Method

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Thursday, July 30th, 2015

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Below are a list of questions and suggestions to consider when developing digital humanities projects. These questions address issues of method, with the understanding that the provisional categories articulated here are imperfect and overlapping.

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 Does this project need to exist? Does this project need to be digital?

• ¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0
• Consider Lisa Spiro’s presentation, “Why Digital Humanities?”
• Read Tom Scheinfeldt’s essay, “Where’s the Beef?” to consider whether digital humanities has to answer questions.

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 How was the project built? Is the iterative process of design evident in the critical apparatus?

• ¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0
• Miriam Posner’s post “How Did They Make That?” provides a model for making these practices legible.
• Jentery Sayers’ post “‘Making’ in the Academy: A Long View” considers issues like labor and disciplinary practices in the context of making.
• Critical making labs at University of Toronto and UC-Berkeley, among others, explore the relationship between theory and practice through the act of making.

¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 Should this project include collaboration with communities represented in or affected by its concerns? 

• ¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0
• Check out Lisa Spiro’s helpful post on collaboration in digital humanities.
• See Carrie Heitman’s work on creating communities of collaboration.
• Take a look at Alex Christie, Jana Millar Usiskin, Jentery Sayers, and Kathryn Tanigawa’s reflections on public humanities.
• Read Katherine Harris’s essay “Collaboration and Failure: Must-Haves in Digital Humanities Projects”.
• micha cárdenas‘ project Local Autonomy Networks included multi-year collaborations with activist organizations in Los Angeles, Toronto and Detroit.

¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 Does the project have a critical apparatus that speaks to decisions made about form, content, and tool, including the tensions between them and decisions not made (e.g. tools not used, research questions that changed or went unanswered)?

• ¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0
• The DiRT Directory offers a useful list of digital research tools organized thematically and accompanied by descriptions.
• Lisa Spiro’s essay “This Is Why We Fight” has useful advice for developing a values statement.

¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 Who built the digital humanities tools used in the project?

• ¶ 11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 0
• How were they compensated? 
  
• Is their intellectual labor acknowledged in the project?

¶ 12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 0 What role does social media have in the project?

• ¶ 13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0
• How can social media be used to engage with communities related to or represented in the project?
• Why kinds of information about the project can be effectively disseminated through social media and what are its limits?