Syllabus: Spring 2021 (2214)

Maintained by: David J. Birnbaum (djbpitt@gmail.com)

Last modified: 2021-04-16T15:27:55+0000

Class meetings

Date	Session topics		Homework due next time
Date	Coding	Digital humanities	Coding, response papers, tests (upload to Canvas unless the assignment says otherwise)	Postings
Unit: XML
Wed, 01-20	Introduction to XML: hierarchy, well-formedness, elements and attributes Using the <oXygen/> XML editor and IDE Gazpacho recipe	What is Digital Humanities?	If you haven’t done so already, install <oXygen/> on your personal computer, as described above Read An even gentler introduction to XML Read Studying digital humanities via Zoom XML exercise 1: Copy the text of one letter by either Oscar Wilde or Anton Chekhov and mark it up in XML using <oXygen/>, employing whatever markup you consider appropriate. In this and all other assignments, follow our file-naming conventions.	None
Fri, 01-22	Using our Slack workspace for questions and discussion Types of markup: descriptive, presentational, procedural	Sample projects: Exploring speech in Russian fairy tales (Pitt BPhil thesis) Van Gogh as a tortured genius (Charlie’s course project)	No prior programming experience? You’re in good company! Read Can humanities undergrads learn to code? by two former undergraduate instructors in this course XML exercise 2: Mark up a text of your choice (any genre, manageable size, foreign languages welcome) Write a 300- to 400-word response paper to either Exploring speech in Russian fairy tales (you do not have to be able to read Russian to do this) or VanGogh as a tortured genius, discussing the site’s 1) utility as a tool for exploring the text, 2) identification and treatment of specific research questions, and 3) effectiveness of overall user experience (design, interface, interaction, etc.)	None
Mon, 01-25	Document analysis: Kubla Khan	Sample projects: Aesop’s fables (course project) My immortal (course project)	XML exercise 3: Mark up a different text of your choice (any genre; manageable but reasonable size; foreign languages welcome) Write a 300- to 400-word response paper to Aesop’s fables or My immortal, following the same guidelines as for the previous response paper	None
Wed, 01-27	XML review	Sample projects: Perseus digital library Melville’s marginalia	Write a 300- to 400-word response paper to the Perseus digital library (this link is to the Iliad inside the library; you do not need to be able to understand Greek to respond to the site) or Melville’s marginalia, concentrating on the user experience (UX). What sorts of research does the site support, and how effectively does it provide that support? Prepare for XML test (assigned Fri, 01-29, due Mon, 02-01)	None
Unit: Relax NG
Fri, 01-29	Relax NG: Pasta recipe		Read our Introduction to Relax NG tutorial Relax NG exercise 1: Write a Relax NG schema for one of the XML documents you created for an earlier assignment (XML exercise 1, 2, or 3; you may modify your XML if you wish) and upload both your XML and your schema file Test #1: XML (in Canvas)	None
Mon, 02-01	Relax NG: Calvino	Sample projects: The Blake archive The Rossetti archive	Read our Relax NG content models tutorial to learn about modeling mixed content and empty element Relax NG exercise 2: Choose a small text, perform document analysis, write a schema, mark up the text according to the schema, and upload both your XML and your schema file Write a 300- to 400-word response paper to Blake or Rossetti. These are primarily archive or portal sites, designed to provide enhanced access to materials, rather than to support specific research questions. How well do they achieve their goals?	None
Wed, 02-03	Relax NG: Pliny	Text analysis and data mining Sample projects: The UNIT dating crisis (course project) Names of Crime and punishment (course project)	Relax NG exercise 3: Choose a small text of a different type or genre than last time, perform document analysis, write a schema, mark up the text according to the schema, and upload both your XML and your schema file	None
Fri, 02-05 Drop/add deadline	Project guidelines Relax NG: antigone.xml and antigone.rnc		Read and follow along with Chapter 1 (sections 1.1 through 1.8) of the official Git tutorial, which begins at https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-About-Version-Control. By Monday’s class aim to have 1) created a GitHub account, 2) learned how to access the command line on your local machine, and 3) installed Git on your local machine. If you get stuck, don’t panic (it’s complicated, but you’ll become adept quickly as you gain experience), but do ask for help in our Slack workspace. Post your GitHub userid in the git-and-github channel of our Slack workspace. Post to the project-proposals channel in our Slack workspace a 300- to 400-word tentative/exploratory project proposal. Your proposal should identify your 1) text(s), which must be free of copyright restrictions, 2) research question(s), 3) approach and methods, and 4) potential teammates (if known). All course projects must be undertaken by teams of two or more persons, but this initial, exploratory proposal is an individual assignment.	None
