Over the past week, our seminar course has tried to assemble an ultimate list of best practices for projects within the realm of the digital public humanities. Between the four of us, we cover a lot of ground and experience, so I thought, why not share some of these best practices that I have contributed to the conversation!
I'd argue that the first thing, and one of the most important things, is understanding the digital humanities world and the work being done. Authors of books such as Gardiner and Musto, authors of The Digital Humanities: A Primer for Students and Scholars, have written solid outlines and explanations of what to expect when entering a project like a digital humanities project. A background knowledge of the tools, principles, and methodologies will be helpful later in planning a project. Not only should you be reading up on the background of digital humanities projects, but you should also read the context in which you want to do your project. For example, before any Harrisburg project I have done for Digital Harrisburg, Dr. Pettegrew always gives us plenty of reading to immerse ourselves into the context of our project. This way, we will have more knowledge and can come up with more doable ideas.
After you have a good base understanding of the digital humanities, it’s time to brainstorm your project. It all starts with an idea or even a dream. I personally like to ask, “What can I do to further _______ type of history.” You can fill the blank in with whatever area of study within history that interest you. Dreaming of having a public impact will help establish an audience for your project and community partners. A digital humanities project is nothing without community partners.
Once you have a project idea, you will need to establish a team. Your team should be one of various backgrounds, skills, ages, ethnicities, and fields of study. The more diverse the group, the more you can cover in your project. Digital humanities projects tend to try and cover a lot of ground, so the more experts in their field that you have on your team, the more polished your end product will be.
Once the team is set, you MUST formulate a plan before you propose the project. Formulating a plan accounts for a wide range of problems and solutions you must anticipate will happen during the project. Your plan should have a budget and an established route to get funds for the project. If there are no funds, there will most likely be no project. The team must strategize where the funding is coming from, how much there is, and how long it will sustain the project.
Another pitfall to account for is the equipment needed to produce the project. Do you already have it, or does your company have it? What happens if the equipment fails - you’ll need to plan for a backup and, just to be safe, a backup for the backup. Having equipment usually means there will be necessary training to operate it if the staff doesn’t have prior experience. Alongside having equipment, one must also keep in mind that you must maintain it or update it when necessary.
The last central point to remember in your digital humanities project prep is to be diligent in planning, scheduling, and communication. There are so many moving pieces to projects like these it is extremely important to be on top of communication. You will need to plan for community meetings, press, and talks. Project leaders should always be aware of their staff/team’s time schedule. As well as giving students time to pivot the project if they need to make changes. Not only should you think of your staff, but your subject’s time for interviews or oral histories should also be taken into account. At the end of the day, the point of a digital public humanities project is the projects and the relationships of getting people together and connected.
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