Purdue Libraries to Host “Tinkering Humanist” Digital Humanities Workshop Series This Summer

May 30th, 2018

One of the hallmarks of Digital Humanities is the notion of “tinkering,” of exploring new tools and technologies that faculty and educators can use in their scholarship and teaching. In a series of workshops sponsored by Purdue University Libraries, Purdue Libraries Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities Matthew Hannah (based in the Humanities, Social Science, and Education, or HSSE, Library) will introduce you to these new tools and discuss some ways to implement them in your research and pedagogy.

The individual workshop descriptions, with time/date location information, are listed below. All workshops are open free to Purdue University faculty members, students (undergraduate and graduate), and staff members, but registration is required and is available online at https://bit.ly/2Jja8m6. Please complete one registration form for each workshop you plan to attend.

Topic Modelling with Voyant Tools

3-4:45 p.m. Wednesday, June 27
Wilmeth Active Learning Center (WALC) 3045

Have you ever wished you could simply press a button and see the major topics of a novel or book of poetry? With this workshop on Voyant Tools, you can easily create topic models of any text. A topic model shows the most frequently used words in any given body of text, which allows scholars and teachers to design interesting and innovative lesson plans. Professor Hannah will begin with a discussion of “data” in the humanities, and he will direct you to some great online resources for accessing the plain text documents you will need for analysis. Workshop participants will then create a topic model of a corpus of poems, including word frequencies, text visualizations, and word tracking. Instructor will provide text to analyze. No technical expertise required. Register (required) at https://bit.ly/2Jja8m6.

Social Network Analysis Using Gephi

3-4:45 p.m. Wednesday, July 11
WALC 3045
Social network analysis is one of the growing areas in Digital Humanities research. Scholars and teachers are increasingly looking for easy-to-use software to visualize connections and relationships. In this workshop, you will learn the basic theory behind social network analysis including how to generate and insert data. We will create visualizations of some data provided by the instructor or you can bring your own! We will conclude by considering the pedagogical possibilities of social network analysis for the humanities classroom. No technical expertise required. Register (required) at https://bit.ly/2Jja8m6.

Digital Publishing with Scalar

3-4:45 p.m. Wednesday, July 25
WALC 3045
If you have ever wished you could have your students build a multimedia project for your class but weren’t sure how to do it, this workshop is for you! We will discuss the basics of Scalar, a free software platform for innovative digital publishing. With Scalar, you can add photos, text, music, videos, and other media to an essay, creating a hyperlinked rhizomatic publication that fully immerses the reader in a topic through a multitude of media. Even more exciting, Scalar allows you to visualize your materials, and we will consider the ways that adding quantitative data to your project’s benefits or detracts from your work. Because Scalar is so widely adopted by online repositories such as Hathi Trust, you can access the materials in the workshop or bring your own. We will also discuss the pedagogical possibilities for Scalar and look at some sample student projects. Materials needed: digital objects videos, sound files, and pictures. No technical expertise required. Register (required) at https://bit.ly/2Jja8m6.

Mapping Time with Timemapper

3-4:45 p.m. Wednesday, August 1
WALC 3045
Timelines are important components of humanities education and research. Whether charting the transmission of knowledge or the march of history, timelines allow us to visualize vast periods of time into easy-to-read infographics. With this workshop, participants will create their own timeline visualizations using Timemapper, a free and accessible timeline software. The skills you learn here will allow you to assign your students new explorations into the humanities and social sciences. No technical expertise required. Register (required) at https://bit.ly/2Jja8m6.

Digital Archiving with Omeka

3-4:45 p.m. Wednesday, August 22
WALC 3045

Have you ever wanted to incorporate archival research into your classroom? With Omeka’s free archiving platform, you can assign students to upload content and create their own archives. This easy-to-use platform offers exciting possibilities for your lesson plans, allowing students to explore original material using the Dublin Core metadata standards used by libraries and museums for digital content. In this workshop, we will discuss what Dublin Core is and how to access and use Omeka. Each participant will bring three digital items (music, video, PDFs, texts) to begin creating an original archive, and we will discuss the various metadata categories, as well as the plug-ins, offered by Omeka. Materials needed: 3 digital items. No technical expertise required. Register (required) at https://bit.ly/2Jja8m6.

For more information, contact Hannah at hannah8@purdue.edu.