Unit: Project organization and GitHub
Mon, 02-08	GitHub for project management Markdown	Sample GitHub repo: Alice in Wonderland in translation (Dana’s course project; see also the project site)	Read everyone else’s project proposals in Slack and come to class prepared to form project teams. Read the regex mini-tutorial at http://www.regular-expressions.info/quickstart.html.	None
Wed, 02-10	Form project teams, appoint a project owner (typically the proposal author) Regular expressions (Recipe)	Multipurposing	Regex exercise 1 All students should read GitHub for project management. Additionally, if you are the project owner for your team you should complete the following tasks: Add all project team members and instructors as project collaborators (Settings → Collaborators) Add a brief descriptive README.md markdown file to your repo. Prepare for Relax NG test (assigned Fri, 02-12, due Mon, 02-15)	None
Unit: Regular expressions
Fri, 02-12	Regular expressions: word list	Text analysis and data mining	Read Regex tips (Read the first half, before the Using regex in XSLT section, to acquaint yourself with what’s there, but don’t try to memorize it all at once. You can skip the second half, about regex in XSLT.) Test #2 (Relax NG)	None
Mon, 02-15	Regular expressions	Upconversion with regex	Regex exercise 2 Read just the first part (Background) of An introduction to network analysis and Cytoscape for XML coders and submit a 300- to 400-word response paper. In your response, reflect on whether network analysis might be useful for your own project and, if so, the research questions it might help you explore.	None
Unit: Network analysis (guest lecture)
Wed, 02-17	Guest lecture by Elisa Beshero-Bondar (Penn State Erie, The Behrend College) on network analysis	Social networks	Read Putting content on line Read the TEI header section (Chapter 2) of TEI P5 and submit a 300- to 400-word response paper. The TEI header is about metadata, that is, information about the document. How will you handle metadata (what type of information, how will be it be encoded or represented) in your project? Prepare for the Regex test (assigned Fri, 02-19, due Mon, 02-22)	Project update (GitHub)
Unit: TEI
Fri, 02-19	Digitization TEI (https://bit.ly/3aBFNMG	The Text Encoding Initiative Toscana raw XML	Read HTML basics Read one chapter from the text body of the TEI guidelines (except Chapter 2, TEI header) and submit a 300- to 400-word response paper. Even if you don’t use TEI in your own project, focus on whether there are TEI features that you would want to adopt or adapt. Test #3: Regex	Project response (GitHub)
Unit: Web technologies
Mon, 02-22	Obdurodon accounts The Web: (X)HTML5, CSS, Unicode	Metadata	Read Learn CSS layout Read Introduction to cascading stylesheets (CSS)	Discussion posting (Slack) Topic: Since your first encounter with the command line and GitHub, how has your understanding of these technologies changed? What obstacles still affect your understanding of its use? On GitHub specifically, which features stand out as useful tools for your project team? How would you plan to implement them? Which features do you want to learn more about?
Wed, 02-24	Viewing HTML and CSS on the Web	Web developer tools	HTML/CSS exercise 1: Create and upload your first HTML and CSS pages to Obdurodon (note the additional instructions about formatting, naming, and uploading your files)	Project update (GitHub)
Fri, 02-26	CSS: Flexbox and Grid Take-home midterm instructions (take-home midterm is due Mon, 03-15)	Sample project: Alice in Translation	Read A complete guide to Flexbox HTML/CSS exercise 2: Enhance and expand your HTML web page and associated CSS from the last assignment (focus this time on structural elements) and upload them as new files with new names (see the additional instructions about formatting, naming, and uploading your files). Do not overwrite your files from the first HTML assignment.	Project response (GitHub)
Mon, 03-01	JavaScript: The annotated Afanas′ev library Topic modeling with Mallet: The Milton project		Read A complete guide to Grid Read one chapter from either Part I or Part II of Visual usability: principles and practices for designing digital applications by Tania Schlatter and Deborah Levinson (available on-line through the Pitt library) and submit a 300- to 400-word response paper. Concentrate in your response paper on how you might apply what you’ve read to the design of your own project site.	Discussion posting (Slack)
Unit: User experience (UX) and user interface (UI) (guest lecture)
Wed, 03-03	Guest lecture by Shea Higgins (UHC) on web design and user experience (UX)		Read What can XPath do for me? Read Mining the Dispatch: introduction (the whole page under the Introduction tab; not just the few paragraphs headed Introduction) and submit a 300- to 400-word response paper. Topic modeling is a tool that operates on plain text to provide descriptive statistical information. How might it play a role in your project?	Project update (GitHub)
Unit: XPath
Fri, 03-05	XPath: overview, paths, axes (fables.xml)		XPath exercise 1	Project response (GitHub)
