Seven Claims for Digital Humanities

Rather than go into detail on any one idea, I thought I would list several claims and see which, if any, get some traction. I’m game to discuss any of these:

  • Digital Literacy First
    More could be done to advance digital humanities by developing digital literacy with available social media and open tools rather than investing in large and proprietary humanities computing projects.
  • Using and Making eBooks
    Teachers and students should begin using (and perhaps creating) eBooks since they are economically inevitable and ultimately a core component of the digital humanities.
  • Authentic Audiences for Student Work
    Students should be guided toward creating humanities-related content targeted to real audiences and authentic applications.
  • Open Educational Resources
    Digital humanists should be using, creating, and making available open educational resources that are creative commons-licensed and able to be repurposed and remixed by others.
  • New Scholarly Models
    Consistent with the American Council of Learned Societies’ Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences (see their report, “Our Cultural Commonwealth“), digital humanists should be defining and creating best practices and evaluative standards for “born-digital” scholarly creations and activities, including those that are not clearly derivative from traditional text-based, interpretive scholarship.
  • Hacking the Humanities 
    DIY, remix culture, and edupunks need to be welcomed into today’s humanities curriculum. Rather than thinking of digital humanities as a simple value-added proposition within established structures, we should see it as a mode of inquiry that invites true independence and creativity among learners and that can transcend and rethink basic modes of teaching, scholarship, and art (see HackingTheAcademy.org).
  • Bring on Video
    We should be incorporating video into humanities teaching both for informal interaction, virtual office hours, and for things like telepresence, remote performance, guest interviews, and group “hangouts” on Google+. Having students create videos can also be a method of developing their ideas for more traditional academic work.
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2 Responses to Seven Claims for Digital Humanities

  1. markcrane says:

    I’m far too late with these comments, but these topics all look great. I’ve enjoyed your very useful discussion of the practical aspects of incorporating blogs, especially. I’d love to sit in a session about creating and using ebooks, but don’t have much to contribute other than the advice of a local author who recommends lots of hand coding in html.

  2. Gideon Burton says:

    Thanks for the comment, Mark. Yes, eBooks are quite something both to assign, consume, or have students create. If you want to hear my war stories some time, contact me. It’s a great space to play in right now.

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