Over the past few weeks, we have been studying how digital humanities are the perfect platform for the studying and sharing of the stories and histories of underrepresented groups. While the projects organized and created by digital humanities centers at universities are important, there is something so intrinsically valuable about true community collaboration.

When engaging historians in a field that involves emerging technology finding a way to spark the interest of those wanting to be involved is difficult. Many times, those working in the humanities may not be the most interested in working with these technologies. I know that I myself have never found the idea of coding to be particularly appealing because it seemed like a lot of math, something that I’m not the best at. However, in order to show students and academics alike that digital tools are not an insurmountable challenge to producing digital research, tools like VisualEyes created by Bill Ferster in collaboration with Scot French are necessary.

The Jefferson Travels Project, a seminar course created by French and Ferster provided an opportunity for student involvement. Learning about the technologies behind VisualEyes/HistoryBrowser and being able to engage with subject matter that they cared about made a link between the history content that students were interested in and the technological skills that they needed to learn in order to be a part of the growing UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research (French, 119).

Of course, this project while still in an academic setting does not necessarily appear to be conducted outside of the traditional parameters of digital research. However, the work that was done by students who may or may not have stayed within the realm of academia showcases how not only was the product of the Jefferson’s Travels course important for the gathering of history but also as a way of teaching skills and sharing tools with students interested in digital history.

In the “Manifesto for Student Driven Research and Learning” chapter of People, Practice, Power the importance of student activity within digital history and the skills that taking part in such projects provides for future historians should be taken more seriously. This chapter pushes for students to be allowed to develop the skills that they need to create visualizations at a professional level that they can take with them outside of academic research. In French’s article, he mentions that due to a lack of technical skills when creating projects on VisualEyes, Ferster was left with the majority of the coding and visualizing work simply because many students did not have the technical capabilities and knowledge to assist with the labor (French, 119). In “Manifesto” the lack of student computing knowledge is discussed but “Manifesto” goes further critiquing the practice of not engaging students in learning the skills needed to assist with this kind of labor. (Garcia, Dickerson, Hograth, 273). The authors of “Manifesto” argue that students conducting research in DH feel overwhelmed or pressured by professors rather than assisted because they lack the underlying technological know-how needed to do the work they are asked to complete.

Thus it is understandable why professors like Ferster may feel the need to take on most of the labor when it comes to the creation of digital visualizations. However, by building a foundation of DH tools and operating knowledge, with the student’s passions or areas of interest in mind can then provide a well-trained student with the skills needed to assist in larger more complicated areas of DH development.

One of the ways that this idea could be put into practice is through the learning structure discussed in another chapter of People, Practice, Power: the idea of a community of practice. Authors Garcia, Dickerson, and Hograth put forth the idea of a “collaborative group of learners united in their shared interest in a particular topic. The group comprises both newcomers and old timers who learn together and from one another in a social context.” (Garcia, Dickerson, Hograth, 212). Through this idea of collaborative learning, the skills needed for DH could be almost crowdsourced leading to a division of Labor that would also provide a sense of support and community. This collaborative effort would give students the opportunity to build the foundation previously discussed in this post of skills and also provide a support network for those who were potentially less secure in their technical skills but who could contribute in other aspects of any DH project without the pressure to do something that they were uncomfortable with (Garcia, Dickerson, Hograth 214).

Anne B. McGrail, Angel David Nieves, and Siobhan Senier, eds.. People, Practice, Power: Digital Humanities Outside the Center. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2022.

Scot A. French, “VisualEyes This: Using Visualization Tools to Engage Students in Historical Research and Digital Humanities R&D,” in Quick Hits for Teaching with Digital Humanities: Successful Strategies from Award-Winning Teachers (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 2020: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UUXfWQVq_l7UJWnWJA5ZFT2G4tABepxO/view?usp=sharing

Julian C. Chambliss and Scot A. French, “A Generative Praxis: Curation, Creation, and Black CounterPublics,” in Scholarly Editing: The Annual of the Association of Documentary Editing, Vol. 39 (2022). https://scholarlyediting.org/issues/39/a-generative-praxis