Introduction to Mapping and Data Visualization
Wednesday, February 29, 2pm – 5pm
Using New Media Technologies to Foster Participation in/out of the Classroom
Thursday, March 1: 9am -noon
Introduction to Digital Collection Tools
Thursday, March 1: 1pm – 4pm
Digital Humanities in the Undergraduate Curriculum
Friday, March 2: 9am – noon
Analytical Methods in XML
Thursday, March 1 and Friday, March 2: 8:30am – 4pm (*two-day workshop*)
Introduction to Mapping and Data Visualization
Instructor: Doug Ward (University of Kansas, School of Journalism and Mass Communications)
Wednesday, February 29, 2pm – 5pm
Watson Library, room 503
This workshop will focus on turning data into maps, charts and graphs. The first half of the workshop will include a hands-on mapping session with Google Fusion Tables and BatchGeo. In the second half, participants will explore several other online or open source tools for mapping, charting and graphing.
No experience with maps or graphs is necessary, but participants will need a free Google account. Ideally, they will bring data they would like to turn into visual elements. The workshop leader will provide sample data to work with, though.
Using New Media Technologies to Foster Participation in/out of the Classroom
Instructor: Germaine Halegoua (University of Kansas, Film and Media Studies)
Thursday, March 1, 9am – noon
This workshop is designed to showcase how blogs, wikis, ePortfolio systems, collaborative documents, cell phones, and other new media technologies and services have been used to foster collaboration, participation, and new media production in and out of the classroom. This workshop includes demonstrations of various applications as well as discussion and critique of actual assignment outcomes. Participants are encouraged to bring their own syllabi, potential projects, and questions. The second half of this workshop will be devoted to developing assignments that incorporate new media technologies and practices. Although the examples will focus on humanities courses and qualitative research, all disciplines are welcome.
Introduction to Digital Collection Tools
Instructor: Scott Hanrath (University of Kansas Libraries)
Thursday, March 1, 1pm – 4pm
This workshop will provide a hands-on introduction to useful tools and concepts related to managing digital collections and putting them online. We’ll make use of tools like Omeka to put a collection of objects online and create ways of browsing/searching the objects, and Google Refine to explore concepts of managing and structuring data. Along the way, participants will get a basic introduction to metadata and the Dublin Core metadata standard.
No prior experience with digital collections or data management is necessary. Participants may bring a small set of data or digital items to work with; the instructor will also provide sample data.
Prior to the workshop, participants should create a free Omeka account and should install Google Refine on their laptops. It will also be helpful to have access to a spreadsheet program such as Excel or Google Docs (free with a Google account).
Digital Humanities in the Undergraduate Curriculum
Instructor: Tanya Clement (University of Texas, School of Information)
Friday, March 2: 9am – noon
In a field of inquiry where practice can range from tweeting to programming and theoretical concerns can include textual studies, gender studies, and computational thinking, digital humanities courses can be challenging to develop. This half-day workshop will focus on introducing participants to resources for creating a curriculum for undergraduate and graduate-level digital humanities courses. Topics covered will include a range of possible pedagogical perspectives as well as a variety of resources for finding existing syllabi, tools, and other digital resources for creating a theory-based or a project-based course. Because digital humanities courses can be taught from a wide-range of perspectives to include an even broader range of students’ interests, it is important for participants to come with both a pedagogical perspective in mind as well as a range of possible projects in hand. in brief, we will tackle the big questions concerning participants’ particular needs (What do you want your students to learn? How will they learn it? What can your institution support?) by evaluating a broad range of existing courses and resources.
Analytical Methods in XML
Instructors: David Birnbaum (University of Pittsburgh, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures) and Jeffrey Rydberg-Cox (University of Missouri Kansas City, Department of English)
Thursday, March 1 & Friday, March 2: 8:30am – 4pm
(Note: this workshop consists of two full days of instruction.)
This workshop focuses on the use of analytical tools (especially the statistical package R and the topic-modeling toolkit Mallet) and methods (especially Bayesian classification and SVG visualization) to discover information within XML data. By the end of the sessions participants will have learned how to apply the techniques and methods discussed to the analysis and visualization of their own XML texts.
The workshop is intended for beginners, and no prior experience with any of the technologies is required, although participants will need to prepare outside readings before each of the two working days. The workshop sessions will then guide the participants through the process of selecting a text, preparing it for processing with XML-related tools, and analyzing the text using R and Mallet.
Day 1 (6 hours of instruction) provides an overview of XML and XML-related technologies, including the tools needed to extract information from the XML in the formats required by the toolkits. Day 2 (6 hours of instruction) concentrates on the actual analysis of the data and on formatting it for textual and graphic presentation.
