Cambridge Digital Humanities course timetable
December 2023
Mon 4 |
This in-person workshop will provide an accessible, non-technical introduction to Machine Learning systems, aimed primarily at graduate students and researchers in the humanities, arts and social sciences. No prior knowledge of programming is required. We will focus on the technical, ethical and societal implications of embedding Machine Learning systems for classifying and generating texts and images into the world of work, with a particular emphasis on the impact of Large Language Models such as ChatGPT. We will explore these text generation systems in the context of longer histories of AI, including the ‘deep learning revolution’ in image-based Machine Learning systems which laid the foundations for popular text-to-image generation models such as StableDiffusion. Participants will have the chance to both learn more about how AI works and also discuss what the embedding of such systems into labour processes, management structures, resource allocation systems may mean for how society works. |
Tue 5 |
Introduction to the Command Line
Finished
This session introduces the command line, sometimes also known as the shell or the terminal, to humanities researchers. No prior knowledge of the command line or programming of any kind is required or expected from attendees. A basic understanding of how to use the command line provides a step change in how productive you can be when working with data or text files, particularly large number of files or very large files, which can be hard to manipulate in a graphical interface. Some tools and programs can only be used from the command line, and this session aims to give you the confidence to work with them. In the session we primarily look at seven George Eliot novels and a comparative set of seven Dickens novels (about 3.4 million words in total) but this session should be of use to any humanities researchers working with text collections and the principles have far broader applicability. We'll focus on running programs which come pre-installed on Mac and Linux, and which can be easily added to Windows. We'll combine these programs in productive ways, discuss how to discover and use the options for each, how to send results to files, and how to work efficiently on the command line so you don't have to retype or remember everything you've done. |
January 2024
Tue 9 |
Following the introductory Methods Workshops, held on 21st November 2023, this session will focus on how to adopt the principles to the projects chosen by the participants. This will cover learning a practical approach to taking images fit for purpose in any conditions with available resources. It may also address any more advanced imaging topics such as image stitching, Optical Character Recognition, Multispectral Imaging, or photogrammetry if these are in the interest of the participants. It will also be an opportunity to visit the Digital Content Unit at Cambridge University Library. |
Mon 22 |
Code in research helps to automate the collection, analysis or visualisation of data. Although the code may fulfil your research objective, you might have wondered how to improve it, code more efficiently, or make it ready for collaboration and sharing. Perhaps you have experienced challenges with debugging or understanding it. In this intermediate workshop, we will introduce several coding design principles and practices that ensure code is reliable, reusable and understandable, enabling participants to take their code to the next level. The workshop will begin by introducing the key concepts using ample examples. Participants will then work in groups to apply the concepts either to code provided by the convenor or to their existing projects, with guidance from the convenor. Participants will also have the opportunity to discuss their project goals with the convenor to demonstrate how the best practices can be implemented during the coding process. This workshop is for individuals who have some prior experience with Python and who, ideally, have a coding project that they wish to work on. Participants are encouraged to arrive with a specific objective or desired output for their coding project. For example, you might wish to pre-process your data, add a specific analysis to your project, or make your code publicly available. |
Wed 24 |
Across two sessions, participants will be introduced to the ancient yet evolving practices of commonplace-book keeping and the ‘modernised’ digital tools and methods for extracting, indexing, sustaining and networking knowledge fragments from personal notes, anthologies and archives for idea generation. Commonplacing—manifest as the classical vade mecums (‘come with me’ book of phrases for rhetors), the early-modern scholar’s indexed bodies of learnings, the eighteenth-century domestic commonplace books of culinary and medicinal recipes and nineteenth-century collaborative records of readings—is as much a method for knowledge compilation as a way to structure collective (and ‘re-collected’) thoughts. The commonplace book’s modern afterlife may be traced in the Zettelkasten method and micro-blogging sites like Tumblr, which facilitate the systematic storage and dispersal of quotations and other media. The interactive sessions will draw upon the theoretical underpinning of commonplacing as a productive ideation approach as well as new digital tools of translating atomised ‘commonplaces’ (and metadata) into network graphs and databases for visualising potentially hidden connections for research and pedagogy. |
Wed 31 |
Across two sessions, participants will be introduced to the ancient yet evolving practices of commonplace-book keeping and the ‘modernised’ digital tools and methods for extracting, indexing, sustaining and networking knowledge fragments from personal notes, anthologies and archives for idea generation. Commonplacing—manifest as the classical vade mecums (‘come with me’ book of phrases for rhetors), the early-modern scholar’s indexed bodies of learnings, the eighteenth-century domestic commonplace books of culinary and medicinal recipes and nineteenth-century collaborative records of readings—is as much a method for knowledge compilation as a way to structure collective (and ‘re-collected’) thoughts. The commonplace book’s modern afterlife may be traced in the Zettelkasten method and micro-blogging sites like Tumblr, which facilitate the systematic storage and dispersal of quotations and other media. The interactive sessions will draw upon the theoretical underpinning of commonplacing as a productive ideation approach as well as new digital tools of translating atomised ‘commonplaces’ (and metadata) into network graphs and databases for visualising potentially hidden connections for research and pedagogy. |
