Course Description

Effective: 2014-01-01

General Course Purpose

This course will explore the development of the field of digital history and examine the impact of digital media on the research, writing, teaching and presentation of history. It also introduces students to issues in digital history such as copyright, intellectual property, information abundance, and how the web has changed the relationship between historians and their audience. Students will also learn how digital tools and resources are enabling new methods of historical analysis and presentation.

Course Objectives

• Explain the evolution, key concepts and practices of digital history.
• Evaluate and use digital tools, resources and social media to support emerging and traditional methods in the practice of history.
• Demonstrate knowledge of copyright and intellectual property issues and be able to properly apply intellectual property requirements to the creation and use of digital historical materials.
• Create a digital historical project using primary source materials, applying research skills appropriate and necessary in the digital age.
• Show computer competency in discipline-specific skills necessary for successful transfer or employment.
• Manipulate and interpret digital historical materials such as maps, databases and statistics.

Major Topics to be Included

• The historical development of digital history as a field of study
• The crafting of historical materials for the web
• Copyright
• Intellectual property
• Data visualization techniques
• Timeline and other interactive, online applications
• Digitizing and sourcing historical images and text
• Creation and maintenance of digital online archives
• Crowd-sourcing and user participation projects
• Information abundance and Big Data
• How the Web has changed the relationship between historians and their audience
• The uses of a blog and other social media in the history discipline