Schedule
WEEK 1: 30 August: Digitizing the Past: Possibilities & Problems: Introduction, Requirements, and Themes
September 6: Labor Day, No Class
For 7 September, write a diary (what you found, how you found it, what problems you encountered, how long it it took you) about your Web History Scavenger Hunt in your blog (put in category "Scavenger Hunt"). Note that the Blog (http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/rr/f04/cw/blog/) has an introduction to blogging. To make your own entries, you need to log in, which you can do at http://chnm.gmu.edu/movabletype/mt.cgi . There is a link to that log in on the main blog page under "links."
WEEK 2: 13 September: WWW 101: Getting Yourself on the Web
Introduction to Dreamweaver and FTP by Allison Meyer, IRC & History
doctoral program
Preparation: Ideally, you should purchase or get access
to Dreamweaver MX. You can purchase Dreamweaver for $99 (educational
price) from Patriot Computers 993-4100) in the Johnson Center http://compstore.gmu.edu. If you don't own
Dreamweaver yet, download a free 30-day trial version from: http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/trial/.
(You can buy the Dreamweaver suite for $198, which includes Fireworks,
Freehand, and Flash.)
If you don't have an Internet file transfer program (e.g. WS_FTP or Fetch), download one (e.g., from http://download.cnet.com/) Make sure you bring the password for your Mason (osf1) account, which is not necessarily the same password as for your Netscape Mail account, if you have that. (This is only relevant if you are going to post your Web site on mason.gmu.edu. Some students already have Web hosting space that they will use.)
Dreamweaver is also available on all the machines in web*STAR ,<http://media.gmu.edu/web/webstar.html>, 311 Johnson Center (993-3766) Hours: 10:00 am to 10:00 pm Mon-Thurs; 10:00 am to 6 pm Fri, Noon to 6 Sun. According to their site: "The web*STAR lab provides peer mentors, to provide guidance and problem solving, and the latest in hardware--and when possible, software--to facilitate Web development activities." This is an important resource for students who are just starting out on creating web pages. I am also working on some other possible help for students having trouble.
Required:
1.Read and Try: Beginning HTML
http://www.irc.gmu.edu/resources/workshopmaterials/html/html1.html
You should be able to do all of the exercises in the materials.
2. Read: Managing Web Sites Using Templates and Cascading Style Sheets.
http://www.irc.gmu.edu/resources/workshopmaterials/website/css-design/index.html
This will be covered in class, but you should read through it to familiarize yourself with the idea of a template and the idea of a style sheet.
3. Have your web space set up before coming to class and bring your password.
a. If you are using your own web space through your ISP or web hosting service, you need to bring the host name as well as their user ID and password.
b. If you are using your Mason web space, you should have your account activated and the permissions set for your public_html folder.
http://www.irc.gmu.edu/resources/workshopmaterials/pageonmasonnew/pageonmasonnew.htm has some basic instructions on how to do this.
If you are not comfortable with computers, you should probably go to
web STAR (Johnson Center 311) for assistance. If if you are not able to
get set up by class time, then please bring some portable media (floppy
disk, zip disk, or a USB drive) to the class and we will figure out how
to get you set later.
4. Read: Robin Williams and John Tollett, The Non-Designer's Web Book, 2nd edition, chapters 1-4 (unless you already know all this; you can do the quizzes at the end of the chapters to find out). (If you can’t get this in time for class, obviously you won’t be able to do this.)
Strongly Recommended:
Do some background reading on Dreamweaver, you can download Getting Started with Dreamweaver MX 2004 at http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/dreamweaver/ You have to register to do this, but it is free.
Note: Last day to drop with no tuition liability and last day to add: September 14
WEEK 3: 20 September: Varieties of Digital History
Read: Roy Rosenzweig, "Exploring the History Web " (draft to download here). Or read online version with links in footnotes
Vernon Takeshita, "Tangled Webs: The Limits of Historical Analysis on the Internet" <http://www.dartmouth.edu/~history/newsletter/spring01/web.html>
Phil Agre, "Designing Genres for New Media: Social, Economic, and Political Contexts,"<http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/genre.html>
Visit and Evaluate: Don't just quickly browse; spend a significant amount of time (enough time to look at everything or, if you can't look at everything--certainly the case at Valley of the Shadow--then spend at least two hours):
The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War < http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu />
National Geographic: Remembering Pearl Harbor http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/
Brainerd, Kansas: Time, Place, and Memory on the Web http://www.rootinaround.com/brainerd/
Do History <http://www.dohistory.org/>
Write and Post on your blog (under "website evalution"): An evaluation (500-1000 words) of one these four sites, using the Journal of American History evaluation guidelines < http://chnm.gmu.edu/jah> and, where relevant, drawing on some of the week's reading. Note especially the questions in the key areas of content, form, audience/use, and new media.
