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Digital Humanities

This guide provides an introduction to digital humanities (DH) theory and practice and an overview of DH methods, tools, and resources.

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Project Planning Steps

Start with a question

A question doesn't necessarily have to be a question in a classical sense, such as "What is the impact of the popularization of video games and fandom culture on contemporary literature?" (but it certainly can be!). A question can also be a general knowledge or curiosity about a shift, evolution, theme, concept, or research gap in or around DH. This article by Trevor Owens provides an excellent overview on where and how to start a DH project/research. 

Determine the outcomes and deliverables

So you have your question, either in the traditional/concrete sense or in a less concrete sense. Now what? The next step is determining what the outcome of your research or project will be. For a project, this could be a final deliverable, such as a digital exhibit, an interactive resource, an online archive, or anything that you think answers your question, fills your identified research gap, or provides an outlet for your curiosity. Maybe you sat down, asked yourself, "Why don't I see more awareness around the lack of LGBTQ folks in late adulthood?" and found your answer in a lack of digital archival content about the loss of life during the AIDS crisis. Your research question and your research lead you to create a final deliverable: a digital archive and storytelling platform for those who lived through the AIDS crisis, and those who didn't. Your deliverable has not only filled a content gap, but answered your question, and like all good scholarship, has contributed and is in conversation with the greater scholastic community.

Figure out the tools that will work best for your question, possible collaborators, and resources needed

You might be thinking, "Okay, I think I understand what a research question is and what a final deliverable may be. But how do I get from a question to a deliverable?" That's an excellent question, hypothetical reader! First, you'll need to know what to use and who to ask. By that I mean, you'll need to know what tools and resources will best work for your project (for a digital archive, for example, you'll want to know where to host it and how to build it, using what tools) and who can help (for our archive example, you may want to reach out historians, archivists, academics in the discipline, local organizations and individuals with lived experience, and/or your local librarian(s).) 

Plan steps and document processes

We've got the question, we've got our idea for a final deliverable, we've got our possible collaborators, platforms, tools, and resources, and now we're ready to put them all together. To do that, we're going to need to know what steps to take when. A plan can also be helpful for tracking your progress and making sure you know what to do next. A well-written plan also helps document what you did and how. This is important because of the previously mentioned scholastic conversation. Others may want to continue based off your work, they may be inspired by your work to build a similar project of their own, or they may want to cite your process in their own analysis of the issue. All of these are important aspects of scholarly work and communication.

Have a sustainability/preservation plan

Your project is done, the deliverable has been executed and is viewable, the last box on your plan has been checked off, and all of your processes have been documented. But you're not done. You need to have a plan in place to keep your deliverable functioning and viewable. This is your sustainability and preservation plan. You should be aware of what data you have, where your data is stored, how (in what format?), and if (and where) it's backed up (and it absolutely should be, in at least two different locations). You should also have a plan to keep files updated as much as is possible and feasible for the content. Because scholarship is a conversation, and you want as many people to be able to participate as possible, ideally your file formats will be easily accessible and common, able to be opened on different types of machines. This guide by the Library of Congress is a great resource for this. 

Acknowledgement: A portion of these resources were taken from UC Riverside's guide Digital Scholarship at UCR: Project Planning created by UCR Library Research Services and licensed CC BY 40

Free Resources for Project Management

Zotero is a free reference and resource management and organization tool. Zotero can help you organize your references, simplify the citation process, collect citation metadata, and provide a workspace for collaboration and annotation. 

"DevDH.org provides the intellectual and strategic scaffolding to aid researchers in successfully completing their research endeavors"

This resource provides a manual for project planning, development, and management with helpful modules linked along the way

Resources on Ethical Considerations in DH