Digital Humanities pedagogy:

new approaches and new ways of thinking

about the Humanities?

University College Cork (2013), Teaching and Learning

Centre,

Simon Mahony (University College London)

s.mahony@ucl.ac.uk

With thanks and acknowledgement to all my colleagues at UCLDH and also to

Elena Pierazzo (King’s College London) who co-authored the book chapter that

prompted this talk.

All original content is licenced under a

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

UCLDH

What we do:

Teaching & Learning

• A new interdisciplinary degree

exploring the intersection of digital

technologies, humanities scholar-

ships and cultural heritage

• MA/MSc Digital Humanities,

launched in 2011/12

UCLDH central hub

• Arts and Hums traditional scholarship

• Brings together work in different departments and

research centres across UCL and beyond

• Interdisciplinary work

• UCL Museums and Collections

• UCL Special Collections

• Computer Science

• Engineering

• Medical Physics

Putting together a new programme?

• Does it exist in a vacuum?

• Building on experience

What should we be teaching in DH?

• Skills?

• Methodology?

• New ways of thinking about traditional material?

• New and better questions?

• Wide range of academic backgrounds

• And skill levels

• How do we accommodate all?

Skills?

• Collaborative

• Interdisciplinary

• Methodology

• Reflective practice

• Technical skills?

Information literacy

• Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World– Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience

• Uncritical acceptance of the Web

• Expect Google to give them the answer

• So-called "Digital Divide"

• "Google Generation" CIBER at UCL– Report for JISC and British Library

Unifying the group

• UCLDH Community Page

• Build cohesion

• Events

• Academic plus social engagement

• Inclusive not exclusive

• A "learning society" (Dearing report 1997).

Previous experience in DH

• Undergraduate

– Introduction to DH: Stand alone option module

• Postgraduate (taught Master’s) King’s and UCL

• Research/study skills: Arts & Hums

• Digital literacy

Skills?

• IT services

• UCL Graduate School

• Skills development programme

Skills?

• IT services

• UCL Graduate School

• Skills development programme

• Technical skills not thinking skills

• Not research training

• Pedagogical underpinning?

Building on what went before

• Proto-DH (ECP)

• Electronic Communication and Publishing

– Now incorporated in MA Publishing

• Internet Technologies

• Digital Resources in the Humanities

• XML (Extensible Markup Language)

Core curriculum

• Internet Technologies

• Digital Resources in the Humanities

• XML (Extensible Markup Language)

XML: what’s in a name?

• Assignment: individual project from start to finish:

• Prescriptive or allow student choice?

• Choose material

• Choose output

• Choose outcome

• How well do they execute this?

Core curriculum

• Internet Technologies

• Digital Resources in the Humanities

• XML (Extensible Markup Language)

• What else?

Developing the curriculum

• Databases

– Cooperation with Computer Science

– Logistical issues

– Grounding issues (assumptions)

• Introduction to Programming and Database

Querying (JavaScript and SQL)

• Server Programming and Structured Data (PHP)

Adding new content

• New modules introduced for this programme

– Introduction to Digitisation (new digitisation suite)

– Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities

• New modules for other DIS programmes

– Oral History from creation to curation

– Knowledge Representation and Semantic Technologies

• Existing modules that are relevant to students

– Manuscript Studies

– Paleography

• Advanced Computer Science

– Software Engineering

– Functional Programming

Optional modules

• Wide range across DIS

• Also collaborating Departments / Faculties

• Allow student to pursue existing interest

– Continuing UGs

– 1 x free choice (by agreement)

Making necessary adjustments?

• To be effective needs to be relevant

• Make use of existing interests

• Transition from students to research-students

• Things that can be learnt can be taught

• Cannot take our familiarity with tools and

resources for granted

• Pedagogy: not about learning technical skills

Iterative design?

• Respond to (reasonable) feedback

• Pay attention to what works

• Monitor the programme

• Get the students’ interest

• Field trips?

What do we learn?

• Create a community of learning

• Learn from our students

• Wider range of cultural diversity

• We are constantly learning

Teaching Digital Humanities

• Fundamental need: research methodologies

• Thinking skills most important, most transferable

• Develop students' ability to think

• Build on existing familiarity

• Reflective process

• New and different ways of thinking

• Engage with other programmes and departments

• Encourage partnerships and synergies

References:

Ron Dearing, et al, (1997) Higher Education in the Learning Society: The

Report of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education. HMSO

Simon Mahony and Elena Pierazzo (2013) 'Teaching Skills or Teaching

Methodology?', in Hirsch ed. Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Practices,

Principles and Politics, Open Book Publishers.

David Melville, Cliff Allan, Julian Crampton, and John Fothergill, et al, (2009)

“Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World,” JISC report , Changing Learner

Experience.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/heweb20rptv1.pdf.

David Nicholas, Ian Rowlands, and Paul Huntington, et al, (2008) “Information

Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future,” UCL CIBER Group briefing

paper prepared for JISC and the British Library.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/resurcediscovery/googlegen.

aspx.