Write and Post on your blog ("review essay proposal"): Proposal for Web Review essay by 24 September.
Do at least a basic homepage for your website and email me the address by 19 September.
Student web sites from prior classes (but note those classes
did not use blog):
Ray Clark
Sheila Brennan
Stephanie
Hurter
Amanda
Shuman
WEEK 4: 27 September: The Future of Historical Narrative?
Read: Janet Murray, The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace
George Landow, Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Amplified, updated version of Chapter One (1996). (just read "Hypertextual Derrida,Poststructuralist Nelson?"; "The Definition of Hypertext and Its History as a Concept:" and "Predictions." http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/cpace/ht/jhup/contents.html
William Cronon, "A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narratives," Journal of American History, 78:4 (March, 1992), 1347-1376
Keith Jenkins, "Introduction: on being open about our closures," in Jenkins, ed., The Postmodern History Reader (1997), xerox. (missing pages 2-3)
Lev Manovich, "What is New Media," and "The Forms," pp. 18-61, 213-43 in The Language of New Media, xerox.
Write and Post: Blog Entry ("Narrative") on questions provided.
Note: last day to drop with no academic liability: October 1
WEEK 5: 4 October: Web Site Design and Infrastructure
Reading:Williams and Tollett, chapters 5-15.
Cohen and Rosenzweig, Doing, Digital History, chapters 2, 4, and appendix. (Click on each to download.)
Paula Petrik, "Top Ten Mistakes in Academic Web Design," History Computer Review, May 2000, http://chnm.gmu.edu/assets/historyessays/topten.html
Michael O'Malley, "Building Effective Course Sites: Some Thoughts on Design for Academic Work,"Inventio, Spring 2000, http://chnm.gmu.edu/assets/historyessays/building.html
Jacob Nielsen, Alertboxes:"Are Users Stupid?" at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010204.html; "End of Web Design" at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000723.html; "Why Web Users Scan Instead of Read" at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/whyscanning.html
Larry Gales, "Web Page Design Inspired by Edward Tufte" http://staff.washington.edu/larryg/Classes/Rinflux/zz-influx.html
Glossary (do you know these terms?)
Post on your blog (under "design"): Links to two history websites, one that you regard as well designed or structured and one your regard as poorly designed or structured. You should not choose sites that are praised or criticized in the reading. Write at least one paragraph on why you have chosen them. On your website, illustrate an example of good or bad design drawn from the sites.
WEEK 6: 12 October:Reports from the Field
Write, Post (on your website rather than blog), Present: Web Review Essay: Note that your presentation should be five minutes long with five minutes for discussion.
Note: Class meets on Tuesday because of Columbus Day.
WEEK 7: 18 October: Photoshop for Historians
Guest: Stephanie Hurter
Get: Photoshop Elements, available from Computer Store at Educational Price of ca. $59 or Photoshop 7.0.
WEEK 8: 25 October: The Challenge of Digital Scholarship
Read: "Forum on Hypertext Scholarship: AQ as Web-Zine: Responses to AQ's Experimental Online Issue," American Quarterly (June 1999), commentaries by Roy Rosenzweig, James Castonguay, Thomas Thurston, M. David Westbrook, Louise Krasniewicz and Michael Blitz, Susan Smulyan, Christopher P Wilson, and Randall Bass, all available online through Project Muse. (You can access Muse at http://ers2000.gmu.edu/sql/alpha.php.)
David Staley, Computers, Visualization, and History, introduction and chapter 4, xerox.
Closely read at least two examples of digital scholarship from this list of five (I will ask you for your choices a week in advance so that we can have a spread of people choosing different examples):
Will Thomas and Edward Ayers, "The Difference Slavery
Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities," http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/AHR/
You should also read the "overview" on the AHR site, which you need to
access through the GMU library portal going to the History Cooperative
and then to the address: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/108.5/thomas.html
"Dreaming Arnold Schwarzenegger" by Louise Krasniewicz and Michael Blitz
"Hearsay of the Sun: Photography, Identity, and the Law of Evidence in Nineteenth-Century American Courts" by Thomas Thurston
"From Hogan's Alley to Coconino County: Three Narratives
of the Early Comic Strip" by David Westbrook
(all three of these
are available at http://chnm.gmu.edu/aq/
Lynn Hunt, Jack Censer, "Images of the French Revolution" at http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/imaging/home.html Username is "imaging" and password is "revolution."
