This semester, I was introduced to a variety of different digital tools for analyzing data. Also, since I took the DST course for the first half, I had a lot more time in class to learn more about the tools. However, I think the general ideas behind the proper use of data was my biggest takeaway from the semester. In particular, understanding that digital humanities is very connected to humanity (as the name would suggest). It’s important to understand that every aspect of the field is done by people, it’s just assisted by technology. There are nuances in the tools we use and how we as scholars adapt to it for our needs, and the proper ways to share our findings while being respectful to anyone involved in the process of getting the information. I think the training model was fine. I liked the amount of freedom we had in terms of what we could explore, and the time we got was substantial enough to complete the training and explore the program even more if we wanted.
The TDPS archive has made a lot of progress, considering I joined it when it was pretty much just starting. We’ve set plenty of objectives during the semester that we will continue to revisit. Things like the hosting site and gathering outside archival resources is something that should continue into next semester, and I would need to reach out to some on-campus resources for them. My leads and I have created a short document to track the progress we made this semester and to track our next steps.
I’ve been thinking about StoryMaps for a while since we first did the training on it. It seemed very similar to WordPress, but after helping a student use WordPress for their project, I realized that StoryMaps was a lot more intuitively designed for interactive elements. Also the UI is so simple that I’m amazed at how much it actually offers. I think it’s a good thing to look into for any sort of personal projects, really because it just feels so fun to use.