Digital Humanities in Practice: Project Work on Developing a Scholarly Database of Electronic Literature

Aim and Content

Students will work with scholars on a current international research project, ELMCIP: Electronic Literature as a Model for Creativity in Practice, in particular working on the development and editing of the Knowledge Base for Electronic Literature. The Knowledge Base is a scholarly, relational database programmed in Drupal that documents works, events and actors in the field of electronic literature. In addition to participating in practical project-based work with an established team of senior and junior researchers, students will read scholarship on digital humanities as a field and will explore and read articles discussing selected digital humanities projects.

Students in the course will gain practical experience through working with one or more of the following areas, to be agreed upon with the research team according to individual students¿ skillsets and interests:

• editing: researching, writing, and editing entries about electronic literature in the Knowledge Base.
• development: working on the Drupal backend to the Knowledge Base in collaboration with other project team members, either conceptually or taking part in the programming according to the student¿s prior skills
• web design and user interface development
• project planning and implementation; team work and collaboration in academia
• documentation

This course provides a unique opportunity for students to get real-world experience working with scholars on an international research project in electronic literature and the digital humanities, and to contribute to the state of the art in these fields. Students will be included in the research project as junior researchers.

The ELMCIP Knowledge Base is based at the University of Bergen and can be accessed at http://elmcip.net/knowledgebase

Contributions to the ELMCIP Knowledge Base are publicly accessible and licenced with a Creative Comments, non-commercial share-alike license.

Learning Outcomes

After completing the course, students will have:

• an overview of current debates and concepts in the digital humanities, and familiarity with a selection of digital humanities projects
• a basic understanding of a Drupal database
• experience of team-work and of working on an international collaborative research project

After completing the course, students will be able to:

• research and write critical descriptions of works and actors in an aesthetic field for a scholarly database
• assess the usefulness of a range of digital humanities strategies in specific scholarly work
• discuss and prioritise organisational and design choices in developing a scholarly database

Course offered (semester)

Spring/Autumn / Irregular

The course is offered in Autumn 2012.

Course Unit Level

Bachelor

Department

Institutt for lingvistiske, litterære og estetiske studium

E-post: studierettleiar@lle.uib.no

Access to the Course Unit

A limited number of students will be accepted to the course. 60 ECTS in Digital Culture, or the equivalent; or 60 ECTS in Comparative Literature are required prerequisites. If there are more qualified applicants than places, applicants will be prioritized according to their average grades in all completed DIKULT and/or ALLV-subjects.

Students who wish to take the course should register for it on the Studentweb before the given deadline, which will be during the week before teaching begins. The results will be announced before the first lecture.

Pre-requirements

60 ECTS in Digital Culture, or the equivalent; or 60 ECTS in Comparative Literature.

Recommended previous knowledge

DIKULT103, DIKULT105

Subject Overlap

None

Teaching Methods

Students will meet with researchers for weekly one-hour meetings for twelve weeks (12 hours), and will be assigned weekly development or editing tasks according to their skills and interests. These tasks will require around 12 hours work per week, totalling 144 hours. In addition, students will read 400 pages of articles on the digital humanities (at six pages an hour, comprehensive reading is estimated to take approximately 70 hours, including note-taking), and participate in other project meetings (12 hours). Writing the report and preparing the final oral presentation will take up to 70 hours, and following online debates within the digital humanities is estimated to take about 80 hours. This adds up to 388 hours, which is within the normal workload for a 15 ECTS course (25-30 hours per credit).

Compulsory Requirements

In order to take the exam it is required that the student has participated in at least 75 percent of the teaching and classroom activities. Course participation is approved by the course leader

Assessment methods

Grades will be awarded on the basis of a 5 page report documenting the student¿s contributions to the project. A twenty minute oral presentation presenting these contributions and situating them in the broader field of digital humanities will adjust the grade up or down one letter.

Grading Scale

Karakterskala A-F.

Reading List

400 pages of scholarly articles in the digital humanities, current debates in social media, critical writing on electronic literature for use in practical assignments, and use and development of the ELMCIP Knowledge Base.

Place of Teaching

Bergen

Course Unit Evaluation

Evaluering av tilbodet vert gjennomført i tråd med UiBs kvalitetssikringssystem.