Two other examples of interest:
Charles Hardy III & Allesandro Portelli, "I
Can Almost See the Lights of Home ~ A Field Trip to Harlan County, Kentucky,"Journal
of Multimedia History 2(1999) < http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/>
Philip J. Ethington, “Los Angeles and the Problem of Urban Historical Knowledge” American Historical Review (December 2000) <http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/historylab/LAPUHK/index.html>
Write and Post on blog ("digital scholarship") :
journal entry on whether the two examples of digital scholarship
you examined fulfilled the "promise
of digital scholarship." Do they do anything genuinely new with
new media? Do they do it well?
Write and Post on Blog ("digital project proposal"): Proposal for Digital Project Proposal by October 29. (See Guidelines.)
Week 9: 1 November: Individual Meetings to Discuss Projects
No regular class; individual meetings will be scheduled.
WEEK 10: 8 November: Archives and the Futures of Research and Scholarship
Read: Cohen and Rosenzweig, Doing Digital History, chapters 3, 7, and 8 (digitization, copyright, and preservation). Chapter 8 is optional.
Roy Rosenzweig, "Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era," American Historical Review, June 2003, http://chnm.gmu.edu/assets/historyessays/scarcity.html
John Willinsky, "Copyright," forthcoming chapter from Rights and Vanities: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship (Cambridge, MA: MIT), available for download here.
Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture, chapter ten ("property"), which is available for free download at http://free-culture.org/freecontent/
Choose an online archive (see list for suggestions) and review it carefully. Post on blog ("archives/research") an idea for a historical research and writing project based on that archive that could not be carried out--or at least not carried out easily--with a print-based archive. Comment briefly on the structure, interface, search, and presentation of sources. Is this a well-structured and user-friendly archive? Comment also on any digital tools (for search and discovery or analysis and organization or presentation and display) that would make it easier for you to complete that research and writing project. The project doesn't need to be based exclusively on the online resources but they should be a central feature. The goal of the exercise and the reading for this week is to think about whether (and, if so, how) research and writing will be different in the digital era.
WEEK 11: 15 November: The New Media Classroom
Guest: T. Mills Kelly
Read: David Pace, "The Amateur in the Operating Room: History and the Scholarship of Teaching," American Historical Review, October 2004.
T. Mills Kelly, "For Better or Worse? The Marriage
of Web and the History Classroom," Journal of the American Association
for History and Computing, III/2, August 2000 <http://mcel.pacificu.edu/JAHC/JAHCIII2/ARTICLES/kelly/kelly.html>.
And look at the following two web sites:Who Killed William
Robinson? <http://web.uvic.ca/history-robinson/> Think
about the
different ways that the evidence in this site can be organized to arrive at
different conclusions and how that feature of the site might be useful for
teaching historical thinking. Also, answer the following question: Who killed
William Robinson? After you have studied it yourself, look at undergraduate
student responses to the site at
http://chnm.gmu.edu/history/faculty/kelly/blogs/h100mt4/archives/
cat_investigations.html
World History Matters: Try the following exercises:
Maps
http://chnm.gmu.edu/whm/unpacking/mapsq1.php
http://chnm.gmu.edu/whm/unpacking/mapsq2ex.html
http://chnm.gmu.edu/whm/unpacking/mapsq3.php
Travel Narratives
http://chnm.gmu.edu/whm/unpacking/travelq1.php
http://chnm.gmu.edu/whm/unpacking/travelq2.php
http://chnm.gmu.edu/whm/unpacking/travelq4.html
Personal Accounts
http://chnm.gmu.edu/whm/unpacking/acctsq2.php
Look also at the Webography project (http://chnm.gmu.edu/webography). For this class, the username is clio and the password is wired.
Week 12: 22 November: Popular and Public History Online
Note: The reading and websites below are now optional. We will be having a guest speaker, Andrew Jakubowicz, Professor of Sociology at the University of Technology Sydney.
Visit and closely examine the following sites (tentative list, subject to change):
Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/devices/choice.html
HistoryWired: A Few of Our Favorite Things http://historywired.si.edu/index.html
The History Channel <http://www.historychannel.com/> This is obviously too extensive to examine in full, but spend enough time to get a full sense of the site.