February 2024
Mon 12 |
Please note this workshop has limited spaces and we request a pre course questionnaire is completed. This Methods Workshop welcomes participants who are interested in acquiring skills related to Open Data Kit (ODK), a tool that facilitates the implementation of low-cost digital recording for field surveys. ODK is an open-source data collection platform, that can be used on mobile devices, offering a wide range of features for the development of customised digital survey forms. It allows users to collect geotagged photos, sketches, location coordinates, load pre-existing data, implement skipping logics, write questionnaires in multiple languages and more. These forms are made using XLSForm standards which offers an easy to understand and simple way of authoring forms using Excel. ODK users can also collect data offline and send it to server when a good internet connection is available, allowing data to still be collected in areas of low internet connectivity. The collected data is submitted to the server from where it can be downloaded for analysis or further processing. In this workshop, you will be able to learn end-to-end ODK form development, deployment, setting up on a mobile device and analysing collected data. With these skills, you will then be able to design your own personalised field data collection system as per your research/project requirements. Note: ODK Collect (mobile application) is currently only available for android devices. However, the forms can also be accessed using Enketo web forms in a browser on a laptop or on a mobile device e.g., iOS. Enketo web forms and ODK Collect are expected to have different appearance for survey forms as these are developed and maintained by different teams. |
Mon 19 |
First Steps in Coding with R
Finished
Convenor: Dr Estara Arrant (Cambridge University Library) This session is aimed at researchers with minimal coding experience or who have not done any coding but have data they want to explore and visualise. However, you do not need to have a full set of data to benefit from this class. You will learn the fundamentals of conducting a basic analysis of Humanities-related data in the R language, including prepping and tidying data and generating useful graphs which communicate information about your research to others. You will also gain a basic overview of the R programming language, which will provide you with principles that you can take forward to learn more advanced data analysis methods. The software we will use (RStudio) is free to download and is compatible with most computers. We will provide installation support and guidance. You will need your own laptop. |
Mon 26 |
Please note this workshop has limited spaces, and an pre-course questionnaire is in place. Please complete before the session. Version control helps you to write code for your research more sustainably and collaboratively, in line with best practices for open research. You might use code for collecting, analysing or visualising your data or something else. Everyone who codes in some way can benefit from learning about version control for their daily workflow. This workshop will cover the importance of version control when developing code and foster a culture of best practices in FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reproducible) code development. We will take you through the basic use of GitHub to help you store, manage, and track changes to your code and develop code collaboratively with others. Designed with beginners in mind, this workshop caters to those who have not yet delved into Git or GitHub. While prior knowledge of a programming language (e.g., R or Python) would be beneficial, it is not a prerequisite. |
March 2024
Mon 4 |
Join our Methods Fellow, Amira Moeding in a workshop which introduces methods of historical enquiry into the development of digital technologies and digital data. How can we do the history of technology today? What are the limits of historical enquiry; what are its strengths? Moreover, what can we learn from historical narratives about technologies? More concretely, what can the history of “Big Data” tell us about artificial intelligence today? What were, for example, seen as the pitfalls and problems with biases early on in the development of data-driven applications? Together with you, Amira will think through and employ methods of historical enquiry and critical theory to gain a better understanding of the origin of ‘data-driven’ digital technologies. Therein, the workshop attempts to bring about both an understanding of the statistical or data-driven methods by asking how they came about and why they became attractive to whom. The workshop thus links technologies back to the interests and contexts that rendered them viable. This line of enquiry will allow us to ask what ‘technological progress’ currently is, how stories of ‘progress’ are narrated by industry actors, and what ‘risks’ become apparent from their perspective. By providing this contextualisation and recovering early interests that drove developments in artificial intelligence research and ‘Big Tech’, we will also see that progress, and the promises for the future that it holds, are not ‘objective’ or ‘necessary’ but localised in time and space. We will raise the question to what degree digital humanities cannot only use digital methods to aid the humanities, but how historical and philosophical methods can be employed to provide a basis for criticising and theorising ‘the digital’ and putting the methods so-called ‘artificial intelligences’ are based on into perspective. |
Mon 11 |
Sentiment Analysis with R
Finished
Convenor: Dr Giulia Grisot (Cambridge Digital Humanities) This workshop will delve into the intricacies of sentiment analysis using R, offering participants a comprehensive understanding of this text mining technique and a chance to gain hands-on experience with sentiment scoring methodologies and advanced sentiment visualisation. Designed for intermediate R users, this session aims to equip attendees with the requisite skills to extract nuanced insights from textual data through the lens of R programming. You will need your own laptop. |
