Collective Seminar Participation 25%

Since we are in a seminar, weekly participation is a core component of our experience. However, because we are meeting virtually on Zoom, we cannot simply have normal discussions. Instead, weekly participation will be based on a combination of virtual live and offline participation.

The first hour or so of every Zoom meeting will be dedicated to our collective seminar, where you will have the opportunity to contribute to the discussion each week, drawing from readings and any assigned materials. To help facilitate our discussions we will use the Zoom chat and raise hand functionality, and in regards to video, I would request that if you can, please have your video on (though I understand that life happens and it can be tricky finding good spaces depending on your locations).

All our seminars will be recorded and available in our Google Drive folder. The choice to record is for a few reasons: to accommodate students with differing learning styles; to allow you to focus on discussion rather than taking notes while we are talking; and to archive our discussions so that you can return to as you work on your assignments and final project. If you have any concerns about these recordings, please contact the instructor, but hopefully, everyone will benefit from these recordings.

Our offline and online participation will happen through two mechanisms.

First, you will be able to contribute to our weekly collective notes. Each week there will be a Google doc (it will be posted to Canvas and in the syllabus) with the assigned materials. This is an opportunity to share your thoughts asynchronously; you are encouraged to share questions, reflections, and quotes from our readings to serve as the basis for our discussion (excepting the first week of classes). You are also encouraged to share relevant materials for that week’s readings in the document (anything from social media links to newly published scholarship) and to comment on one another’s contributions. The goal of this collective pre-discussion is to both help us prepare for our live sessions and also to generate a sort of collective annotated bibliography/brainstorming resource that you can use after the course as well.1

Second, you may also share resources, answer questions, or generally participate through our class Slack channel, which will be hosted on the DH@UIUC Slack team. I detail our use of Slack in the Communication section in Policies, but both of these mechanisms (Slack and collective notes) are intended to be additional opportunities for participation to our very limited discussion time, so please feel encouraged to take advantage of these spaces to brainstorm, ask questions, and communicate.

A Note on Assigned Materials

The final component of our weekly seminar meetings will be completing the assigned materials prior to class. These materials are divided into a few categories: contextual materials, applied materials, and curated additional materials. Curated additional materials are completely optional and are mainly intended to provide further direction if the weekly topic is of interest to you. The remainder of the materials (contextual and applied) are intended to be completed prior to class. I have distinguished between contextual and applied so that you will be able to determine how you spend your time preparing for class. Contextual materials are ones that I expect we will spend more time discussing in the seminar, while applied materials are ones that I believe provide necessary background for our weekly lab workshop session. This division is a prediction, not a rule of law. I discuss how this relates to grade assessment below in Grading, but to summarize it is up to you to determine how much effort you want to put into the course and this distinction is to help you make this choice in an informed manner.

Lab Workshop Sessions and Assignments 25%

The second hour of every Zoom meeting will be dedicated to our lab sessions where I will be introducing you to working with DH tools and data, and where you will also have a chance to share your experiences and questions about lab assignments. This session is intended to be hands-on, so you will be expected to be prepared (following the weekly instructions) and be able to share your screen to show your progress (if called upon).

The lab assignments, marked for completion, aim to help you build the requisite foundation for your final project. Some assignments must be submitted before class, while others will be shared during the class. I will post relevant resources each week to help you as you complete lab assignments. In addition to these resources, you are encouraged to ask for assistance via Slack and are welcome to work collaboratively, though be sure to submit individually (unless indicated otherwise) and make sure that you understand the processes sufficiently to use them yourselves.

Finally, you are also welcome to use AI tools to help you complete assignments. But rather than assume you know how to use these tools, we will actually be learning and working with them throughout the semester, which will hopefully help you decide whether these tools can help your workflows or hinder them.

  1. This idea for collective note-taking was inspired by Meredith Martin and Rebecca Munson’s Syllabus Literature, Data, and Interpretation from Princeton Spring 2021. ↩

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