Bon Appetit! Julia Child's Kitchen
http://www.americanhistory.si.edu/juliachild/default.asp
webisite: Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704 (www.1704.deerfield.history.museum )
Read: Barbara Marie Stafford, Good Looking: Essays on
the Virtue of Images, chapters 4, 5 & 6, xerox. (tentative)
Steve Dietz, “Telling Stories: Procedural Authorship and Extracting Meaning from Museum Databases” http://www.archimuse.com/mw99/papers/dietz/dietz.html
John Vergo, “"Less Clicking, More Watching": Results from the User-Centered Design of aMulti-Institutional Web Site for Art and Culture” ( delivered at the MW 2001, ), <http://www.archimuse.com/mw2001/papers/vergo/vergo.html>
Write and Post: Blog Entry ("public history") on one of the following questions:
1, Which of these sites most effectively conveys the past to a "general" audience? (And why?)
2. Which of these sites makes the most effective use of new media? (And how?)
3. Which of these sites has a design and interface that most
effectively communicates its message and serves its audience?
4. Which of these sites has an interpretation of the past that either: a. best
reflects current scholarship or b. challenges its audiences?
Week 13: 29 November: The Future of Historical Communities
Read:Barry Wellman and Milena Guila, "Virtual Communities as Communities: Net Surfers Don't Ride Alone," in Marc Smith and Peter Kollock, eds., Communities in Cyberspace (1999), xerox.
Pew Internet Project, "Online Communities: Networks that nurture long-distance relationships and local ties" (October 2001), at http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=47
Read: Cohen and Rosenzweig, Doing Digital History,
chapter 5 (audience). Download here.
Observe and post blog commentary ("community") on
an online historical community (Guidelines).
Week 14: 6 December: Proposing the Future of the Past
Student Projects Proposals presented: Ben Huggins, Chris Martin, Mary Linhart, Olivia Ryan, Mike Moravitz, Roger Mellen, Dick Harless, Anne Angstadt.
Week 15: 13 December: Proposing the Future of the Past
Student Projects Proposals presented.
Due: Project Proposals on your website rather than blog.
Notes:
The above schedule is only tentative. In an experimental course like this one, we need to be open to changes in schedule, format, and requirements. I may, for example, alter the specific assignments or their order based on the needs and interests of the class. I welcome your input in shaping the course so that it most effectively meets your needs. Because some changes may be made at the last minute, it is important that you check with a member of the class if you should be forced to miss a particular class for some unavoidable reason.
Requirements and Grades:
There are five main requirements for this course:
- Active participation in class discussions, both on-line and in class.
- A "Weblog Journal" in which you will record your reactions to readings and carry out other assignments. (You will lose credit for unexcused, late entries.)
- Website (this will primarily be the repository for your review essay and final project but you will also have some other smaller assignments there.
- A Web review essay in which you will assess the coverage of a particular historical topic in digital forms.
- A Digital History Project Proposal: You will make a proposal for a digital history project and also develop a home page for it.
These major requirements will make up your final grade with the
different items roughly weighed as follows: participation (15%); web journa/website
(20%); review essay (30%); project proposal (35%).
Group Work: Digital work is much more likely to be collaborative than traditional
historical scholarship, and it might be logical for us to do all of our work
in this class collaboratively. But it is often problematic to insist that students
work in groups in a class setting. So, I am making this an option. You can
do the Web review essay and the digital history proposal in a group of two
or three people. But there are two conditions. First, your project needs to
be of two or three times the scale of individual projects. Second, your grade
will either be a joint one (everyone in the group gets the same grade) or the
group will decide how they want to allocate credit. (For example, two people
could decide that one did 55 percent of the work and the other did 45 percent;
if the group got a B+, then one person would get "roughly" an A-
and the other would get a B.)
There will be an online component to class participation as well. The point of that is to extend class discussion beyond the limited two hour and forty minute slot that we meet once a week. Equally important, it is meant to foster discussion on your projects among members of the class. One of the key points of a seminar /workshop like this is for it to be a group experience. Unlike a conventional class where almost all the advice and assistance comes from the instructor, in a seminar everyone will take a hand in shaping our discussions and helping fellow class members. Much of this will happen in class, but we will also try to do some of this on-line. Everyone is encouraged to post reflections on the class discussions, readings, and projects to our collective blog and/or the class email list as well as to actively maintain their web journal. You might, for example, comment on a reading that particularly intrigued or annoyed you. Or, you might comment on problems that you have been confronting in carrying out your projects or getting your web site to work. Or, you might have come across a terrific history Web site that you think other members of the class should examine.You are also strongly encouraged to post comments on the blog entries by me or other members of the class.