June 2024
Mon 3 |
It is often said we live in a society saturated with data. Visualisation methods can play a crucial role in helping to cut through the information overload. Badly designed charts, graphs and diagrams, on the other hand, can confuse or deceive. This session will introduce and contextualise graphical communication practices historically and culturally, helping you to think more critically about your own work and that of others. We will focus on graphical display as an interpretative and persuasive practice which requires as much attention to detail as writing. A hands-on collaborative exercise using historical data will give you the chance to put your visualisation skills to work. Coding skills are not required for this workshop but a basic familiarity with creating graphs and charts will be helpful. If you need to refresh your skills before the session, please use this open access workbook: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wtwqIsWVGcsQ6rvXAzdpfNL5f7mUqV5k_Rr7ZrQCnbo/edit. (if the link doesn't work from UTBS, please copy and paste into your browser). |
October 2024
Thu 17 |
This CDH Basics session explores the lifecycle of a digital research project across the stages of design, data capture, transformation, and analysis, presentation and preservation. It introduces tactics for embedding ethical research principles and practices at each stage of the research process.
This can be attended as a standalone session or as part of the DH Basics course. |
Thu 24 |
This session provides a brief introduction to different methods for capturing bulk data from online sources or via agreement with data collection holders, including Application Programme Interfaces (APIs). We will address issues of data provenance, exceptions to copyright for text and data-mining, and discuss good practice in managing and working with data that others have created.
|
Thu 31 |
CDH Basics: Transforming your data
Finished
Data which you have captured rather than created yourself is likely to need cleaning up before you can use it effectively. This short session will introduce you to the basic principles of creating structured datasets and walk you through some case studies in data cleaning with OpenRefine, a powerful open source tool for working with messy data.
This can be attended as a standalone session or as part of the DH Basics course |
November 2024
Mon 4 |
Convenor: Liz Stevenson, CDH Methods Fellow 2024/25 Are you a humanities researcher or scholar with no coding experience who would like to begin using digital analysis tools productively, manageably, and in a way that meets your needs? Come and join one of the limited places to create a toolbox of basic text mining skills and methods that you can apply to your own humanities research and a simple but clear understanding of online resources with which you can do this, such as
and coding languages and workspaces like
We will cover the underlying basic theory and philosophy behind text mining, and then equip you with the commands you need to perform tasks such as authorship attribution and statistical analyses of literary materials. This will include the basic creation of topic models, and execution of word frequency analyses, along with other similar methods of investigation. You will leave with the coding tools to create simple but attractive visualisations and graphs of your results. About the convenor: Liz is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Renaissance English at Darwin College, having studied English at Stanford University, USA, where she also completed a BA (2016) and MA (2017). Liz’s work revolves around the relationship between digital analysis and subjective understandings of meaning and physicality in Renaissance literature. She is currently completing her dissertation using R-based topic modelling, MFW & MDW analyses, and language field volume analyses to argue for the categorisation of Shakespeare’s plays according to linguistic fields on the basis of the plays’ atypical generic behaviour compared to broader Elizabeth and Jacobean stage works of literature. This workshop is part of our Methods Fellowship programme, which develops and delivers innovative teaching in digital methods. You can read more about the programme here and view the complete series of workshops here. |
Wed 6 |
Convenor: Dr Anthony (Tony) Harris, Clare Hall Workshop 1 – Wednesday 6 November This workshop will cover:
About the convenor: Anthony Harris returned to higher education in 2007 after founding and exiting from an international software business via a management buy-out. The company was the recipient of four Queen’s awards for industry and numerous other industry accolades. He subsequently read English at Oxford as a mature student, where he became interested in medieval literature and the application of the sciences to improve our understanding of early texts. At Clare Hall Anthony is conducting research on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the humanities, further work on early mathematics and astronomy, and enhancing his publication record. He is extremely involved in the digital humanities and is a technical research officer for the Kemble Anglo-Saxon charters website on behalf of the British Academy & Royal Historical Society, is a technical research advisor for the Revised Regesta regni Hierosolymitani Database Project and has presented several conference papers in digital humanities related fields. For academic years 2024/25 and 2025/26 he will be a British Academy Neil Ker Memorial Fund Award Holder progressing a digital humanities manuscript research project at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. In Q1 2025 he is a Fulbright all-disciplines scholar at Harvard University progressing another manuscript related digital humanities project. This workshop is part of the Cambridge Digital Humanities events programme. View the complete programme of events here. |
Thu 7 |
The impact of well-crafted data visualisations has been well-documented historically. Florence Nightingale famously used charts to make her case for hospital hygiene in the Crimean War, while Dr John Snow’s bar charts of cholera deaths in London helped convince the authorities of the water-borne nature of the disease. However, as information designer Alberto Cairo notes, charts can also lie. This introductory Basics session presents the basic principles of data visualisation for researchers who are new to working with quantitative data.
