2019-2020 | Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship

Do More With Digital Scholarship

1. Introduction to Digital Scholarship

September 10, 2019 | 2:30-4:30 | Sherman Centre | SLIDE DECK

What is digital scholarship, how can I do more with it, and how can it contribute to my research and teaching? This workshop introduces participants to the interdisciplinary and multi-modal sphere of digital scholarship. We’ll explore digital scholarship in research and teaching through project examples. Instructors: Amanda Montague and Andrea Zeffiro

2. Introduction to Omeka

September 17, 2019 | 12:30-2:30 | Wong e-Classroom (Mills Library) | SLIDE DECK

In this workshop, participants will learn how to use Omeka to create a digital archival project for the classroom. The workshop will cover the basic functions of Omeka, beginning with the creation of a digital collection consisting of artifacts and other primary sources. Here we will examine how using a metadata schema, in this case Dublin Core (common to all Omeka records), can help students develop skills in engaging with primary source material. Finally, we will explore the visualization and storytelling tools that can be used to contextualize Omeka collections and transform them into digital scholarly exhibits. Instructor: Amanda Montague

3. Interactive Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning in the Humanities

October 3, 2019 | 1:00-3:00 | Sherman Centre | SLIDE DECK | HANDOUTS

This workshop will introduce some DH tools for use in the classroom. For beginners we will start with some easy-to-use resources and those who have used them before will be given some other options. Participants will have a chance to try one or more tools. We will consider the merits of the resources and discuss the pedagogical value of them. Participants will leave the workshop with some next steps for their own learning. Instructor: Catherine Grisé

4. HathiTrust’s Data and Analysis Tools for Text Mining Research

November 15, 2019 | 9:00-12:00 | Sherman Centre

This half-day workshop will introduce attendees to the text data and computational tools of HathiTrust–which are available to McMaster Faculty, Staff, and Students. HathiTrust operates a repository of over 17 million items digitized at a network of partner libraries. This massive collection of text is available for computational text mining primarily through the tools and services of the HathiTrust Research Center. Attendees of this workshop will gain hands-on experience with these data and tools in order to become more familiar with the opportunities for research HathiTrust makes available. The workshop will include:

A characterization of the data available
Hands-on activities with HTRC’s Extracted Features dataset and secure research environment

No experience is required, but prior exposure to text analysis concepts would be beneficial. Instructors: Eleanor Dickson Koehl, Ryan Dubnicek (HathiTrust Research Centre)

5. HistoryPin Community Pin-a-thon

November 19, 2019 |2:30-4:30 | Sherman Centre

Join us for a local pin-a-thon using the web-based platform HistoryPin. This workshop will explore how digital archives and practices of geotagging and annotation contribute to the creation of local and digital memory communities. Through a collective exercise involving photography, mapping, and storytelling we will examine how location-based digital tools can facilitate our ongoing interpretation of everyday spaces and shape both our sense of place and sense of the past. Instructor: Amanda Montague

6. Introduction to Versioning with Git

November 28, 2019 | 1:00-3:00 | Sherman Centre

This workshop will give you a solid introduction to Git. Git is software originally designed to help manage vast, decentralized software projects with hundreds of authors, but it works just as well with many things that aren’t software, like data and text. Imagine having a complete archive of your work at every stage in its development! This workshop assumes no prior experience with Git, but please do bring a laptop. Instructor: John Fink

7. Introduction to GIS with QGIS

January 16, 2020 | 1:30-4:30 | Wong e-Classroom (Mills Library)

For many digital scholarship researchers, being able to investigate and visualize the spatial nature of their information provides them with important insights and dissemination opportunities. In this introductory workshop, participants will work with open source software to learn about Geographic Information Systems (GIS), geospatial data and map design principles— fundamental skills and knowledge that can be applied to their own research. Instructor: Christine Homuth

8.Spreadsheets 101: An Introduction to Spreadsheets

February 3, 2020 | 12:00-3:00 | Wong e-Classroom (Mills Library)

In this workshop, which assumes no previous knowledge with spreadsheets, participants will be introduced to the spreadsheet file type including how it works, its main uses, and how to choose the right program for your computing platform and research needs. While the instructor will address different spreadsheet programs, he will be primarily using Microsoft Excel. Participants will also learn about basic research uses for spreadsheets including cleaning and organizing data for a variety of project types, as well as graphing functions. We will also cover basic formulas and additional tools for automating and enhancing workflow, as well as maintaining compatibility with other software versions where possible. As a part of this workshop, participants are encouraged to bring their laptops and current spreadsheet projects to the workshop and the instructor will assist with any current issues you may be facing with your spreadsheets for the final hour of the workshop. This workshop is offered also as part of DASH. Instructor: Mackenzie Salt

