ENGL 481: Digital Humanities

This blog addresses how video games contribute to Digital Humanities. It is a new study that raises questions to how to go about researching and developing this topic. This study can eventually bridge the gap between analog and digital archives, and culture criticism and methods. It can also show how video games are used as a teaching method and the benefits and challenges it entails. This can also encourage discussion about the role of video games in digital humanities.

OKC is a collaborative effort to "make the record of human knowledge" inclusive. They plan to do this by digitizing printed or physical artifacts in libraries and creating an online collection. It talks about the issues libraries face, such as funding for digitization, and attempt to rectify the issues with the libraries. This page also includes projects OKC suports and is contributing to, such as the Wikipedia Gateway Project. It promotes collaboration between libraries and cultural centers and advocates for the smaller 'non-commercial players.' Their greatest interest concerning technology, is to attempt to advance and integrate existing technical architecture.

This forum on digital gaming raises some controversial questions in regards to the gaming world in our culture today. It points out the "serious addictions" and "aggressive tendencies" that most digital games possess today and raises the question, "Could it change?" Would a gaming system that introduces "virtual Peace" catch on in the mainstream gaming culture, or only pool in the more "university study" sites that seek to introduce it? Could a spark catch in peaceful gaming that instead of violence incorporates UNICEF or Red Cross into the virtual gaming world?

This article is one of my favorites! Ms. Knowles chose to ask a question that could not be aswered....until they found a way by means of digital humanities. The questions was simply this, "What could General Grant see in his view at Gettysburg?" This question sparked a menas to find an answer by digitally mapping the terrain at the time on the battle in coordination with Grant's height/ location. This success led to a Project wtih Knowles and Paul Jaskot concerning the concentration camp, Auschwitz, and another similar project done about the Salem Witch Trials by Benjamin Ray. Such great research and visual representations.

Anne Kelly Knowles, a geographer at Middlebury College in Vermont, posed a simple question that could not be accurately answered before: What could the confederate general Robert E. Lee actually see during the battle of Gettysburrg. In order to answer this question Ms. Knowles team began by creating a digital map of the areas topography at the time of the battle. Then, the group as whole began to replicate the view Lee would have had by generating what is known as a viewshed from a point 75feeet above the terrain the distance from the ground to the cupid floor plus Lee's eye level standing in his.

The MHL's focus is to digitize and make available a large scale collection of rare medical journals, books, articles, and films. Their goal is to make it a free, open access journal of historical, established, and highly-qualified medical material to advance contemporary understanding of the medical field along with common knowledge of humanity. A majority of the contributors are university libraries, including Harvard an Yale. It is not a forum to publish current or contemporary research and articles.

This article is providing an update of the advances DPLA has made in creating a digital national public library. DPLA announced the launch of it Digital Hubs Pilot Project in 7 states at DPLA Midwest (a large conference in Chicago. The project was created to help local libraries and communities digitize their collection with technological resources and supportive staff. A prototype will be launched in April of 2013 with topics including civil rights, Native Americans, and immigration. It also announced Appfest (held Nov. 8 & 9) to present ideas, including working models, of possible platforms for the metadata.

The goal of the collaboration between the Sloan Foundation and Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at U-M's Institute for Social Research is the lessen the gap between the published peer-reviewed articles and the data they cite. They are attempting to make the research data for social sciences to become more transparent and open for researchers. The main goal of this project is to create, implement, and standardize citation that gives the producers proper credit.

A professor came and spoke to students and faculty about how students in higher education can integrate mapping tools into the classroom. They use these projects as organizational templates, spatial analysis, metaphors, graphs, and charts. She posts questions that should be asked before choosing the mapping approach for their projects.

The article by Rob Blades analyzes the role and value of computers from the perspective of a historian, particularly in relation to the shifting notion of agency and history. Much like movements in the field of History pertaining to the reintegration of marginalized groups, such as women or the working class, Blades argues that computers should be seen as having some measure of agency in our handling of them in research. He points to the number of programs coming close to matching Humans in the Turing Test, a test for determining "humanness," and delivers a counter argument to the claim that computers "dumb down" the population in general, and in particular historians who rely on them.

This article highlights three large uncertainties of the Micha Cardenas about the digital humanities: is queer new media rare or is analysis of it rare, if there is something "conservative, even sellable" that is present in the digital humanities, and can queer theory, new media, or the digital humanities "disturb hegemonic systems." Although the article does not answer any of these questions, it discusses the history of Queer Theory as "hip, trendy," and its potential reflection in the digital humanities. These questions also arise out of a concern that discussions in digital humanities, particularly CCS, "can run down a road that is very conservative."

How to earn your Cyber Stripes is a short write up on the five ways in which students can earn their stripes. Like the Show your Badge article students can go online and show how much they have retained within a given semester. This gesture helps students develop credibility in their specific subject areas which will eventually help them find jobs with their career field. The five subject areas being testing on this particular website is mostly pertaining to science and math. This is very useful for people who are looking to hire students who are qualified in those areas.

This opportunity is offered electronically to gather information on different games that can be used in teaching literature, languages, and writing. Some of the games are not done digitally but others focus around teaching with video games or social networks. Virtual worlds and spatial games (foursquare, geocaching, ect) will also be used as a teaching method. Selection of people who will be asked to present their findings will be based on different styles of classrooms, student experiences, successes, and failures.

This is an opportunity for people who want to learn more about digital humanities and how to research and teach it. Digital expertises will show their digital projects and form small groups that shows technologies and skills to get started on their digital project. At the end of this event, participants will have a plan how to start their digital humanities project and have resources that can help them in their field.

This event is promoting digital teaching to show how looking at an object or text digitally can produce different aspects that would not have been found otherwise. Undergrads typically are able to do some work digitally but lack how to interpret it. Through the collaboration with students they are able to build digital artifacts instead of using technology for media purposes only. This event will show students how to build and interpret digital humanities by showing different projects from scholars that are knowledgable in digital humanities

A literature teacher and researcher who is very fond of books and texts has realized the importance of a digital education. She likes the digital aspect of researching information because if information is given digitally it gives people around the world access to it. This can create a better education for people around the world and connect people who have the same interests. She focuses on discussing Digital Humanities that focus around literature and arts so that once more people become digitally connected, humanities people can demonstrate their skills and expertise that are relatable to people around the world outside of a classroom or library. She knows the importance it is for the 21st century to have easier access to more humanities knowledge that can be shown everywhere.

James J. O'Donnel wrote this insert in the Chronicle Review in order to see how people respond to reading on Kindle. O'Donnel discovered that in contemporary America more and more readers are purchasing kindles because they are very accessible and very affordable. This insert explores the various opinions from different professors and students who find kindle affective. These reviews helps O'Donnel come to the conclusion that kindles should be used for replacement of Text books.

This is a follow-up article to a post Cohen wrote on Wikipedia and its relation to Google and Yahoo. In this post, he discusses the validity of Wikipedia as a tool to create text profiles of subjects for search engines.

This website has been created which will serve to scholars in the United States that will provide free information that pertains to the history of women's education. The material off their website can be used for teaching, research, or other interests. They also have work that undergraduate students have compiled such as lesson plans and digital scrapbooks. On their website they also announce upcoming exhibitions and events that pertain to Digital Humanities and also essay contests.

This artical poses the question of "Why do people join virtual communities?" Across 27 communities in 5 different broad types, 569 different from 399 people indicatged that most sought either friendship or exchange of information, and a markedly lower percent sought social support lower or recreation. In all the communities types information exchange was the most popular reasoning for joining.