Digital History, 7.5 Credits

Contents

Digital tools, methods, and databases have rapidly and dramatically transformed the ways in which historians study the past. We can work with massive corpora of millions of books of text, study the collected output of vast bureaucratic organizations, make visible complex spatial changes over short and long time periods, or map networks of relationships between historical data points, just to mention a few examples. The sources, professional practices, and audiences of our research are now increasingly entangled with digital media.

This course gives a practical introduction to key methodological and theoretical debates and approaches in the emerging research field digital history, with a clear emphasis on the craft of the historian in the digital age. As a participant, you will get to study and analyze a series of digital history projects and problems of different scales, asking how and why these projects look like they do. You will do this in a learning community of teachers and fellow students, drawing on resources from inside and outside our virtual classroom over the course of ten weeks. In doing so, we will discuss appropriate methods, the limits to digital approaches, required skills and competencies, as well as key elements of project-based work. A collaboratively organized digital history project in partnership with an external organization will be a central part of the course. We will also test and evaluate several tools for digital analysis and communication for historians, both individually and in groups. This course is designed to provide useful and transferable skills for students in any historical subdiscipline, or related fields.

Expected learning outcomes

After finishing the course the student should be able to:
Knowledge and understanding

• Recognize the key elements and multiple meanings of the digital age for historical scholarship
• Demonstrate knowledge of appropriate and concrete digital tools and methods for historical scholarship
• Demonstrate a familiarity with the interdisciplinary scholarly communities that engage in the development of digital history as a field

Skills and Ability

• Clearly and coherently discuss and reflect on course content
• Present selected assignments for a non-academic public
• Demonstrate practical ability with online communication and publication tools

Assessment and Approach

• Demonstrate a deeper understanding of the challenges of presenting historical sources and scholarship in a digital format
• Critically evaluate the possibilities and challenges of digital tools and methods for historical scholarship

Required Knowledge

90 ECTS courses in history, history of ideas, archaeology,  a Bachelors degree (180 ECTS), or the equivalent. Proficiency in English equivalent to Swedish upper secondary course English A/5
 

Form of instruction

This is an online course, featuring only asynchronous communication and interaction. The instruction is based on active participation from the students, as group discussions and other types of interaction around the course material. A website serves as the course learning platform. Students are required to have access to a computer and a stable internet connection.

Examination modes

Examination is continuous through active participation in seminars, forum discussions, and online assignments. Students are given points for completed individual assignments every week. Of a maximum achievable 100 points, 60 points are required for Godkänd and 80 for Väl Godkänd.

The ordinary examination is handled as part of the regular teaching.

A student who fails the examination is given one more test opportunity as part of the course. Students who fail the course twice can apply to the Faculty of Arts to have another examinator named. Students who receive a passing grade can not take another test for a higher grade.

Academic credit transfer
Transfer of credits is handled by Student Services/Degree Evaluation Office. See http://www.student.umu.se/english/getting-your-degree/transfer-of-credits/