Most DH projects have always included a public website of some kind, whether as the final outcome of the project itself, a companion process blog, a simple download page for a project deliverable, or a creator’s personal portfolio page. The early days of hand-coded HTML pages or personal sites on university servers long ago gave way to dynamic Content Management Systems like WordPress, Drupal and Omeka, which made it relatively easy for non-coders to publish sophisticated web sites and interactive projects. While these major platforms continue to be big players in DH, the past several years have seen a proliferation of new options that have begun gaining traction: media-rich project tools like Scalar, new CMSes like Mukurtu and Backdrop, commercial web builders like Wix and Squarespace, and the return of static site publishing through options like the Getty’s Quire or using Jekyll with GitHub Pages.

Inspired by Quinn Dombrowski’s recent thoughts on “Enterprise Tools and DH,” I propose a talk session in which participants from all backgrounds and skill levels discuss the pros and cons of the current range of web platforms and static site generators, and when and where they are appropriate for the Digital Humanities.

• Which tools are good for which purposes?
• Which types of projects?
• Which creators or collaborative teams?
• Which intended audiences? 

Ideally people will share their experiences with various options and discuss the challenges and benefits or creating, hosting, customizing and maintaining DH projects amid the changing landscape of platforms.

Google Doc for session: docs.google.com/document/d/17s24EEe_joxDFeJI1RXFoqM6moK3csi92NedhJNI2Nc/edit?usp=sharing

Digital mapping is a mainstay of the Digital Humanities. It is used in the classroom and in research, by beginners and advanced scholars alike. The ever-expanding range of GIS options has made all this more possible than ever—but the sheer number of existing and new applications can be overwhelming at times. With access to software and services varied by institution, and with the ever-present threat of new pay walls, it seems more important than ever to attempt to understand the broader landscape of GIS solutions.

I propose a session in which individuals with a variety of skill levels and experience with GIS can discuss what options have worked, what challenges have come up, etc., and ask questions of each other about new GIS technologies and approaches.

The past few years has brought us many examples of the need for students (and the public), to be able to evaluate sources, to identify how and why knowledge is produced in all of its many media and forms, and to suggest the ways in which verifiable, authoritative sources can be produced using the tools of scholars.

The focus of Digital Humanities on consumption, analysis, and production of knowledge in many digital forms allows practitioners and novices to address and help demonstrate to students and the public how digital production works and why we should be skeptical of it.

That’s not a simple process however.  As Mike Caulfield of Washington State University, Vancouver, has written (such as in “Yes, Digital Literacy. But Which One?“), curriculum for information literacy is not new, but such programs are not sufficiently grounded in either specific content areas or the structures of the Web to keep up with the blizzard of problematic content.  And as my former UMW colleague, Kris Shaffer, has noted (in multiple places, but most directly in “Truthy Lies and Surreal Truths: A Plea for Critical Digital Literacies“) the issue isn’t just misinformed content, but intentional misleading content.  As he notes,  “The future of digital culture ― yours, mine, and ours ― depends on how well we learn to use the media that have infiltrated, amplified, distracted, enriched, and complicated our lives.”

So, I propose a session in which we talk about strategies to address issues of Digital Fluency (or Fluencies) at our schools and in our departments, to share existing resources on Digital and Information Fluency, and to describe what an idealized curriculum would address.

UPDATE: A couple more links to others who have written about related questions of curriculum and Digital Fluency: Megan Smeznik and Brandon Locke

Seven years ago, at the first THATCamp AHA, we had a rollicking session on crowdsourcing led by two experts in the field.  This year we’re fortunate to be joined once again by Jen Wolfe, who spearheaded the DIYHistory project at University of Iowa Libraries and is now with the Newberry Library’s Transcribing Modern Manuscripts crowdsourcing platform.  We again have a representative from the Zooniverse crowdsourcing platform in Samantha Blickman, the  Digital Humanities Lead and PI on a new NEH-ODH Digital Advancement Grant.

I propose a discussion session on crowdsourcing, in which we can ask Jen and Samantha about their experiences and bring our own ideas for discussion.