|
Mon 11 |
Methods Fellows Series | From Disk to Digital: Techniques for Imaging and Analysing Floppy Disks
[Places]
Convenor: Leontien Talboom, CDH Methods Fellow 2024/25 This session is designed for staff interested in imaging obsolete media and students or researchers looking to use disk images in their work. By attending this session, participants will gain a comprehensive understanding of both the technical process of creating disk images and the analytical techniques for interpreting them. This dual focus ensures that both researchers and archivists supporting researchers can derive significant value, whether they are concerned with preserving data or uncovering historical insights. The session will be divided into two parts. Part 1 will provide an overview of the different types of floppy disks, their development, and their historical context. It will also cover the process of creating disk images, which are bit-for-bit copies of the content on a floppy disk. Attendees will learn about the equipment needed to create these images, including both hardware and software tools. Part 2 will explore how disk images can be used in research. With more memory institutions offering digital collections, including disk images, understanding how to access and analyse these images is crucial. The session will cover emulators as the primary tool for accessing disk images, as well as other methods like analysing raw flux streams and interpreting hex values to identify the correct system for reading the image. During the session disk drives and floppy controllers will be brought to demonstrate the transferring process. HxC floppy disk emulator and a HxD Hex Editor will be used to demonstrate how to analyse disk images. About the convenor: Leontien has extensive experience in the field of digital preservation. Beginning as a digital archivist at the Archaeology Data Service, she then pursued a collaborative PhD with University College London and The National Archives UK, focusing on access to born-digital materials. Her research includes co-authoring the Computational Access Guide for the Digital Preservation Coalition and exploring the UK Government Web Archive using Jupyter Notebooks. As a web archivist on the Archive of Tomorrow project, she worked to enhance accessibility to online health discourse. Currently, she works as a technical analyst at Cambridge University Libraries where she looks after the Transfer Service and works with obsolete media across the collections. Recently she has been awarded a British Academy Grant to further her research interest in safeguarding floppy disk knowledge for future practitioners and researchers. This workshop is part of our Methods Fellowship programme, which develops and delivers innovative teaching in digital methods. You can read more about the programme here and view the complete series of workshops here. |
Tue 12 |
This Methods Workshop will introduce advanced techniques used for the digitisation and preservation of archival material. The first workshop will introduce the following topics:
Completing the workshop will give participants a good understanding of archival photography best practices. You will gain a strong professional vocabulary to discuss imaging and a toolkit to assess image quality. A second session, bookable separately, will focus on how to adopt those principles to the projects chosen by the participants. This will cover learning a practical approach to taking images fit for purpose in any conditions with available resources. It may also address any more advanced imaging topics such as image stitching, Optical Character Recognition, Multispectral Imaging, or photogrammetry if these are in the interest of the participants. It will also be an opportunity to visit the Digital Content Unit at Cambridge University Library. |
Wed 13 |
Convenor: Dr Anthony (Tony) Harris, Clare Hall Workshop 2 – Wednesday 13 November This workshop will cover:
About the convenor: Anthony Harris returned to higher education in 2007 after founding and exiting from an international software business via a management buy-out. The company was the recipient of four Queen’s awards for industry and numerous other industry accolades. He subsequently read English at Oxford as a mature student, where he became interested in medieval literature and the application of the sciences to improve our understanding of early texts. At Clare Hall Anthony is conducting research on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the humanities, further work on early mathematics and astronomy, and enhancing his publication record. He is extremely involved in the digital humanities and is a technical research officer for the Kemble Anglo-Saxon charters website on behalf of the British Academy & Royal Historical Society, is a technical research advisor for the Revised Regesta regni Hierosolymitani Database Project and has presented several conference papers in digital humanities related fields. For academic years 2024/25 and 2025/26 he will be a British Academy Neil Ker Memorial Fund Award Holder progressing a digital humanities manuscript research project at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. In Q1 2025 he is a Fulbright all-disciplines scholar at Harvard University progressing another manuscript related digital humanities project. This workshop is part of the Cambridge Digital Humanities events programme. View the complete programme of events here. |
Thu 14 |
CDH Basics: Sustaining your data
[Places]
Ensuring long-term access to digital data is often a difficult task: both hardware and code decay much more rapidly than many other means of information storage. Digital data created in the 1980s is frequently unreadable, whereas books and manuscripts written in the 980s are still legible. This session explores good practice in data preservation and software sustainability and looks at what you need to do to ensure that the data you don’t want to keep is destroyed.
