In this class, we’ll be working with various digital platforms that will allow us to do tackle different parts of working with a digital archive. Our goal in using different platforms is not to present a perfect digital copy (Latin: per “thoroughly” +factus “made/ complete”), but to show how work develops and changes depending on expectations and uses.
For a complete list of tools and platforms we’ll be using for class, see the AccountsSignup.md on Github.
We’ll get you on the Twitter to encourage you to get familiar with what digital medievalists are talking about, what they are reading and writing about. Twitter operates like medieval fama – an echo chamber of speech flitting about spreading rumours. With the immediacy of digital pseudo-presence, Twitter collapses distance and difference. It is rarely obvious who is a senior scholar and who is a student, who is an interested on-looker and who is a hyper-specialist. Our goal in engaging with Twitter is for each of you to use it as a way to do some superficial research, network with other likeminded scholars and put yourself (and your work) out there….
Our WordPress powered blog (hosted at hcommons.org) will be another way students will present themselves and their work to the scholarly community at large. Even if you have never worked with WordPress before, you’ve interacted with its products (the Carleton University webpages, for example, are all WordPress based).
We will be using a Content Management System (CMS) called Omeka as the primary vehicle for hosting our work during the first term. Omeka collects our items (manuscripts, folios and charters) into collections and allows us to edit information about them. We have preloaded names and images of our medieval material as a starting point for our work, and you will be responsible for editing
Github will likely be the least familiar (and thus least intuitive) platform we will be using in the class. It is designed for collaborative digital work and thus is very helpful in sharing our first steps and working on them together. The platform also allows us to host a website based on our content.