriented university might have the same expertise in different groups, if there isn't a center to focus it (e.g. Scholars Lab or MITH).

That said, I'm REALLY glad to hear you asking the question. Personally, I worry a bit about the number of DH hires -- and cluster hires -- I see, without seeing hires to provide exactly the kind of support you are talking about. (Or am I imagining things again?)

Posted 6 years ago Permalink
Bethany Nowviskie
Admin

New DH faculty at the University of Virginia have several options, most of which are centered either administratively (like the Scholars' Lab and Digital Media Lab) or physically (like IATH and SHANTI) in the Library -- which is nice, because libraries are neutral, interdisciplinary ground. Some people also make their way to us via ASCIT, an instructional-tech resource group on Grounds -- and many projects wind up getting different sorts of help in different places. Because UVa has had such a long history with the digital humanities, we've also seen groups blossom and then fade. (Examples of this include the Virginia Center for Digital History, SpecLab, and the Teaching + Technology Support Initiative. And sometimes centers are merged, as was the case with the Electronic Text Center, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center, and Research Computing Support Center, which combined to form the Scholars' Lab.)

It's all a collective effort among UVa's DH-oriented labs and centers! A peek at the websites I've linked to above will show you the kinds of support we offer.

And (editorializing here) Patrick is entirely right: it is worrisome to see big DH cluster hires without advertisements for concomitant #alt-ac and developer roles in local centers and libraries.

Posted 6 years ago Permalink
ajgulyas
Member

Late to the party here, sorry! I teach at a large, urban Community College and few of us have ever heard the phrase "digital humanities." Our professional development is limited to endless sessions about Microsoft Office, Gmail/Google Apps, and BlackBoard. Some of us are starting to branch out and do informal, unsupported, and unsanctioned tech sessions where we talk about developing new tools beyond what's officially offered by the IT department, but it's difficult. I'd be curious to see what other two-year schools are doing, if anything, in this realm.

Posted 6 years ago Permalink
Jason Boyd
Member

This is an issue that has been greatly exercising me at my institution. I formed the grass-roots Digital Humanities Collaboratory (http://digitalhumanitiestoronto.wordpress.com/), and recently DiSc, Digital Scholarship (a Drupal Commons site), to find who is doing DH or DScholarship at my institution. My philosophy has been: we should turn to and rely on each other if there's nothing else to rely on. Mobilize!

And I will add to Patrick and Bethany: DH faculty hires without alt-ac and developer roles is very problematic, and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what contributes to the success of DH projects.

Posted 6 years ago Permalink
michellenevada@gmail.com
Member

B"H

A lot of digital humanities stuff, right now, is too heavy on the "digital" and not heavy enough on the "humanities." I think of myself as a techy humanities geek who teaches with a lot of technology (especially compared to my peers), but I am lost when I access these sites. I'm an English professor, not a computer programmer. Do I have to be both?

Can I use easily accessible technology for the benefit of my students and still be considered a digital humanities person?

I use Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress, InSite, Engrade, and even Second Life in my classroom, yet I am lost when I access a website like this. I feel between two worlds. I can only imagine what my less techy peers feel when they think they want to get involved in this movement!

Is there room for me? Is there room for them?

Posted 6 years ago Permalink
Bethany Nowviskie
Admin

Replying to @michellenevada@gmail.com's post:

Hello, Michelle, and welcome to the forum! Without getting into the polemics of digital humanities (definitions, degrees of attention paid by various practitioners -- it's a big field! -- to the technical or interpretive side) or the question you raise of what constitutes a "digital humanities person" (which I think always generates more heat than light), let me refer you to a couple of threads on this site:

What is digital humanities?
How do we introduce undergraduates to the digital humanities?
New to the life of digital humanities - best ways to start getting my feet wet?
and What's the difference between Digital Humanities and New Media?

The overall topic of this particular discussion thread is the landscape of local support for DH (writ large) at individual institutions -- but those supporting groups are almost invariably working with people who take a variety of approaches to the digital humanities -- so I am (as one of our volunteer moderators for the site) going to keep this query where it is, rather than move it to another thread. In ways, it focuses Hope Greenberg's original question nicely: not only "what are we doing?" but "for whom?"

Posted 6 years ago Permalink
hopegreenberg
Member

Thanks Michelle for continuing the questions and Bethany for those links which I had missed earlier.

At the moment I'm trying to write up a "holistic approach to integrating DH into the undergraduate curriculum." (Actually, that title is almost longer than what I have written so far.)

I'm envisioning this as two things: a list or series of increasingly sophisticated ways of using DH methods and technologies, combined with a description of an infrastructure of support. The series begins with what I consider simple IT literacy or pre-DH "consumption and organizing" activities like skilled online research techniques and bibliographic management skills. It continues into the realms reflected in many of the projects that we see being done in the DH world that seem so out of reach to many. The simple things can be built into a course with little help from others (ah yes, the old lone scholar/teacher image). More sophisticated projects need an infrastructure of support that includes: a) people with knowledge (of the tech, of the humanities, and of teaching); b) the tech infrastructure (tools, servers, programming support if needed, etc.); c) inspiration or learning opportunities (workshops, awareness of what's being done in the field); and, d) worker bees (ex; students who can do scanning and markup, etc.).

We've applied for a small instructional incentive grant to help us design the model for use in two classes, then develop it from there. All very nebulous as yet but I hope to have something more concrete soon.

Posted 6 years ago Permalink
Shane Landrum
Member

Replying to @hopegreenberg's post:

At my small research university, there's a combined library-and-technology-services organization, and someone in that department would be responsible for DH support for faculty. As a doctoral student here for... a while, it's never been precisely clear to me whether there's a single point of contact for DH-related questions. I sense that most of the DH-competent people are staff in the instructional technologies group, supporting things like WordPress blogs for courses. For my own research needs, I've ended up basically supporting myself and seeking advice outside my home institution.

Posted 6 years ago Permalink

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