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Center for Digital Scholarship

Teaching and Learning

About this page

CDS instruction is a blend of theoretical and methodological grounding for the application of concrete skills, so that students learn how to use current tools, but are also able to exercise critical thinking about future tools and methods. CDS instruction is also strongly rooted in best practices around data as it forms the core of the academic agenda.

CDS workshops and other instruction not only provide new knowledge and skills to Brown researchers, but may also be a gateway for consultations or new DS projects.

As is the case with all parts of the Handbook, this is a living document in which changes are encouraged as our practices mature and develop. This is version 2024.1

Contents

  • Types of Instruction
  • Planning and Documentation
  • Training and Mentoring
  • Talks, Colloquia, and other events

Types of Instruction

Teaching is an essential part of CDS’s mission. We do that in many ways:

  • The Doctoral Digital Humanities Certificate offers an opportunity to currently enrolled Ph.D. students interested in adding expertise in digital methodologies and techniques to their research portfolio. One way to fulfill some of the requirements in the certificate is through attending CDS workshops. All students in the certificate program will present at the DH-Salon. 
  • Workshops offered by CDS as part of a regular workshop program, or when requested by specific groups.
    • CDS will have a list of workshops that staff are prepared to teach, which will be revisited and revised each semester. 
    • Workshops can be delivered face to face, virtually, or in a hybrid format.
    • CDS will develop a library of workshops and parts of workshops that can be delivered asynchronously.
  • Intensive digital humanities summer workshops offer students knowledge of the arc of digital humanities scholarship from data gathering to analysis to visualization to presentation.
  • Born-Digital Scholarly Publishing: Resources and Roadmaps – an NEH Institute on Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities (first offered in 2022) provides multi-pronged, far-reaching support via an intensive summer program for scholars from less well-resourced institutions, and a digital hub that makes all course materials publicly available.    
  • Participation in graduate or undergraduate classroom instruction of various types such as single workshops from our published list that are requested by a faculty member or a longer engagement when there are class projects
    • When the support requested requires attending multiple class sessions or holding office hours and consultations, this has to be planned in advance with the faculty member, so CDS staff can manage consultations or course preparation.
  • Collaboration with the AE online instructional agenda.
    • The LibGuides will present short methodological introductions to a topic “Data Acquisition” “Data Analysis” “Presentation and Publication” and then serve as portals to workshops, toolkits, LibGuides on specific software. This will be an ongoing effort as we add new skills and remove obsolete ones. 
  • Teaching regular courses. CDS staff serve as instructors or co-instructors for courses on digital methods that are part of the Brown credit course offerings
  • Working with Digital Learning and Design and AE helping faculty with project-based parts of online instruction and learning and helping faculty with digital scholarship assignments for asynchronous and synchronous instruction.
  • CDS may also partner with other groups on campus or sponsor workshops that are taught by groups external to Brown such as Software Carpentry to provide instruction in areas that we don’t have expertise. 

Planning and Documentation

  • The planning process for CDS workshops begins during the preceding semester. Each planning session will decide on the specific workshops to be taught in the following semester, identify components that can be delivered asynchronously, review existing materials that need updates. This process will also include long-range planning, to identify emerging topics and skills. 
  • Documentation and resources for CDS workshops will be written or collected by the staff who are responsible for each topic and made available through the tutorial LibGuides.
  • Course workshops or class project consultations will ideally be requested before the beginning of the semester. CDS will collaborate with DLD, AE, and the Sheridan Center as needed. 
  • CDS will contact humanities and some social science departments once a year to see what workshops on digital scholarship might be useful, to help shape our workshop and teaching program. 

Training and Mentoring

Mentoring students is an important part of CDS work, accomplished through undergraduate UTRAs and related programs, student employment, and graduate proctorships and practicums and fellowships at both predoctoral and postdoctoral levels. 

CDS aims to create a cohort of student workers, UTRA students, and graduate proctors, doctoral and master-level fellows, and practicum students. CDS takes training and supervision seriously—not only to maximize student contributions, but also to provide an educational experience that furthers their interests and increases their skills.

CDS will work to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups by partnering with the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, the Center for Slavery and Justice, the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, and other Brown centers.

Talks, Colloquia, etc.

It is important that CDS staff keep up with scholarship in the field and that we share our work with others. To that end, CDS will organize a range of talks, possibly including:

  • CDS reading or learning group
  • Campus-wide reading group
  • Faculty project crits and presentations
  • Grad/postdoc cohort – informal reading seminar  
  • Invited speakers
  • Visiting scholars