|
Mon 18 |
Convenor: Dr Olenka Syaivo Dmytryk Do you find yourself ‘stuck’ in your research or practice because the websites that you need are not working anymore? Perhaps you’ve heard about the Internet Archive and the Wayback machine, but not sure how to use them? Are you worried about the ethics of using archived websites in your research or practice? Or are you a keen enthusiast of web preservation and a fan of the early Internet and web archives? If any of these apply to you, or you just want to learn and share more on the topic, come and join one of the limited places to discuss the positives and challenges one can encounter when turning to media archaeology. This workshop is aimed at the beginners. Together, we will:
About the convenor: Syaivo received their PhD in Slavonic Studies from the University of Cambridge. Their work focuses on Ukraine and is located at the crossing of social movements studies, the histories and theories of sexuality and gender, and visual culture studies. Their current research aims to understand better the Internet's role in sustaining or limiting sexual and gender dissent in Ukraine. They are a co-editor of the Feminist Critique: East European Journal of Feminist and Queer Studies journal and collaborate with the Invisible University For Ukraine. They work as a History of Art librarian but prefer doing research at home in the company of a cat called Soya. This workshop is part of our Methods Fellowship programme, which develops and delivers innovative teaching in digital methods. You can read more about the programme here and view the complete series of workshops here. |
Thu 21 |
The Programming Historian publishes novice-friendly, peer-reviewed tutorials that help humanists learn a wide range of digital tools, techniques, and workflows to facilitate research and teaching. Programming Historian in English, en español, en français, and em português are four multilingual, Diamond Open Access journals of article-length lessons on digital techniques and workflows. Our lessons support students and academics to learn effective research methods, and also help educators to teach tomorrow’s researchers. This workshop will introduce you to the journals, explaining how our lessons can empower your next steps in learning the practical skills you’ll need to work with data. We'll highlight lessons that could help you practice the skills you've learned during previous sessions in the Basics series, discuss troubleshooting strategies for overcoming obstacles, and think together about the value of peer-to-peer support and building a community around you as you work. This can be attended as a standalone session or as part of the DH Basics course. |
Mon 25 |
Convenor: Ali Abbas, RSE Methods Fellow This workshop introduces students to open research practices, reproducibility using Git, and code and data publishing via GitHub. Students learn best practices for organising projects, writing clean, well-documented code, and creating reproducible analyses. Examples will be given in R and Python, but the techniques are generalisable to other languages. The importance of data transparency and sharing is highlighted, encouraging students to adopt an open research mindset. Git will be introduced as a powerful tool for version control and collaboration. Students will learn to track changes in their code, create branches for experimentation, and merge updates. Git's role in ensuring reproducibility will be emphasised, showing how it allows researchers to maintain a complete history of their work. Throughout the course, reproducibility is a key focus. Students learn to create self-contained project structures, use relative file paths, and document their analysis process. Using an open-source publishing system Quarto, participants will create dynamic reports that combine code, results, and narrative. The course concludes with strategies for publishing and sharing research projects. Students learn to create GitHub Pages to showcase their work, use Zenodo to create DOIs for their code, and explore options for deploying interactive applications using tools such as Shiny. This workshop will be most suitable for those with a bit of programming experience and who have some code and data they would like to organise and publish. About the convenor: Ali is a Senior Researcher at the Public Health Modelling group, which is part of the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University. He holds a doctorate in Computer Science, focusing on modelling. He has been engaged in data-driven research and development for over two decades. This encompasses exploratory data analysis (EDA), statistical modelling (or machine learning), and interactive visualisation, with a particular emphasis on collaborative, transparent, and reproducible research. His research interests include the development of environmentally friendly and sustainable transport systems that also have a positive impact on public health. Additionally, he assumes responsibility for project management, as well as the management, training, and guidance of junior staff within his unit. Moreover, he advocates for open and reproducible research, the results of which can be accessed on his GitHub page linked below. This workshop is part of our Methods Fellowship programme, which develops and delivers innovative teaching in digital methods. You can read more about the programme here and view the complete series of workshops here. |