Activity 2.1.1. Analyze an existing digital humanities project

1. Pick an existing digital humanities project from the list of projects you’ve encountered in Module 1.3. Varieties of digital humanities.

2. Recall the following guide questions from that module:

   • Context: What is the purpose of this project? Why did the author of the project create the project? What is the story behind the topic? Why was it conceptualized? What was/were the driving force/s?
   • Research Questions or Problems: What was the author trying to “solve”? Or what information do they want to extract? Perhaps there were inadequacies or problems associated with the existing research on the topic.
   • Methodology: How was the work undertaken? What did they actually do? How did they deal with original source material, and what did they do with it?
   • Potential Significance: Why does this project matter? Under which field or discipline does it belong? Are there more than one disciplines involved? What is/are its contribution/s to its related field?

3. Consult the five Process and Activities Frameworks described in this module and review the verbs contained in each. You are welcome (but not required) to pick one framework that you think might most completely describe how the author(s) of the DH project carried out their project.

4. Describe your chosen project by answering the questions listed above, and use the verbs taken from Process and Activities Frameworks whenever possible to describe the project.

For example, “In Project XYZ, the artist/creator/author first collected etc. Using this as the base material for the collection, she then crowdsourced additional entries by posting a call on social media. etc. She then tagged these entries with metadata derived from etc. etc. ”

Tips: 1. Not all of the keywords for a given framework might be applicable to your project, so don’t try to force a description using all the keywords.) 2. You will probably make most use of the verbs from the Process and Activities Framework(s) when you describe the project’s methodology.

Don't worry about getting this absolutely right. What matters is that you try your best and that you read your classmates' analyses that they will share with the class. This will not be the last time you will try to analyze a digital humanities project, and this exercise prepares you for your final project.