Mon, 03-08	XPath: predicates Namespaces	Sample projects: Politics and language of Turkish rock music The nonsensical Seuss	Read The XPath functions we use most XPath exercise 2	Discussion posting (Slack) Topic: Explore Orbis, a site designed to support research into the economic geography of the ancient Roman world. How does this project make effective use of mapping, and what limitations do you see?
Wed, 03-10	XPath: predicates and functions	Digital Humanities associations and conferences (The digital humanities profession)	XPath exercise 3 Review the Turkish project or the Seuss project, with particular attention to the overall site organization, and submit a 300- to 400-word response paper	Project update (GitHub)
Fri, 03-12	XPath: predicates and functions		XPath exercise 4 Read Schematron tutorial	Project response (GitHub)
Unit: Schematron
Mon, 03-15	Schematron Midterm due		Schematron exercise 1 Read one chapter from Designing web interfaces: principles and patterns for rich interactions (available on-line through the Pitt library) and submit a one-page response paper.	Discussion posting (Slack)
Wed, 03-17	Schematron	The XML family of standards	Prepare for the XPath test (assigned Fri, 03-19, due Mon, 03-22) Schematron exercise 2	Project update (GitHub)
Fri, 03-19	Schematron		Read XSLT basics Test #4 (XPath)	Project response (GitHub)
Unit: XSLT
Mon, 03-22	XSLT and XPath Overview		XSLT exercise 1 Prepare for the Schematron test (assigned Fri, 03-26, due Mon, 03-29)	Project update (GitHub) (Mon instead of Wed this week)
Wed, 03-24	No class (student self-care day)
Fri, 03-26 Withdrawal deadline	XSLT templates XPath path expressions and XPath patterns	The digital workstation	Read Thinking in algorithms Read XSLT, part 2: conditionals and push and pull XSLT exercise 2 Test #5 (Schematron)	Project response (GitHub)
Mon, 03-29	XSLT program structure and design XSLT push and pull		Read Attribute value templates XSLT exercise 3	Discussion posting (Slack)
Wed, 03-31	XSLT		Read Modal XSLT XSLT exercise 4	Project update (GitHub)
Fri, 04-02	XSLT		Read about `<xsl:analyze-string>` and the XPath `tokenize()` function in Michael Kay and Using `<xsl:analyze-string>` XSLT exercise 5	Project response (GitHub)
Mon, 04-05	XSLT Review		Read Developing an XSLT stylesheet XSLT exercise 6 Read José Nilo G. Binongo’s Who wrote the 15th book of Oz? An application of multivariate analysis to authorship attribution and submit a 300- to 400-word response paper. Learning about stylometric analysis helps many people to broaden their understanding of how writing styles can be distinctive. What are the potential benefits and the limitations of the methods?	Discussion posting (Slack)
Unit: Stylometry and authorship attribution (guest lecture)
Wed, 04-07	Guest lecture by Patrick Juola (Duquesne University) on stylometry	Stylometry	Work through the w3schools SVG tutorial to complete the SVG basic and SVG shapes pages. Filters, gradients, examples, and reference are optional. Prepare for the XSLT test (assigned Fri, 04-09, due Mon, 04-12)	Project update (GitHub)
Unit: SVG
Fri, 04-09	SVG	Sample project: Twilight Princess	SVG exercise 1 Test #6 (XSLT)	Project response (GitHub)
Mon, 04-12	SVG	Sample project: The Milton project (see especially War, creation, and ego)	SVG exercise 2 (Remember that you should be uploading the XSLT stylesheet that you used to transform your document, not the SVG output of the transformation) Upload a 300- to 400-word response paper to Zelda or Milton that focuses on visualization. Are the graphic representations suitable for the data? If yes, why? If not, what could they have used instead?	Discussion posting (Slack) Topic: Read The hermeneutics of screwing around or In praise of pattern. These essays describe how research methods in a digital environment may differ from research methods elsewhere in humanities scholarship. In what ways are Steve’s arguments persuasive (or not)?
Wed, 04-14	SVG	Sample project: La Lega Toscana di Protezione (key members and anglicisms)	SVG exercise 3 Optional: Install eXist-db in your local machine (see the instructions at the top of this syllabus about where to find and download application). You’ll need eXist-db for your XQuery homework, but if you choose not to install is on your own machine, you can use the version on Obdurodon (we’ll show you how). Prepare for the SVG test (assigned Fri, 04-16, due Mon, 04-19)	Project update (GitHub)
Unit: XQuery
Fri, 04-16	XQuery Getting started with eXist-db	Sample project: Print media usage of marked features in Serbian and Croatian	Read Getting started with XQuery Test #7 (SVG)	Project response (GitHub)
Mon, 04-19	XQuery and databases		Read XQuery tutorial at http://www.stylusstudio.com/xquery_primer-new.html XQuery exercise 1	Discussion posting (Slack)
Wed, 04-21	Comparing XQuery and XSLT	Sample project: Comparing Blake’s Innocence and Experience	Read XQuery tutorial on FLWOR expressions at http://www.stylusstudio.com/xquery_flwor.html XQuery exercise 2	Project update (GitHub)
Fri, 04-23 Last class meeting	XQuery		XQuery exercise 3	Project response (GitHub)
Fri, 04-30, 11:59p.m.	Projects due

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Syllabus: Spring 2021 (2214)

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