History in the Digital Age

Welcome to this *very* preliminary site for the Spring 2006 incarnation of American University’s History 332/632, “History in the Digital Age.” More information coming shortly.

*Assignment: Post-Mortem Report (due XX/06)*
Now that you’ve tried your hand at developing a site, your final assignment is to write an assessment of what went right and what went wrong. Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20, so this assignment is intended as a clear-eyed look at what lessons you’ve taken from your experience. That in [...]

__No readings this week; you can use the time to work on your final projects, and I’ll be available in the lab during class hours for advice or help.__

*Blogs and other Serial Media*
Look over:
* Boggs, “The History Blogosphere”:http://clioweb.org/blogosphere/
* “The History Carnival”:http://historycarnival.blogsome.com/
* “Pepys’ Diary”:http://www.pepysdiary.com/
*Wikis and Collaborative Media*
Readings:
* Rosenzweig, Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past
__Assignment: Find an entry on Wikipedia about which you have some expertise, and make at least one addition/correction.__
*Reference*
* So you want to create a blog? [...]

Readings:
* _Digital History_, “Owning the Past”
* Copyright Office Report on Orphan Works, read “Executive Summary” and “Description of Orphaned Works”
* Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use
Visit by Peter Jaszi, American University Law School

__Due: Project Proposals__
*First Half: Website Design and Infrastructure*
Readings:
* _Digital History_, “Designing for the History Web”
* Ten reasons to learn and use web standards
*Resources*
* Fun with color schemes!
** Color Scheme Generator
** Color Scheme Tool
** Color Schemer
*Second Half: Project Proposal Workshopping*

__No readings this week; you can use the time to work on your final projects, and I’ll be available in the lab during class hours for advice or help.__
*Scheduled Events*
* 5:30 -> “How to make all the pages on your site look the same”

__Due: “Web Review”:http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/josh/courses/AU377/?p=6 __
*First Half: Powerpoint*
Readings:
* Tufte, “The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint” (handout)
* Discussion Thread on EdwardTufte.com
Resources:
* “Presentation Zen”:http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/
*Second Half: Surveybuilder overview*
By popular demand, we’ll walk through the easy mechanics of building and embedding a survey in your website.

*First Half: Web Review Presentations*
*Second Half: the Impact of New Media on Scholarship*
*Readings:*
___Practice: When reading, think about what works, what doesn’t, and what exactly is being done that couldn’t be done using older technology___
* Roy Rosenzweig, “Crashing the System?: Hypertext and Scholarship on American Culture,” American Quarterly 51.2 (1999) 237-246 (Project Muse); and the associated [...]

*Genres of Online History*
Readings:
* “Agre, Designing Genres for New Media: Social, Economic, and Political Contexts”:http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/genre.html
* _Digital History_, “Exploring the History Web”
* “JAH Guidelines”:http://chnm.gmu.edu/jah/index.html
Websites:
__Spend at least 5-10 minutes browsing through each of the following sites__
* “The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War”:http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu
* Lynn Hunt, Jack Censer, “Images of the French Revolution”:http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/imaging/home.html
* [...]