English 4400n (Digital Humanities, Fall 2012): Assessment
Here are descriptions of the main forms of assessment in this course.
Blogs
Most weeks you will be expected to write a blog entry on your reading and/or research for the course, interesting examples of digital technology used in the context of humanities or arts research, teaching, or practice, and the like. See also my more general page, About blogs
Seminar leadership
Working in groups of three, students will be expected to lead discussion in one seminar in the semester. These seminars will follow the guest lectures and will be based on the guest lecturer’s topic. As part of this leadership, students will be responsible for preparing and circulating a reading list of relevant blogs, articles, projects, etc. in advance of the seminar and proposing topics and examples for discussion.
Generally reading lists should be distributed no later than midnight of the Sunday before class. If circumstances prevent this, please let me know as soon as possible.
Lab assignment
The lab assignment has two parts:
- Working by hand (i.e. using Notepad or similar), construct a small HTML-based web page and control its appearance using CSS.
- Choose an interesting (short) textual object and digitise it using the techniques and approaches discussed in class. Publish this digitisation to your class webspace.
Basic concepts review
A brief (and relatively easy) review of the basic concepts and history discussed in the opening weeks of the course.
Project review
Discover a digital project on a topic that interests you. Write a blog entry providing a brief summary of the project, describing the project’s focus, history, and how technology is used. Evaluate the use of technology in the project. Is the technology used well? How could things be improved.
Research Prospectus
Write a brief (1000-2000 words) proposal describing the research project you intend to finish by the end of the course. Place your research proposal in context by citing projects that treat a similar topic or use similar technology and/or any relevant secondary literature. Describe how your project will build on and differentiate itself from this contextual material.
Your proposal will be evaluated on the basis of its feasibility, relevance, and the quality and throughness of your contextual discussion.
Final project poster and presentation
Prepare a single slide and 1 minute description of your research project for discussion in class. Students will present on their projects and then some time will be set aside for discussion.
Final project
Submit your final project.