9. Digitization

February 6, 2020 | 1:00-2:30 | Sherman Centre | SLIDE DECK

Digitization is the process by which hardcopy resources are made digital. This includes scanning, digitally photographing, and digitally encoding analog signals from magnetic tape and other recording technologies. In this workshop, attendees will learn about digitization equipment and best practices for books, papers, photographs, sound, and video recordings from an archival perspective (which may not be sufficient for all research needs!) and what goes into post-digitization processing. Digitization also implies online, long term, high quality access, which requires us to think about the broader context of how items are selected for digitization, where and how digitized resources are hosted, pitfalls in assumptions of access and completeness of materials, rights management, and digital preservation. Digitization is only step 1 in managing digital assets, but all steps before and after may have profound impacts on what and how digital scholarship can happen. Instructor: Krista Jamieson

10. Spreadsheets 201: Advanced Spreadsheet Uses for Research

February 10, 2020 | 12:00-3:00 | Wong e-Classroom (Mills Library)| Registration

In this workshop, participants will learn about advanced uses for spreadsheets including using spreadsheets to replace other programs and adapting spreadsheets as a custom tool for a given project. The instructor will use a number of examples from his own projects including using spreadsheets as a replacement for transcription software and using spreadsheets for linguistic and textual analysis. We will also look at advanced formulae and how to use them to enhance your workflow and do things beyond what they were originally intended, how to use conditional formatting to speed up workflow, use of PivotTables, and some advanced graphing functions. As a part of this workshop, participants are encouraged to bring their laptops and current spreadsheet projects to the workshop and the instructor will assist with any current issues you may be facing with your spreadsheets for the final hour of the workshop. This workshop is offered also as part of DASH. Instructor: Mackenzie Salt

11. Journal Publishing

February 26, 2020 | 1:00-3:00 | Sherman Centre | SLIDE DECK

McMaster provides two no-fee services for publishing electronic scholarly journals, MULPress and Student Journals. We work with students and faculty to publish and produce their open access journals. Using the Open Journal Systems (OJS) open-source publishing software as the underlying system, attendees will get a chance to develop their knowledge of the range of workflows supported by the software. The workshop will showcase the “behind the scenes” aspects of an academic journal and guide attendees through the significant steps of starting and editing a journal. No previous knowledge of journal publishing is required. Instructor: Gabriela Mircea

12. Social Media Ethics and Data Management

March 5, 2020 | 1:00-3:00 | Sherman Centre | SLIDE DECK

As more scholars incorporate social media data into their research, technical knowledge to acquire and analyze data is necessary, but so too is an understanding of the norms and values embedded within data protocols and practices. What are the ethical complexities of incorporating ‘public’ social media data into research? And what challenges do researchers face when working with social media platforms as sources of evidence and as objects of research? The aim of the workshop is two-fold: 1) we will discuss some of the practical and philosophical questions pertaining to social media data and research ethics; and, 2) we will spend time reviewing the DMP Assistant. Instructors: Andrea Zeffiro & Jay Brodeur

13. Designing a DH Activity for the Classroom: Theory and Practice

March 18, 2020 | 1:00-3:00 | Sherman Centre | CANCELLED

Why and how would you incorporate Digital Humanities in your classes? What goals would you have for this activity, and how could you make it a meaningful learning experience for your students? In this workshop we will begin with the how’s and why’s and lead into the more practical aspects of designing a DH activity for the classroom. Come with some possible ideas for topics and leave with a plan for implementing an exercise. Instructor: Catherine Grisé

14. Introduction to R

March 19, 2020 | 1:00-3:00 | Sherman Centre | CANCELLED

In this 2-hour session, we will work through the basics of R. R is an open-source programming language sometimes used by digital humanists to structure, mine, and make sense of data and text. For example, here in the Sherman Centre researchers use R to conduct sentiment analysis, geoparse texts, and create tabular data out of unstructured documents like scraped web content, archival sources, or spreadsheets. In this workshop we will talk about the uses of R for humanists before turning to some hands-on experimentation in R Studio, where will experiment with basic expressions in R using swirl. Instructor: John Fink