We will also communicate with each other via our class listserv: HIST696-001-L@listserv.gmu.edu Remember that when you write to that address, it goes to everyone in the class. So you only want to post things that you want everyone to see.
How to subscribe and use class mailing list:
1. Write an e-mail message TO: listserv@listserv.gmu.edu
2. Type the following line as the message text:
subscribe Hist696-001-L Your Name
3. Send the mail message.
4. To send an e-mail message to all subscribers of the list, send
the message TO: HIST696-001-L@listserv.gmu.edu
Reading:Because this topic is so new, there
are relatively few books that directly address it. As a result, there
are only two books for purchase for this course:
Janet Horowitz Murray Hamlet on the Holodeck : The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, MIT Press, paperback; ISBN: 0262631873.
Robin Williams and John Tollett, The Non-Designer's Web Book, 2nd edition, Peachpit Press, paperback.
We will be reading a number of chapters from the forthcoming book, Daniel Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, Doing Digital History: A Guide to Using the Web to Present, Preserve, and Gather the Past (University of Penn Press, forthcoming, 2005) I will provide you with electronic copies of that but please don't circulate it further. We will, however, later publish a free online version of the book as well as the print version.
Much of the additional reading will be available on-line and linked from the on-line syllabus, but a few items will be provided in Xerox. I may have to assess a modest additional charge for the copies.
Software: It is recommended that you purchase the educational versions of both Dreamweaver and Photoshop Elements. Both are available at an educational discount at the GMU computer store. These will be used in both History 696 and 697. Students who are particularly interested in new media (e.g., are pursuing a minor in new media in the doctoral program) will probably want to purchase the full version of Photoshop.
Office Hours: My official office hours will be Monday from 2-4 PM in Pohick Module, the home of the Center for History and New Media.. But I am also available at other times, by appointment. In general, making an appointment is the safest procedure, since someone may have already made an appointment for the time you have free or I might have an unexpected meeting. But, by all means, feel free to drop by whenever you like. I can be reached at 703-993-4532(office) or 703-522-2334 (home). The fastest way to reach me is often through electronic mail, which I usually check quite regularly. My e-mail address is roy@gmu.edu.
Additional Workshops: We have set up in-class workshops for Dreamweaver, FTP, and Photoshop. The Student Technology and Assistance Center is willing to offer additional workshops, and we should discuss whether there are topics that enough class members would like covered. In addition, they offer a regular series of workshops; the list is posted at http://media.gmu.edu/workshops/ (although none listed for September yet). Many of the topics (beginning Dreamweaver and Photoshop) are ones that we will cover in class, but you could re-take the workshop as a refresher or you might want to explore additional tools like Flash, PowerPoint, and Premiere.
The University also offers a variety of free online courses in software and technology applications (including Dreamweaver): http://smartforce.doit.gmu.edu/
Version history:
version 1.0 posted 29 August 2004
version 1.05 posted 2 September 2004: revised reading
for week 2; posted final version of chapter for week 3.
version 1.06 posted
5 September 2004: added a sentence to the assignment for week 5; dropped
reading for week 7.
version 1.07 posted 9 September 2004: added link
to search tips.
version 1.2 posted 17 September 2004: revised assignment
for week 11.
version 1.25 posted 19 September 2004: added link to online version of chapter
1; cleaned up html; revised assignment for week 10.
version 1.3: posted 21 September 2004: moved two of readings for week 4 to
later weeks in semester.
version 1.32 posted 25 September 2004: added links for reading for week 5.
version 1.35 posted 4 October: added links for week 5.
version 1.38: posted 19 October: fixed address for Ayers/Thomas article in
week 8.
version 1.4: posted 25 October: small change to assignment for week 10.
version 1.45 posted 26 October: posted chapters to read for week 10.
version 1.5: posted 3 November: added Lessig reading to week 10, made preservation
chapter optional; changed reading for week 11.
version 1.6: posted 9 November: dropped reading for week 12.
version 1.62: posted 10 November: fixed URL for blog on William Robinson
version 1.7: posted 12 November: changed WM exercises for week 11.
verision 1.75: posted 16 November: listed presenters for week 14.
version 1.8: posted 23 November: link to chapter 5 for week 13.